Missouri budget amendment drawing ad spending

A conservative group has spent an estimated $670,000 so far on TV ads encouraging Missouri voters to back a proposed constitutional amendment limiting the governor's budget-cutting powers.

The Missouri Club for Growth has been running ads criticizing Gov. Jay Nixon's decisions to freeze or slow spending for public schools and other state budget items.

Proposed Constitutional Amendment 10 on the November ballot would allow Missouri lawmakers to overturn gubernatorial spending reductions by getting a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. That's the same threshold already required to override vetoes.

The estimate of TV advertising spending comes from an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity of preliminary data produced by the media tracking service Kantar Media/CMAG.