Lawfare: Locking in Control

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Missouri’s government is quietly dismantling one of the last tools citizens have to hold power to account: the right to petition their own government.

For more than a century, Missourians have had the ability to propose constitutional amendments, write new laws, and even veto the legislature’s bad decisions through citizen-led petitions. It’s one of the few direct forms of democracy left, and it has deep roots. The initiative and referendum process was written into Missouri’s Constitution in 1908, during a period when progressivism meant standing up to corporate greed. Ironically, it was the Republican Party that championed those reforms back then, pushing for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and bans on child labor.

But history has a way of turning on itself. The same political party that once gave citizens power now works to take it away. Today’s Republican leadership in Missouri has become so extreme in its conservatism that it actively seeks to undermine the very democratic processes their predecessors helped create.

Why? Because democracy and capitalism have always been uneasy partners. Democracy demands fairness, transparency, and shared prosperity. Capitalism demands compliance, cheap labor, and maximum profit. Lawmakers, therefore, have a choice: do they stand with democracy or corporations? Unfortunately, many — if not most — lawmakers are heavily funded by corporate donors; they’ve made their choice.

This is where it’s become a big issue in Missouri. The people’s right to petition is treated as a threat because it disrupts the corporate demand for their capitalist ambitions. And so, the state’s Republican majority has launched a coordinated campaign to restrict or even dismantle the petition process altogether.

They justify their actions with claims of protecting Missourians from “out-of-state billionaires.” Yet these same lawmakers accept massive campaign donations from their own set of out-of-state billionaires. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. In a recent case, the Secretary of State and Attorney General announced their intent to fight an active petition drive in court, even before the people have had a chance to vote.

Each of these efforts is part of a broader strategy known as lawfare — the weaponization of laws to restrict, intimidate, or disable opponents. Lawfare doesn’t need tanks or troops. It uses paperwork, procedure, and power to silence dissent.

And make no mistake: this is a war on the people’s voice. If citizens lose their right to petition, they lose the only direct way to check a legislature that refuses to listen. The right to petition isn’t just a procedural relic; it’s the lifeline of democracy itself.

This is lawfare in action; a campaign not fought with bullets, but with bills; not with soldiers, but with statutes. It’s how democracy dies, one legal technicality at a time.

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