The Quiet One on the Ballot
One measure on August 4 is not a trap. The briefing is short because the truth is short.
📌 The Stakes Are HighAmendment 1 renews, for ten more years, the existing one-tenth of one percent sales tax funding Missouri’s state parks, historic sites, and soil and water conservation. First approved in 1984, renewed every decade since, 80 percent support in 2016. Not a new tax, not an increase. If it fails, the funding disappears. The Defender urges a YES vote.
This tax is why admission to Missouri’s state parks is free, for everybody, on exactly equal terms, one of the few public goods in this state that works that way. The revenue splits evenly between the parks system and the soil and water conservation districts.
🔍 Peep GameThere is no trick inside this one, and we checked. The trick is around it: Amendment 1 shares a ballot with two of the most dangerous measures in modern Missouri history, and a general no-on-everything mood would kill the one good thing on the page. Read your ballot line by line. Not every amendment in August deserves the same answer.
🗝️ Defender Major KeyKeep the parks free. Then flip the page, because the next two amendments are where they are counting on your fatigue.
✊🏾 What You Can DoVote August 4. Then take somebody to a state park this summer on the free admission this tax protects, and remind them who paid for it: all of us, a tenth of a penny at a time.
