Reeferfront Times

[WEED LAWS]

Written by TESSA WEINBERG

This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.

An initiative petition to legalize recreational marijuana in Missouri will remain on the ballot after a panel of judges on the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals affirmed that the steps ecretary of tate ay shcroft took to certify the petition were proper.

A three-judge panel heard arguments last week in ansas City and ruled shortly after that the lower court committed a legal error by refusing to reopen evidence regarding whether oy weeney, an anti-drug-legali ation activist, had standing to pursue the case. owever, the court of appeals said the lower court was correct in finding that shcroft properly certified the initiative petition to appear on the November ballot and that it does not violate the Missouri Constitution’s singlesubject rules. uke iforatos, the C O of rotect Our ids C, a Coloradobased super C launched earlier this year that opposes the legalization of drugs and has been supporting weeney’s lawsuit, says that they had re uested the case be transferred to the issouri upreme Court for review. e feel like it’s a very cut-anddry point of law, iforatos says, where these clerks have a statutory authority to dis ualify these signatures, but they do not have the authority to re- ualify them nd that’s ust a matter of law ut on eptember , the deadline for the courts to determine whether voters get to decide the issue this ovember, the issouri

upreme Court declined to review the case after the re uest to transfer it from the Western District Court of Appeals was denied.

“That’s the end of the road legally, iforatos says, adding that he plans to advocate against the ballot measure. ohn ayne, campaign manager for egal issouri, says the ruling will ensure that in less than two months Missourians will have the opportunity to legali e mari uana and expunge nonviolent marijuana offenses from criminal records.

“This historic citizen-led effort to become the 20th state to legali e, tax and regulate mari uana for adult use is closer than ever to becoming a reality, ayne said in a statement. n a statement, shcroft said he was once again pleased that the courts a rmed the steps his o ce took were correct and consistent in making every voter’s voice heard egardless of how personally feel about a ballot measure — I took an oath to uphold the law, he said, and the court today affirmed that’s what we did

On eptember , Cole County Circuit Court udge Cotton alker dismissed weeney’s case after he determined she lacked standing to sue because she had not proven she was a Missouri citizen. While weeney testified virtually during the hearing and answered uestions regarding her Missouri residency, her testimony was taken after her attorneys had already rested their case. alker’s decision not to allow weeney’s attorneys to reopen evidence to admit her testimony was an abuse of discretion, udge Cynthia artin wrote in her opinion early last week owever, the estern istrict Court of ppeals said alker did not err in concluding that the review process shcroft undertook to certify the initiative petition was legally authori ed, that the petition had a su cient number of valid signatures to make the ballot and that it did not violate single-subject rules. o clear, une uivocal or unambiguous statutory provision prohibits the secretary of state from independently determining that signatures belong to registered voters after a local election authority has determined to the contrary, artin wrote in her opinion.

The Independent previously reported that when it appeared Legal Missouri would be short of the necessary signatures to make the ballot, the campaign reached out to shcroft’s o ce re uesting a review of signatures it felt had been erroneously invalidated avoiding the typical court process used to challenge certification that is outlined in state law.

The strategy surprised longtime observers of the initiative petition process, and shcroft’s o ce’s review ultimately found a surplus of signatures for the initiative petition to make the ballot after reevaluating local election o cials’ review of signatures.

Chrissy eters, the secretary of state’s director of elections, testified on eptember that the o ce focused on the two congressional districts the campaign identified as having errors, that the o ce did not also review signatures marked valid to see if they should have actually been invalidated, and that it did not contact local election o cials about the errors or to let them know they were overruling their work n