Challenge to voter ID law heading for appeal to Missouri Supreme Court

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
November 27, 2024

A challenge to Missouri’s voter ID law will proceed to the state Supreme Court following a Cole County decision upholding the 2022 legislation, opponents said Tuesday.

The decision by Circuit Judge Jon Beetem found the individual voters and organizations that sued — the Missouri NAACP and the League of Women Voters — were unable to show they had been harmed by the application of the law and lacked standing to bring the case.

And addressing the particulars of their challenge, Beetem wrote the burdens were not onerous on any individual voter.

The law requires voters to show a Missouri or federally issued identification that includes a photo, the holder’s date of birth and an expiration date. Identification that has been expired for less than a year is acceptable.

“The individual plaintiffs and/or Missouri voters generally do not have a legally protectable interest in avoiding the everyday burdens of getting an expired license renewed,” Beetem wrote. “Any of the individual plaintiffs’ alleged injuries in this regard are generalized grievances shared by the population as a whole.”

The appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court will argue that Beetem applied the wrong standard to his analysis, said Denise Lieberman, director of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition and one of the lead attorneys on the case. The focus should be on the sometimes insurmountable burdens that thousands of Missourians face obtaining the documents to secure the needed identification, she said.

“The court got the test wrong,” Lieberman said. “It is the burden of the state to demonstrate it has no other way to advance its interests than through a law that burdens voters in this way.”

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who was the defendant in the case, praised the result as a victory for election integrity.

“To maintain a secure system for voting, it only stands to reason that a photo ID should be essential,” Ashcroft said in a news release.

The timeline for the appeal is uncertain. The ruling will not be final for 30 days, so the high court will not start setting a schedule until that time.

If the law is overturned, it will also end the two week period of “no-excuse absentee” voting that proved its popularity this year. The early voting period was part of a compromise deal to allow the voter ID measure to come to a vote in the Missouri Senate.

Establishing a government-issued photo ID as the only acceptable form of identification for voting is a longstanding goal of Republican politicians in Missouri. Prior to the 2022 law, voters could also present a county-issued voter ID card, a student identification card, a birth certificate or a recent utility bill with their name and address as proof in order to vote.

After the courts rebuffed earlier attempts to enact a photo ID law, Republicans in 2016 placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot that specifically allowed it. 

That vote was followed in 2017 by a law that allowed a voter who did not have a photo ID, but who had one of the other forms, to have their ballot counted if they signed an affidavit of their identity.

The Missouri Supreme Court overturned that law in 2020. The law challenged in the decision issued Monday has been in effect since 2022 while the case has been argued.

A voter who does not have proper identification can cast a provisional ballot, which will be counted if they return to the polls with their ID or if their signature matches the one on file.

To succeed in their challenge, Beetem wrote, the plaintiffs had to prove “that there is no set of circumstances under which the challenged provisions of (House Bill)1878 are constitutional.”

They were unable to do so, he wrote. None of the individual plaintiffs had been denied a ballot at any election and the issues they raised — inability to obtain documents proving a name is misspelled or the expiration of an ID and the trouble involved in renewing it — have not been barriers to voting, he wrote.

The issues raised, he wrote, “do not present a substantial or severe burden upon the right to vote.”

The state has an interest in protecting elections and the public confidence they are fair, Beetem wrote. There was no evidence, however, that photo ID had prevented cheating.

“There was evidence that possible voter impersonation has been brought to the attention of local election authorities,” Beeem wrote. “However, no credible evidence was adduced of any voter impersonation which would have been prevented by requiring photo ID.”

Beetem missed that voters lose confidence in elections if they are uncertain if their vote will be counted, Lieberman said.

“Missouri has had a voter ID law on the books since 2002 and it worked fine because it allowed voters to show a range of forms of valid ID, including a voter registration card,” she said.

The organizations backing the challenge said the case needs to be appealed so it is easier for Missourians to vote.

“There’s no evidence of voter impersonation in Missouri, so these extreme restrictions don’t make our elections any safer or more secure,” said Marilyn McLeod, president of the League of Women Voters of Missouri.

