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August 4, 2026 Primary Ballot

Missouri's August 2026
Voter Guide

Four constitutional amendments. One ballot. Here is what each one does, what supporters and opponents argue, and where Act for Missouri stands — with the facts you need to decide for yourself.

Jump to the Amendments ↓ How We Evaluate

At a Glance

Where Act for Missouri stands on the four August amendments.

Amendment AFM Position
Amendment 1 VOTE NO
Amendment 2 VOTE NO
Amendment 4 VOTE NO
Amendment 5 VOTE NO

Tap any amendment to read the full voter guide. Each amendment's complete guide is also available as a printable PDF.

How We Evaluate Amendments

Act for Missouri evaluates every constitutional amendment against a consistent standard. We look at what the bill actually does — not what supporters say it does. We ask whether it respects the proper role of government, whether it protects citizens' rights to approve their own taxes and laws, and whether it treats the people and the legislature equally under the same constitutional rules.

We give a fair hearing to both sides. We name what we agree with on the case for yes, and we tell you honestly what a "no" vote costs. We do not oppose measures because we disagree with their politics; we oppose them when they fail our framework — even when, like Amendment 5, we share the underlying goal.

The four guides below are designed to give you the facts, the arguments on both sides, our position, and our reasoning — so you can make your own decision and explain it to others.

The Four Amendments

Tap any card to expand the full voter guide.

Amendment 1 VOTE NO

Parks & Soils Sales Tax Renewal

Renews the existing 0.1% sales tax funding state parks, historic sites, and farmland soil-and-water conservation for another ten years.

Why We Vote No

Amendment 1 is not a tax increase — it's the constitutionally scheduled 10-year reapproval of a tax voters first passed in 1984. A "no" vote is a real $140 million-a-year tax cut and ends 40 years of autopilot spending walled off from the normal budget fight. The funded programs (state parks, farmland soil-and-water conservation) are good things — but dedicated constitutional earmarks for non-core government functions are the wrong tool, especially as Missouri's general revenue tightens and every dollar should have to earn its place against competing priorities.

A "yes" continues the tax for another decade. A "no" lets it expire in 2028 and forces the legislature to decide whether to fund these programs out of general revenue, in the open, against everything else the state must do.

Important Clarification

Much of the anger circulating online about "conservation spending" — duck blinds, urban tree-canopy grants, the MDC vendor-payment list, the Sumners controversy — is real but is aimed at a different tax. The 1/8-cent Missouri Department of Conservation tax (passed 1976) is permanent, has no voter check, and is not on this ballot. Amendment 1 is the 1/10-cent Parks & Soils tax — a different program, different agency, different funding stream. A "no" on Amendment 1 does not touch a single dollar of MDC's budget.

The bottom line

Funding decisions like this belong in statute and the annual budget, not the constitution. A "no" is a modest tax cut, ends a 40-year autopilot, and makes these programs compete on their merits — which is exactly how Missouri should be evaluating every state expenditure as fiscal pressure mounts.

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Amendment 2 VOTE NO

Jackson County Elected Assessor

Removes a 2010 constitutional carve-out so Jackson County's assessor must be elected — and adds a vague training compliance clause for all charter-county assessors.

Why We Vote No

Jackson County voters voted 88-to-12 in November 2025 to make their assessor elected. That part of Amendment 2 — repealing the 2010 carve-out that lets Jackson keep an appointed assessor — is the right fix and would have earned our enthusiastic "yes" as a clean bill. But the Missouri Senate added a second provision on April 29, 2025: a requirement that all charter-county assessors "comply with all training provisions required by general law" — a vague, forward-reference clause that anchors statutory training authority in the founding document with no scope limits.

This is the same architecture as Amendment 5's "blank check" — vastly smaller in scale, but identical in structure. Voters are asked to write a pointer into the constitution and trust future legislatures to fill in what it points at. We don't believe Missouri's constitution should work that way at any scale — and applying that principle consistently, even on a small measure, is what makes the principle worth invoking when the stakes are larger.

Important Clarification

You may hear that Amendment 2 "forces other counties to change how they select their assessors." That's not what the text does. Every other charter county already elects its assessor under existing law — they have since 2010. Amendment 2 removes the single exception that lets Jackson County not elect its assessor. The selection rule changes for Jackson only. The training compliance clause, however, does apply to all charter-county assessors.

The bottom line

A clean, single-purpose repealer would have earned our "yes." What we got instead bundles a right fix with a structural defect. A "no" tells the legislature — with a Republican supermajority that has the votes to write clean bills — that voters expect clean bills.

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Amendment 4 VOTE NO

Initiative Petition Restrictions

Raises the bar for citizens to amend the Missouri Constitution from a simple statewide majority to a majority in each of Missouri's eight congressional districts — while leaving the legislature's own path completely unchanged.

Why We Vote No

We agree the bar for amending the Missouri Constitution should be higher. We have said so consistently. But the bar has to be raised equally — applied to the people and the legislature alike. Amendment 4's new district-by-district requirement applies only to citizen-initiated amendments. The legislature's path to the constitution is left completely untouched.

