In a brightly lit living room, a mom and former first-grade teacher beams with optimism. As uplifting music plays, she touts the guaranteed promise of tens of millions of dollars in new revenue for Missouri schools every year. She says: “I care deeply about education. That’s why I’m voting for Amendment 2.”
Flip the TV channel, and the tone shifts dramatically as another ad shows a different retired teacher underlining the word “zero” on a chalkboard in a classroom. “Zero dollars, that’s what the state’s official analysis found Missouri schools could get from Amendment 2,” she says as more suspenseful music plays. “No, on 2.”
As conflicting political ads like these inundate viewers, voters might have no idea who’s actually funding the messages that try to sway their vote with TV commercials, flyers and signs.
To get a clearer picture of who’s holding the purse strings, The Midwest Newsroom analyzed the financial reporting records of the campaign groups behind the citizen-initiated ballot amendments in Missouri and Nebraska.
Our investigation found that, while the Nov. 5 ballot questions are rooted in local issues, they are heavily funded by individual donors and organizations from other states.
Missouri and Nebraska are two of only 26 states nationwide that allow citizen-initiated amendments and referendums on election ballots, in addition to legislatively referred ones.
That means if a citizen group gathers enough signatures, they can petition to get an issue in front of voters.
Four citizen-initiated issues reached Missouri’s state ballot this November:
- Legalized sports betting
- Authorization of a new casino on the Osage River
- A minimum wage increase and guaranteed paid sick leave
- The right to abortion
Abortion: The out-of-state numbers
A Midwest Newsroom/Emerson College survey conducted in late September and early October showed that 56% of registered voters in Missouri think the current state law is too strict.
Missouri is one of 13 states that ban abortion in almost all circumstances. And while ten states have abortion measures on their Nov. 5 ballots, only two of the 13 —South Dakota and Missouri— are seeking to lift near-total bans.
Constitutional Amendment No. 3 on Missouri’s ballot seeks to legalize the right to reproductive freedom in the state. The official group leading the ballot campaign is called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom.
According to the financial reports the group has submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission, it had received $30.6 million in contributions as of Oct. 28. Of that, at least $23 million, or 75%, has come from out-of-state donors.
In neighboring Nebraska, where abortion is limited but not banned, the picture is different with two ballot measures competing for the future of the state’s abortion laws. One measure reaffirms its current 12-week restriction, and the other expands abortion until fetal viability – or about 24 weeks.
About a third of the funding for the measure that would expand abortion comes from outside of Nebraska. By contrast, almost all of the funding to support keeping the 12-week restriction comes from within Nebraska. Sen. Pete Ricketts and his mother, Marlene Ricketts, together have donated more than $5 million, or about 44% of the money raised to support the campaign.
A who’s who of donors
From Hollywood stars and wealthy titans to national advocacy groups, Missouri’s abortion ballot amendment has attracted a who’s who of financial backers from across the country.
Among the well-known individual donors who have collectively contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom are actress Kate Capshaw, who lives in Los Angeles and whose alma mater is the University of Missouri; supermodel and philanthropist Karlie Kloss, who lives in New York and was raised in St. Louis; California businessman Gary Mark Lauder, grandson of Estée Lauder; and New Yorker Danny Meyer, the founder of the Shake Shack restaurants.
The top individual contributor, and one of the top donors overall, is former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg. As of Oct. 28, he had donated $1.5 million to support the abortion-rights campaign in Missouri.
Among advocacy groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, the top two out-of-state contributors are the Sixteen Thirty Fund and The Fairness Project, both of which are registered in Washington, D.C. As of Oct. 28, they’ve each donated a total of $4.5 million to Missouri’s abortion-rights campaign.
According to its website, the Sixteen Thirty Fund is a nonprofit funder of progressive causes and initiatives. And The Fairness Project is a national nonprofit that partners with local coalitions to pass progressive policies through ballot initiatives.
What’s at stake
“Missouri is the opportunity to overturn a complete and total abortion ban,” said Kelly Hall, the executive director of The Fairness Project.
Part of what makes Missouri attractive, according to Hall, is that the state is “smack dab in the middle of the country that many progressives think is so dark red.”
She said: “In a state that many progressives and Democrats have written off, it’s an incredibly attractive moment to show both the power of direct democracy and show that abortion is no longer a partisan red, blue issue.”
For comparison, in 2022, Kansas voters upended poll data and predictions when they rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed lawmakers to tighten abortion restrictions or ban the procedure outright. Groups opposing the ballot measures raised millions of dollars from donors in other states, including the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
And 2023, Ohioans decided to amend their state constitution to guarantee the right to abortion and other reproductive rights. As in Kansas, millions of out-of-state dollars poured in to support campaigns backing the amendment. The Fairness Project was one of the major givers. So was Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Whichever of Nebraska’s dueling abortion rights measures garners the most votes will become state law, so the stakes are high.