The NAACP sees the law as a discriminatory act aimed at lowering turnout among people in minority groups, older adults and students, Nimrod Chapel Jr., president of the Missouri NAACP State Conference said in a news release.

“While these laws aim to fix an imaginary problem,” he said, “the disenfranchisement from the unnecessary and burdensome legal obstacles they create for voters is very real.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.

Missouri AG’s efforts to undo Jackson County property assessments dealt another blow

by Allison Kite, Missouri Independent
November 21, 2024

State officials’ hopes of rolling back Jackson County property assessment increases are floundering after a circuit court judge dismissed a lawsuit by the State Tax Commission on Wednesday. 

The commission in August ordered Jackson County to reverse most of its 2023 property valuations, arguing they had been performed illegally and resulted in huge increases in property values.

But the county didn’t comply.

Jackson County officials called the State Tax Commission’s August order “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented” and said it only took action to cover for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s failures in his own efforts to undo the property assessments.

The State Tax Commission then sought a court order to force the county to cap property assessments to a 15% increase since the last assessment — unless new construction or building improvements increased the value. That effort was dismissed Wednesday.

Missouri attorney general asks to dismiss lawsuit a day before scheduled deposition

Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. thanked county residents in a statement Wednesday “for their patience and understanding as we’ve worked to address problems that have been decades in the making.” 

“Our goal remains ensuring that every property owner is treated fairly under the law,” White said. 

Gregory Allsberry, chief counsel for the State Tax Commission, said in an email that the judge did not find the commission’s order invalid.

“The commission’s order is still a valid order, despite Jackson County’s refusal to comply, and the Commission will continue to do all within its power to enforce the order,” Allsberry said. “It will also do everything within its power to ensure that Jackson county’s assessing officials don’t commit the violations of state law in 2025 that they did during the 2023 reassessment cycle.” 

Neither Bailey’s office nor the State Tax Commission immediately returned requests for comment.

Jackson County’s property valuation process has been in near-constant litigation since Bailey and the State Tax Commission first sued the county in December. 

According to that lawsuit, the county’s 2023 reassessment process resulted in an average 30% increase in value across hundreds of thousands of properties in the county. The lawsuit says more than 90% of residential properties saw an increase in value, and values increased by at least 15% for three-quarters of properties in the county.

The increase in property values means an increase in property taxes for some owners. 

Bailey and the State Tax Commission accused Jackson County of failing to follow proper procedures in the valuation process, including performing physical inspections, before increasing property values by more than 15%. 

During the litigation, Bailey and a deputy came under fire for meeting with a Jackson County official without notifying the county’s attorneys. Under Missouri Supreme Court rules, attorneys are not to communicate about a lawsuit with individuals represented in the case by another lawyer without the consent of the other lawyer.

Bailey maintained that his meeting with the official, Sean Smith, was nothing more than a campaign meeting. At the time, Smith, a member of the Jackson County Legislature, was running for the U.S. House of Representatives against incumbent U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, II, who won with 60% of the vote earlier this month.

Jackson County’s attorneys were granted permission by the judge in the case to question Bailey under oath about his meetings with Smith. But in August, a day before Bailey was scheduled to sit for the deposition, the State Tax Commission issued its order and Bailey’s office had the case dismissed.

At the time, Bailey’s spokeswoman, Madeline Sieren, said the state dismissed the lawsuit because of the State Tax Commission’s order.

“Pushing the lawsuit forward could have jeopardized the much needed relief offered in the Tax Commission’s order and would be counterproductive for Jackson County taxpayers,” Sieren said in an August email.

The county said at the time that the State Tax Commission was “being used as a shield for…Bailey, who is trying to escape accountability after lying and realizing he was losing the case.” 

When the county didn’t comply with the August order, the State Tax Commission sought a court order to force the issue.

In response, the county said in a filing that the State Tax Commission was attempting to bring the same legal claims a second time. That was impermissible, the county argued, because the original lawsuit was dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning the case couldn’t be brought again.

Senior Judge Jacqueline Cook, who handled the case because the circuit judges in Jackson County recused themselves, dismissed the case with prejudice Wednesday. 

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.