Voters Rebel Against Effort by Missouri GOP to Kill Voter Rights

Jim Hightower on Aug 12, 2026

It's no secret that voters are increasingly disgusted by today's extremist, right-wing Republican lawmakers. But less known is the fact that extremist GOP lawmakers are even more disgusted by you voters!

They're so disgusted that a top legislative priority of Republican leaders in the White House, Congress and state legislatures is to rig election rules, literally to rule out issues and voters they don't like. For example, Republicans in Missouri (the "Show Me" State) showed us what they're made of by attempting to kill the people's right to amend their state's constitution. Missouri and 25 other states have long provided a citizen-led initiative process so the people can propose and pass their own laws, rather than always depending on politicians to "do what's right." Yes -- it's direct democracy!

But the people ("Damn them") have been passing things like providing health care for the poor and raising the minimum wage. So, "No-no," screeched Republican leaders and corporate lobbyists, who otherwise control the entire state government. In a perversion of people power, they wrote a ballot initiative that, effectively, would leave direct democracy "dead" in Missouri.

Clever, huh? Use the initiative process to kill the initiative process.

But the people rallied, exposed the fraud and in a massive turnout of voters in last week's elections, 80% -- 80%! -- rejected the establishment's anti-democracy ploy.

Missourians showed 'em -- but anti-democracy elites are now pushing direct-voter bans in 15 other states, including Arizona, Florida, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah. To keep track and shove back against these plutocratic power grabs, connect with the nationwide monitoring and grassroots campaigns of the Fairness Project: thefairnessproject.org.

MONEYED POWERS ARE FORCING ART AND ARTISANS OUT OF OUR TOWNS

The great thing about "art towns" is, of course, the artists who live there and their art. So why are so many art town officials deliberately and stupidly driving artists out of town?

I live in such a place: Austin, Texas. For beaucoup years, it welcomed and nurtured a blessing of creators -- from buskers to tap dancers, muralists to neon sign artists.

Neon Signs? Yes, magical artisans who can bend glass tubes into delightful expressive shapes that light up to identify a community and culture as something more than just another concrete-and-steel erection of corporate power. One such creative is Todd Sanders, an Austin pop artist who for three decades has preserved and advanced this eclectic community's proud claim to be "Keeping Austin Weird."

I was personally plugged into that identity when Susan DeMarco, Floyd Domino and I broadcast a two-hour daily radio talk show across America from a down-home Austin restaurant named Threadgill's. Behind us on the stage was a Todd Sanders gem -- a three-by-five-foot neon sign, flashing "Hightower Radio ... On the Air."

But multimillion-dollar developers -- backed by a city council now promoting Austin as a mecca for high-tech billionaires -- have no room for funky grassroots "weirdness." They've jacked up city property taxes and artists' rents in a corporate gentrification frenzy that has squeezed Sanders' neon shop and others out of Austin. The good news is that art perseveres, so Sanders' studio and art gallery found a welcoming spot 80 miles east of us in the small town of Round Top.

But Round Top artisans will be next if we keep letting profiteers, with no values beyond money, define who we are, restricting who we can become.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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