Ezel / AG Opinions / MO
MO Opinion No. 225-2019 2019-10-18

Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for DeeAnn Aull's 2019 Article IX education-funding initiative petition (version 1, file 2020-117)?

Short answer: Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Aull's Article IX petition 2020-117 (version 1). The petition would have authorized the General Assembly to enact school-funding taxes without voter approval, required adequate and equitable school funding above 25% of state revenue, and barred public funding for private schools. The AG's review under § 116.334 RSMo is procedural, not a policy endorsement.
Currency note: this opinion is from 2019
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.
Disclaimer: This is an official Missouri Attorney General opinion. AG opinions are persuasive authority but not binding precedent. This summary is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Consult a licensed Missouri attorney for advice on your specific situation.

Plain-English summary

DeeAnn Aull filed several parallel initiative petitions in October 2019 (numbers 2020-117 through 2020-122) to amend Article IX of the Missouri Constitution, the article governing public education. Petition 2020-117 is one variant labeled "version 1" of the family. (The proponent's "version" labels are non-unique across the petition numbers; opinion 229-2019 also reviewed a "version 1" of a different petition number 2020-121.)

After the Secretary of State drafted a summary statement (the ballot question voters would see), the AG reviewed it under § 116.334 RSMo. AG Schmitt's letter here approves the summary for petition 2020-117. The summary statement is the same four-bullet base that appears in 229-2019: enact school taxes without voter approval, require "adequate and equitable" funding above 25% of state revenue, make educational opportunity equality a fundamental right, and bar public funding for private schools.

The AG's role is narrow: a legal-form check on the ballot summary. It is not a policy endorsement, not a constitutionality assessment, and not a vouching for the petition's substance.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2019. 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.

The exact ballot summary the AG approved

Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:

  • allow the General Assembly to enact state taxes to fund public schools without voter approval;
  • require the General Assembly to "adequately and equitably" fund public schools, in an amount that could exceed the current minimum of 25% of state revenue;
  • make "equality of educational opportunity" through public schools a fundamental right; and
  • prohibit state and local governments from financially supporting private schools?

Common questions

Q: How is petition 2020-117 different from petition 2020-121, both labeled "version 1"?
A: They are different petitions with separately assigned file numbers, both bearing the proponent's "version 1" label. The AG opinions for the two are 225-2019 (this one, 2020-117) and 229-2019 (2020-121). The substantive ballot summaries the AG reviewed for each "version 1" are identical four-bullet versions, so functionally these two petitions test the same base policy under different file numbers. Why a proponent files near-duplicates under different file numbers usually comes down to procedural hedging.

Q: What does Article IX of the Missouri Constitution cover?
A: Public education. It establishes the duty of the General Assembly to maintain free public schools, the State Board of Education, the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the local school-district structure, and various funding rules including the requirement at section 3(b) that "not less than twenty-five percent of the state revenue" go to public schools.

Q: Why does this petition let the legislature raise school taxes "without voter approval"?
A: Currently, Missouri's Hancock Amendment (Article X, §§ 16-24) requires voter approval for new state taxes. The Aull petition would have carved out school taxes from that requirement, letting the legislature impose them by statute.

Q: Did this petition reach the ballot?
A: The opinion does not say. None of the Aull versions in this cluster appears to have advanced to the 2020 ballot.

Background and statutory framework

Chapter 116 RSMo lays out the initiative-petition pipeline:

  1. Proponent files the petition with the Secretary of State.
  2. AG reviews sufficiency as to form under § 116.332 RSMo.
  3. State Auditor prepares a fiscal note; AG reviews under § 116.175.4 RSMo.
  4. Secretary of State drafts a summary statement; AG reviews under § 116.334 RSMo (this opinion).
  5. Petition certified for circulation.

The summary-statement review pipeline produced parallel opinions 226-2019 (v2, 2020-118), 227-2019 (v3, 2020-119), 228-2019 (v4, 2020-120), and 229-2019 (v1, 2020-121). The fiscal-note opinions for the same cluster are 216-2019 (v4, 2020-120), 222-2019 (v1, 2020-121), and 223-2019 (v2, 2020-122).

Citations and references

Statutes: § 116.334 RSMo (the operative provision); § 116.175 RSMo (fiscal-note pipeline); § 116.332 RSMo (sufficiency-as-to-form); § 116.190 RSMo (judicial challenges to summary).

Constitutional provisions referenced: Mo. Const. art. IX (public education); art. X §§ 16-24 (Hancock Amendment); art. III § 50 (initiative).

Related opinions on the Aull Article IX cluster: 226-2019, 227-2019, 228-2019, 229-2019 (summary statement reviews); 216-2019, 222-2019, 223-2019 (fiscal note reviews).

Source

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

October 18, 2019

OPINION LETTER NO. 225-2019

The Honorable John R. Ashcroft
Missouri Secretary of State
James C. Kirkpatrick State Information Center
600 West Main Street
Jefferson City, MO 65101

Dear Secretary Ashcroft:

This opinion letter responds to your request dated October 10, 2019, for our review under § 116.334, RSMo, of a proposed summary statement prepared for the petition submitted by DeeAnn Aull regarding a proposed constitutional amendment to amend Article IX of the Missouri Constitution, version 1 (2020-117). The proposed summary statement is as follows:

Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:

  • allow the General Assembly to enact state taxes to fund public schools without voter approval;
  • require the General Assembly to "adequately and equitably" fund public schools, in an amount that could exceed the current minimum of 25% of state revenue;
  • make "equality of educational opportunity" through public schools a fundamental right; and
  • prohibit state and local governments from financially supporting private schools?

Pursuant to § 116.334, RSMo, we approve the legal content and form of the proposed statement. Because our review of the statement is mandated by statute, no action that we take with respect to such review should be construed as an endorsement of the petition, nor as the expression of any view regarding the objectives of its proponents.

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

OP-2019-0257