The decision is likely to trigger a lawsuit from supporters of Medicaid expansion
Credit: AP
FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2020 file photo, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson speaks during a campaign rally at a gun store in Lees Summit, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) Author: Associated Press Updated: 1:03 PM CDT May 13, 2021
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson dropped plans Thursday to expand the state s Medicaid health care program to thousands of low-income adults after the Republican-led Legislature refused to provide funding for the voter-approved measure.
The Republican governor said his administration had withdrawn a request to expand coverage that had been submitted to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in compliance with a constitutional amendment passed by voters last August.
Progressives cheered last year when voters in several red states approved left-leaning ballot initiatives.
Floridians voted to raise the minimum wage to $15. South Dakotans voted to legalize medical and recreational pot. Missourians voted to expand Medicaid to adults who earn under $18,000 a year. Arizonans voted to tax the rich to fund public schools.
But this year, Republican lawmakers in all those states â plus Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah and others â are trying to undermine such voter-approved measures and to make it harder for future ballot initiatives to pass. At stake is the power to make state laws.
Attacks on the initiative process have escalated, said Matthew Schweich, deputy director of state campaigns for the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group that in 2020 backed successful cannabis legalization campaigns in Montana and South Dakota.
Table of Contents
GOP Works to Override Voters on Medicaid, Higher Wages, Pot
Campaign workers deliver boxes of initiative petition signatures to the Missouri secretary of state s office in Jefferson City. Some Republican lawmakers are now trying to make it harder for ballot initiatives to pass.
David A. Lieb
Progressives cheered last year when voters in several red states approved left-leaning ballot initiatives.
Floridians voted to raise the minimum wage to $15. South Dakotans voted to legalize medical and recreational pot. Missourians voted to expand Medicaid to adults who earn under $18,000 a year. Arizonans voted to tax the rich to fund public schools.