May Hot Sheet: Missouri Legislators Overturn Paid Sick Leave andScheduled Minimum Wage Increases

05/21/2025

Welcome back to The Hot Sheet!

Here, we give you a quick rundown of what you need to know about the 2025 ballot measure landscape — the trends, analysis, highlights of what’s on the ballot, and why it all matters. 

For more in-depth analysis, our latest voter attitudes research, and information on the measures we’re tracking, head to our Ballot Measure Hub.

2025 Ballot Measure Landscape

As of May 16, there are ten measures confirmed for the November 4 ballot in Colorado, Maine, Texas, and Washington. BISC is currently tracking 49 other measures that continue to vie for the 2025 ballot and one that has been certified to the Maine legislature. 

Six measures have already appeared on statewide ballots this spring in Louisiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

As of May 21, BISC is still monitoring 91 active bills across 18 states and Washington D.C. related to direct democracy — at least 47 of which seek to limit the People’s Tool. 47 bills have already passed in state houses and three others have been vetoed by governors.

The Toplines

• In the final days of the state’s legislative session, Missouri legislators passed a bill overturning Prop. A’s paid sick leave requirement and minimum wage increase schedule. That same afternoon, they referred to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that could once again ban abortion with very limited exceptions and create a new ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
• On May 6, Ohio voters approved Issue 2, a legislatively-referred measure that extends the State Capital Improvement Program and increases its annual spending cap from $200 million to $250 million.
• A ballot initiative in Maine being marketed as simply a voter ID measure includes additional attacks on voting like a shortened absentee voting period and bans on prepaid ballot return postage.
• What may start out as ‘clean-up’ bills for voter-approved ballot measures can quickly snowball into attempts to gut or block them altogether. 

Ballot Measures to Watch

Issue: Democracy

Maine: An Act to Require an Individual to Present Photographic Identification for the Purpose of Voting (CI) 

What It Does: The proposal, backed by the conservative PAC The Dinner Table, would:

• • • • Eliminate two days of absentee voting
      • End the option to request absentee ballots by phone or through family
      • Terminate ongoing absentee status for seniors and people with disabilities
      • Require voters to present photo ID when voting in-person or by absentee ballot (something currently only required during voter registration)
      • Ban prepaid return postage on absentee ballots
      • Limit the number of ballot drop boxes

Why It Matters: Maine historically has one of the highest rates of voter participation in the nation — a distinction that could easily be threatened by passage of this initiative. Unfortunately, such initiatives have a long track record of success at the ballot box; every voter ID ballot measure in recent history has received voter approval.

BISC Analysis: Voter ID Marketing Masks Broader Vote Suppression: Why is it that the initiative has been branded by many as simply a ‘Voter ID’ measure despite its laundry list of other anti-voting proposals? The answer could lie in the banal acceptance of voter ID requirements. Across the country, 36 states already require voters to present some form of identification at the polls and on April 1, nearly 63% of Wisconsin voters opted to enshrine such a requirement in their state constitutions. Many see it as an easy (it’s not) and sensible step to protect against widespread election fraud (of which there is no sound evidence), but nothing about this initiative should be interpreted as easy or sensible. From ending ongoing absentee status for seniors and people with disabilities to shortening the absentee voting period to limiting the number of ballot drop boxes, this measure is committed to making voting infinitely more challenging. 

Seeing through the veiled attempts by its sponsors to limit voting rights, Maine Sec. of State Shenna Bellows drafted ballot language enumerating the impacts otherwise overshadowed by the voter ID aspect. However, supporters of the measure have taken the issue to court and are hoping to have the language overturned. The lawsuit accuses Bellows of “obscuring the initiative’s primary aims by stressing everything other than the voter identification requirements” and calls the voter suppression tactics included in the measure “minor things”.

Updates to 2024 Ballot Measures

Issue: Economic Justice

• • Missouri Prop. A: Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave 
    • Legislative Block: The newly-passed House Bill 567 has largely overturned the votes of the 1.6 million Missourians who supported Prop. A’s schedule of ongoing, inflation-informed minimum wage increases, and effectively stripped 700,000 workers of the guaranteed right to earn paid sick leave. The day following the bill’s passage, hundreds gathered on the steps of the Missouri state capitol to protest. A leader of United Auto Workers Local 2250 told the crowd “your legislature has gone rogue” and referred to the “unmitigated gall” of lawmakers who insisted voters didn’t understand what they approved at the ballot box.

Issue: Reproductive Freedom

• • Missouri Amendment 3: Right to Reproductive Freedom 
    • Legislative Threat: With the eleventh-hour passage of House Joint Resolution 73, the Missouri legislature aims to repeal 2024’s citizen-led reproductive freedom initiative and once again ban abortion in the state with very limited exceptions. Additionally, the amendment would bar trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care and prohibit any public funds from ever being used to fund abortions (for example, through the state’s Medicaid program). The proposed amendment will likely be placed on the November 2026 General Election ballot, unless Gov. Kehoe calls for a special election before then. 

Emerging Trends

Clear-Out Bills Posing as Clean-Up Bills: State lawmakers have a moral and constitutional responsibility to respect the Will of the People, but some legislators looking for a loophole seem to think they’ve found one: the clean-up bill. What may start as a needlessly complicated method of fitting a voter-approved measure into state statute can quickly become a means of preventing it from coming to fruition. 

Examples include:

• • Missouri Proposition A: Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave 
    • The “Entrepreneur Rights Act” proposed by House Bill 546 sought to exempt small and seasonal businesses from paying the new minimum wage or meeting sick leave requirements. The bill was ultimately rolled up into House Bill 567, the recently-passed policy that stripped away workers’ guaranteed right to earn paid sick leave and blocked scheduled minimum wage increases.
  • Nebraska Initiative 436: Paid Sick Leave
    • What began as a ‘clean-up’ bill to implement Nebraska’s paid sick leave initiative is now an attack bill with majority support. LB 415 would exclude temporary or seasonal agricultural workers and workers under 16 years old from earned paid sick leave requirements, and businesses with 10 or fewer employees would be exempt from providing it. As of May 19, the bill is only one step away from passage.
  • Nebraska Initiative 433: Minimum Wage Increase
    • While the voter-approved 2022 measure allows the state’s minimum wage to increase every January according to the rate of inflation, LB 258 seeks to cap those increases at 1.75% annually. Though the bill failed on the Assembly floor last week, its supporters are now working on a plan to incorporate it into LB 415.

While campaigns spend months engaging and educating voters to ensure they have the information they need to decide a ballot measure, the legislative process often moves at a rapid pace complete with an array of amendments and committee bill substitutes that can make it immensely challenging to keep up with until it’s too late. As part of our 360 Ballot Measure Life Cycle approach, BISC is committed to ensuring that our partners have the updates and analysis they need to make strategic decisions that fight back against these implementation attacks.

In Case You Missed It

BISC’s Resource Library: Our Partner Portal Resource Library houses ballot measure information ranging from campaign tools, templates, and past campaign materials (Values, MOUS, RFPs, etc.) —  to campaign debriefs and memos highlighting best practices. This library is a unique resource that can help campaigns and organizations build strategies and operationalize racial equity. To request access to the library, please email [email protected]