This is a one-way ratchet. Under Ballotpedia's analysis, every single citizen-initiated constitutional amendment passed in Missouri since 2020 would have failed under Amendment 4's standard. Meanwhile, Amendment 5 — the most consequential measure on this same August ballot — was placed there by the legislature and faces no district test at all, even though the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals had to rewrite its ballot language before voters could see it.

And here's the catch supporters won't acknowledge: today's Republican supermajority will not last forever. When Democrats next control the General Assembly — and history says they will, eventually — they will inherit a constitution where citizens can no longer reach the ballot but the legislature can. Amendment 4 doesn't close that door. It locks it open and hands the key to whoever runs Jefferson City next.

On "Direct Democracy" vs. the Republic

Supporters frame this as a choice between "the Republic" and "direct democracy." That framing is itself a false choice. A genuine republican reform would raise the bar for the legislature's path to the constitution the same way it raises the bar for citizens. Symmetric reform is the republican answer. Asymmetric restriction is just relocating who holds unchecked majority power.

The bottom line

Political power belongs to the people. Reform must apply equally to those who wrote the bill and those they govern. A Republican supermajority with the votes to write fair legislation should be expected to write it.

For our full analysis, including the legislative history and the special-session "previous question" motion, see our long-form piece: "Amendment 4 Isn't Reform — It's a Power Grab."

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Amendment 5 VOTE NO

Income Tax Phase-Out & Sales Tax Expansion

Directs the legislature to phase out the state income tax and authorizes expansion of the sales tax to services — while suspending voters' constitutional right to approve the tax expansion for five years.

Why We Vote No

Act for Missouri supports eliminating the state individual income tax. Our disagreement with Amendment 5 is with the path, not the destination. The income tax is already being phased out through ordinary statute — Missouri's top rate has fallen from 6.0% to 4.7% since 2014, all without a constitutional amendment. The legislature has the authority to keep going right now.

What Amendment 5 adds is what voters should look at hardest. It suspends Section 18(e) of the Missouri Constitution — the citizen-protection clause added in 1996 to strengthen the voter-approval protections Missourians know as the Hancock Amendment — for five years. That is the clause that requires statewide voter approval whenever the legislature wants to raise state taxes by more than approximately $100 million annually. Amendment 5 turns it off precisely during the window when the largest tax-code rewrite in a generation would be written.

This is the largest single suspension of Missourians' voter tax-approval rights we have been asked to ratify in our lifetime — and it is being asked of us in exchange for a directive that the legislature already has the authority to act on.

"Revenue Neutral" Needs Translation

Supporters describe the swap as "revenue neutral." That phrase is government-speak. It means the state's total tax revenue stays roughly the same. It does not mean every Missourian's tax bill stays the same. Retirees on fixed incomes pay little income tax today but consume goods and services — their tax bill goes up. Working families pay some income tax but spend a larger share of income on consumption — their net change is uncertain. Upper-income households benefit most from the swap. "Revenue neutral" describes what happens to the state's bank account. It does not describe what happens to your bank account.

The Court Had to Rewrite the Ballot Language

On June 5, 2026, the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion finding the legislature's official ballot summary for Amendment 5 unfair and insufficient. The court rewrote the language itself — adding the phrases "authorize the expansion of sales and use taxes" and "curtail constitutional limits on taxing goods and services" that the legislature's original version omitted. When the court has to rewrite a constitutional amendment's ballot language to tell voters what it actually does, that is a signal worth heeding.

The bottom line

The destination is right. The path suspends Missourians' right to approve their own taxes during the largest tax rewrite in a generation, and it does so in exchange for what the legislature can do already. The right answer is to keep cutting through statute, and to demand that any large tax-code change come back to voters with the specifics — which is what the constitution already requires.

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The Pattern Worth Refusing

Look at the four amendments together. Each one has a real, defensible core — a tax that voters control, a county that demanded an elected assessor, real concerns about the initiative process, a desire to eliminate the income tax. And each one comes to your ballot bundled with a structural defect that would not survive a clean drafting process.

Missouri Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly and every statewide office. They have the votes, by themselves, to pass clean, single-purpose constitutional amendments anytime they want. They are choosing not to.

This is the pattern we are asking Missourians to refuse to accept.

The conventional answer when an imperfect bill reaches your ballot is "it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternative — vote yes." That answer would be more persuasive if Missouri's leadership did not have the votes to write better bills. They have those votes. When they hand voters bundled measures anyway, the right response is not to accept them gratefully and call it progress. The right response is to refuse the false choice and demand clean legislation.

We have a rare situation in Missouri: a Republican supermajority with the unchecked power to govern well. We are watching that opportunity squandered. Insisting on clean bills is the only way clean bills get written. Accepting bundled bills with structural defects — even when parts of them are good — is how the defects become permanent.

Take This Guide With You

Download the complete voter guide packet — all four amendments in printable form — or share this page with friends, family, and your community.

Download Complete Packet (PDF)

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