What was the Missouri Attorney General's role in approving the fiscal note summary for Senate Joint Resolution 38, the legislature's 2020 redistricting and lobbyist-gift measure?
Plain-English summary
Senate Substitute No. 3 for Senate Joint Resolution No. 38 was a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment passed by the Missouri General Assembly in 2020. It went on the November 2020 ballot as Amendment 3, and it modified the redistricting process that voters had adopted as part of "Clean Missouri" two years earlier, while also tightening lobbyist-gift limits and tweaking campaign-contribution caps for state senators.
When the General Assembly refers a constitutional amendment to the ballot, § 116.175, RSMo, requires the State Auditor to prepare a fiscal note and a fiscal note summary that voters will see alongside the ballot title. The State Auditor, then Nicole Galloway, drafted and submitted that summary to the Attorney General for review of legal content and form. AG Eric Schmitt approved the summary under § 116.175.4. The opinion is brief and procedural.
Two key points the opinion explicitly stated: AG approval is not an endorsement of the underlying measure, and the AG's review under § 116.175.4 does not assess the fairness or sufficiency of the estimated fiscal impact itself. That fairness question lives in a different statutory channel.
Currency note
This opinion was issued in 2020. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.
Background and statutory framework
Section 116.175, RSMo, sets up the fiscal review track for any ballot measure with potential fiscal impact, whether it originates as a citizen initiative or a legislative referral. The State Auditor estimates the fiscal impact and writes a "fiscal note summary," a short statement (the statute caps it at 50 words) that goes on the ballot. Subsection 4 then sends the summary to the Attorney General, who reviews it for legal content and form.
The AG's review is narrow on purpose. Two reasons. First, the legislature put the actual estimating expertise with the State Auditor, not the AG. Second, the fairness and sufficiency of a fiscal note summary can be challenged in court under § 116.190, and the legislature did not want to predetermine that judicial question through the AG's procedural review.
Here, the State Auditor's fiscal note summary was: "State governmental entities expect no cost or savings. Individual local governmental entities expect significant decreased revenues of a total unknown amount." Schmitt approved it as legally adequate in form.
What SS#3 SJR 38 did
The opinion does not catalog the substance of the resolution. As context, the same-day fair ballot language opinion (16-2020) on the same measure shows it would have:
- reduced campaign contribution limits for state senate candidates by $100 per election
- prohibited any-value gifts from paid lobbyists or their clients to legislators and their employees (down from the prior $5 floor)
- restructured the redistricting process: replacing the role of the nonpartisan state demographer that voters had adopted in Clean Missouri with a 20-member bipartisan commission, with new redistricting criteria
Voters approved the measure in November 2020 as Amendment 3.
Common questions
What is a "fiscal note summary" and where do voters actually see it?
It is the short statement of expected fiscal impact (capped at 50 words) that prints on the ballot itself, right under or next to the ballot title. The full fiscal note is a longer document available in election materials and on the Auditor's site.
Why didn't the AG check whether "no cost or savings" was actually true?
Because § 116.175.4 expressly limits the AG's review to legal content and form. The opinion quoted that limit: "our review under § 116.175.4 does not examine the fairness or sufficiency of the estimated fiscal impact." Voters or other interested parties who think a fiscal note summary is misleading have to challenge it under the separate insufficiency-or-unfairness procedure in § 116.190.
Why was the State Auditor involved at all?
For ballot measures, Missouri assigns the fiscal-estimating job to the Auditor's office, separate from both the Secretary of State (who handles ballot titles) and the AG (who handles legal review). It is a deliberate separation of functions.
Was this a citizen initiative or something else?
Senate Joint Resolution 38 was a legislative referral, meaning the General Assembly itself put the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot rather than going through the citizen-petition route. The fiscal note process under § 116.175 applies either way.
Citations
- Section 116.175, RSMo, governing fiscal notes and fiscal note summaries for ballot measures
- Section 116.175.4, RSMo, governing AG review of fiscal note summaries
Source
- Landing page: https://ago.mo.gov/other-resources/ag-opinions/
- Original PDF: https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/attachments/15-2020.pdf?sfvrsn=2
Original opinion text
Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MISSOURI
Eric SCHMITT
June 26, 2020
OPINION LETTER NO. 15-2020
The Honorable Nicole Galloway
Missouri State Auditor
State Capitol, Room 121
Jefferson City, MO 65101
Dear Auditor Galloway:
This office received your letter of June 17, 2020, submitting a fiscal note and fiscal note summary prepared under § 116.175, RSMo, for Senate Substitute No. 3 for Senate Joint Resolution No. 38. The fiscal note summary that you submitted is as follows:
State governmental entities expect no cost or savings. Individual local governmental entities expect significant decreased revenues of a total unknown amount.
Under § 116.175.4, RSMo, we approve the legal content and form of the fiscal note summary. Because our review of the fiscal note summary is mandated by statute, no action that we take with respect to such review should be construed as an endorsement of the initiative petition or as the expression of any view regarding the objectives of its proponents. Furthermore, our review under § 116.175.4 does not examine the fairness or sufficiency of the estimated fiscal impact.
Very truly yours,
ERIC S. SCHMITT
Attorney General
Supreme Court Building
207 W. High Street
P.O. Box 899
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-3321
Fax: (573) 751-0774
www.ago.mo.gov