JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s GOP-led House on Wednesday again sought to raise the bar to amend the state’s Constitution, this time by requiring a majority of registered voters to pass amendments proposed by voters.

It would make it almost impossible for voter-referred constitutional changes to pass, and critics said it would effectively kill the initiative petition process.

House members advanced the proposal in a voice vote. If passed in the Republican-led Legislature, the proposal would go to a statewide vote.

The change would be sweeping. Currently, a majority of people who cast ballots are needed to change the Constitution. That means if 1 million people vote, 500,001 votes are needed to approve an amendment. If 500,000 people vote, 250,001 votes are needed. The new proposal would change the requirement to a majority of registered voters. In November 2020, there were about 4.3 million registered voters. That would mean it would take roughly 2.15 million votes to pass a constitutional amendment under Republican Rep. Bishop Davidson’s plan, regardless of the number of votes cast in any given election.

Republican Rep. Dan Shaul, of Imperial, said the change also would pressure voters and election officials to ensure voter registrations are up to date. If voters are registered in Missouri but have not voted in years, that would inflate the voter registration number and make it more difficult to pass amendments, Shaul said.

“It will provide the encouragement to all involved, from the voter to any of the officials involved in an election to clean up the rolls,” Shaul said. “And it will put a spotlight on it for sure.”

Democrats said the change could mean that in a low-turnout election, a constitutional amendment couldn’t pass even if 100% of voters support it.

Roughly 4.2 million Missouri voters were registered during the August 2020 primary election, when the constitutional amendment to increase access to Medicaid health care to hundreds of thousands more low-income adults was up for a vote.

Only about 1.2 million votes were cast in that election, and Medicaid expansion won with about 53% of the vote, or 677,000 votes. That’s far short of what would be required to pass amendments under Davidson’s plan.

Republicans have been trying to make the initiative petition process harder following the recent passage of several Democratic-backed policies at the polls, including expanding eligibility for Medicaid. Other proposals advancing in the Legislature would require more voter signatures to put an issue on the ballot and other ways to increase the number of votes needed to change the Constitution.

“We keep seeing these efforts to try and make it harder for Missourians to amend the Constitution (and) to pass laws that … the majority in here doesn’t like,” Merideth said.

Merideth said Davidson’s measure would also give the governor, currently Republican Mike Parson, the power to sabotage amendments by putting initiative petitions on the primary ballot, which traditionally have lower voter turnouts compared to general elections.

Davidson said only one constitutional amendment would have passed under his rules in the last several decades: a proposal enacting term limits on lawmakers in 1992.

Davidson said the intent of his proposal would be to raise the bar to enact voter-referred constitutional changes but keep the current, lower standard for any constitutional changes proposed by the Legislature or changes to state law proposed by voters.

But several Democrats said as written, the proposal would apply the higher standard for any ballot measure proposed by voters.

A second vote of approval is needed to send the measure to the Senate.