Missourians from across the state are making themselves loud and clear — we will not stand for unjust systems that hurt our families and hurt our communities.
This November 3, Missourians will be voting on Amendment 3, a radical map-rigging plan that would weaken constitutional protections for voters of color, and would hurt the political power of Black and Brown Missourians. The NAACP is joining with civil rights leaders, community leaders, activists and faith leaders to vote no and defeat Amendment 3, which threatens to turn back the clock and silence our voices in the state Capitol.
Two years ago, the NAACP joined with leaders from across the state in a trans-partisan coalition to say that there was a better, more fair way to draw legislative district maps than Missourians have seen in the past. And voters agreed with us — by an almost 2-to-1 margin — putting strong protections for voters and communities into our state constitution that will guide the drawing of new state House and state Senate maps.
Amendment 3 would change the progress made by Missourians. This amendment would objectively weaken political power for Black and Brown communities. Under Amendment 3, maps are drawn based on the number of eligible voters in the state, not the total population of residents. That would mean that more than 1.5 million Missourians — almost all of them children under 18 — would simply not be represented in our Legislature.
Right now, Missouri is a national leader in protecting the voting rights and political representation of people of color. Amendment 3 would drag the state back to the days of Jim Crow, denying representation to a higher percentage of Black and Brown Missourians than any other group.
National outcry has shown that extreme, discriminatory laws like Amendment 3 are not only wrong, but expensive and regressive. Companies and conventions don’t want to bring their business to states that set new precedents for discrimination. Towns, school districts and counties get short-changed on the resources they need and deserve when children and families aren’t counted.
The stakes are high in this election for Missouri. We will be working with our coalition partners to make sure voters see past the distraction to the extreme, discriminatory and anti-democratic details hiding in the fine print of this dangerous proposal. Please join us by voting NO on Amendment 3 this November.
Nimrod (Rod) Chapel Jr. is president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP.
