The St. Louis County group Returning Government to the People said Tuesday it is appealing last week's Cole County circuit court ruling blocking its proposed campaign finance reform amendment.
Judge Dan Green ruled Friday the proposal unconstitutionally sought to change more than one portion of the state Constitution, and included provisions previously ruled unconstitutional.
The group calls its nine-page proposal the "Missouri Campaign Contribution Reform Initiative" (MCCRI).
It included provisions making it "unlawful for a corporation or labor organization to make contributions to a campaign committee, candidate committee, exploratory committee, political party committee or a political party."
In his ruling last week, Green noted he already had overturned that idea in 2011, when Osage County-based Legends Bank and its president, John Klebba, challenged a 2010 Legislature-passed state law that included campaign contribution restrictions on financial institutions, and "the State of Missouri did not appeal this specific ruling."
Fred N. Sauer, president of Returning Government to the People, said in a news release Tuesday afternoon, "(We) will continue to fight the elitist special interests who seek to influence political candidates and parties with their huge campaign contributions at the expense of the typical Missouri voter.
"Even though we are facing an opponent with limitless resources, RGP knows that Missouri voters embrace common sense limits on campaign contributions that will decrease the power of the elites and bring back control of the candidates and political parties to the people."
The group proposed its amendment because Missouri currently has no limits on donations by individuals and corporations to candidates and political parties.
Sauer's group circulated a similar petition last year, and won the legal battle over it with a ruling from the appeals court's Kansas City division - but that ruling came too late to circulate the petition for signatures to get in on last November's ballot.
"Campaign contribution limits are in the best interest of everyone in the state, both citizen and legislator," Sauer also argued in the news release.
"By reducing the extraordinary rivers of cash flowing from wealthy donors into Jefferson City, the MCCRI will better assure that our government is truly representative of the people, and in turn provide an environment in which freedom and the will of the people can flourish."
Green's ruling Friday rejected the challenges to the ballot title written by the secretary of state's office and to the fiscal note and summary prepared by the state auditor's office.