“Since there are two abortion ballot measures in front of voters, there's more opportunity for our opponents to sow confusion and disinformation. So that one is going to be tight,” Hall said. “But we are very excited to see advocates of abortion rights in Nebraska prevail, and we're working day and night with those folks to make sure that happens.”
The Fairness Project is financially backing ten ballot initiatives across eight different states for the Nov. 5 election. And Missouri’s abortion-rights campaign ranks as the third-largest recipient of its funding.
“Missouri is a bigger state. It has more voters, it has more media markets, and it is more expensive to cover all of that ground,” Hall said. “It is just a larger undertaking in Missouri. It doesn't make it any more or less important. It is just a bigger overall campaign.”
Betting on Missouri
When it comes to legalizing sports betting in Missouri, the tens of millions the initiative has generated so far is all from out-of-state.
The sports wagering initiative, which appears on Missouri ballots as Constitutional Amendment No. 2, is sponsored by a group registered in St. Louis made up of sports teams and gambling operators, called Winning for Missouri Education.
According to its funding reporting records, the group has received $40.7 million in contributions as of Oct. 28 – the most a Missouri ballot measure has ever raised, according to the Missouri Independent. And 100% of that money comes from two out-of-state corporations: DraftKings, which is headquartered in Boston, and FanDuel, from Jersey City, New Jersey, and their parent companies.
The group opposing Amendment No. 2, Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling, is also registered in St. Louis. It has raised $14 million as of Oct. 28 from three local casinos that are all owned by the Nevada-based casino giant Caesars Entertainment.
Missouri has been a holdout when it comes to sports betting. According to the American Gaming Association, some form of sports betting is legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia, and is prohibited in 12 states. And Missouri is the only state in the country that has the question of whether to legalize sports betting on its ballot Nov. 5.
“It's the money to be made that's driving outside contributions,” said Peverill Squire, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri. “There's a lot of money at stake, and there are a lot of gambling interests outside the state that see it as a possibly lucrative market to enter.”
Sports betting has been a contentious issue among state lawmakers for years. Largely due to disagreements over tax revenue distribution and concerns about its social impact, legislation that would make online sports betting legal in Missouri has failed to pass for six straight years.
“These outside entities saw an opportunity to bypass the Legislature and put a measure on the ballot, which is written in such a way as to be very generous to the people who are allowed to engage in sports betting, and probably less generous to the state than it would have been if the legislature had produced a bill to allow it,” Squire said.
The Midwest Newsroom/Emerson College poll showed 39% of Missourians think legalized sports betting would be bad for the state. But the vote could be close, as 36% said sports betting would be good for the state.
“Gambling is big business,” said Jan Zimmerman, the chairman of the Missouri Gaming Commission, which is the government agency that regulates gambling in the state and will oversee sports betting if it’s approved.
“Many of the folks who have an institutional investment in casinos and gambling are out of state and even outside the United States,” she said. “So, it’s not really unusual for us to deal with entities that are not located in Missouri.”
“It's my hope that [online sports betting] makes a lot of money if it passes, and that money goes to education,” Zimmerman said. “But I think the jury is out as far as how much it will make.”
Wages and sick leave
The group pushing Proposition A in Missouri, which would raise the minimum wage from $13.75 to $15 per hour and guarantee paid sick leave, is Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, a coalition of more than 135 organizations.
If the amendment is passed, it will be the first time paid sick leave will be guaranteed in the state, and the new wage will be the first significant hourly increase since 2018.
“When our government is not meeting the needs of our community, I think Missourians are really committed to one another and are going to work together to address those pieces,” said Richard von Glahn, the campaign manager for the group.
Our analysis shows the Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages had received $5.7 million in contributions as of Oct. 28, and most of that money, $4.4 million, came from out-of-state donors.
“The ballot initiative process exists as part of our toolkit of democracy. They are not easy. They take a tremendous amount of work from people on the ground,” said von Glahn. “Valid initiatives can have cost to them. And so we do raise money, but we raise money by telling the story of what's happening in Missouri and what Missourians are fighting for.”
Do the dollars matter?
The outcome of ballot initiatives can reshape local policies for years to come. Mark Schmitt, the director of the political reform program at the think tank New America, believes that understanding financial influences on proposed measures can empower citizens to make informed decisions.
“It should be people in a state who are determining the issues that are on the ballot,” he said. “But at the same time, it's good if voters get accurate information about the two sides of a ballot initiative, and whether that information comes from a handful of wealthy Missourians or a handful of wealthy people from other states is less important than that the information is useful and accurate.”
Squire agreed. “Missouri voters are going to decide whether, in fact, they want to support an issue or not, and their decision will be based on the policy, rather than on the money behind it,” he said.
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
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