Passing the Clean Missouri amendment to the state Constitution "will take power away from special interests and give it back to the people," Kathleen Boswell, of Sedalia, president of the Missouri League of Women Voters, told reporters Wednesday morning.
"Amendment 1 is an opportunity for the citizens of Missouri to be put first - before big donors, lobbyists and partisan games."
Amendment 1 is the ballot number for the proposed constitutional amendment known as Clean Missouri, which Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft certified for the Nov. 6 general election ballot after it had gathered more than 340,000 signatures statewide.
Louise Wilkerson, of St. Louis, the League of Women Voters' statewide secretary, added: "Amendment 1 would make our state government more transparent, limit the power of big money in our Legislature and insure that we're able to hold legislators accountable when they fail to act in the public interest.
"This measure on the November ballot will increase fairness, integrity, transparency and accountability in Missouri's General Assembly."
The league's leaders acknowledged at their Jefferson City news conference that two lawsuits challenge the proposal's ballot status.
Both lawsuits say the proposed amendment makes 21 different changes to the current Constitution, violating its requirement that: "Petitions for constitutional amendments shall not contain more than one amended and revised article of this constitution, or one new article which shall not contain more than one subject and matters properly connected therewith."
However, Clean Missouri campaign spokesman Benjamin Singer said, "Amendment 1 was written very strictly to address only one subject matter in one article of the state Constitution the Missouri General Assembly in Article III of the Missouri Constitution."
No hearings have been set on either lawsuit.
However, Singer said the amendment's supporters "fully expect a judge to allow it to continue to the ballot and to withstand any challenges at any time."
Both lawsuits question the amendment's proposed changes to the way state legislative districts are redrawn every 10 years after the U.S. Census numbers are released.
The Constitution currently requires the state House and Senate districts to be drawn by separate committees appointed by the governor from lists of names provided by the congressional district committees of each major political party.
By law, each district is to have as close to the same number of people in it as possible, and the Constitution requires each of the 163 House districts to "be composed of contiguous territory as compact as may be," while each of the 34 Senate districts must include entire counties - unless the county's population is too large to hold just one district.
If either committee fails to do its job within six months of its initial appointment, the job of drawing the districts is turned over to six judges from the state's appeals court.
Singer said the amendment doesn't change the current requirements.
"It's included in the language of Amendment 1 that districts must be contiguous and that there's a strong preference for compactness," he explained. "For the House districts, it adds to take into account local political boundaries when possible."
As one example, Moniteau County used to be included in one House district, but after the 2010 Census redistricting, the current House 50th District covers the northern part of Moniteau County and the southern part of Boone County into the south part of Columbia, and also includes portions of Cooper and Cole counties.
Cole County used to have two main districts and maybe small portions of one or two others.
Under the 2011 redistricting map, only the 60th District is completely within the county, while the 59th District includes most of the rest of the county and a portion of northern Miller County.
The 49th and 50th districts also include part of Cole County, and the 62nd District's western end is in the Henley and St. Thomas areas, but it extends eastward all the way to Sullivan.
Boswell said the proposed amendment is "trying to re-enforce that those lines not be gerrymandered."
The Clean Missouri proposal moves the authority for drawing the district lines to "a nonpartisan state demographer, who is required to draw maps using clear and fair criteria that don't give either party an unfair advantage," Marilyn McCloud, of Columbia, and the League of Women Voters state vice president, told reporters Wednesday. "Maps would then be reviewed by a citizens commission."
Missouri government already has a state demographer, who works in the Office of Administration.
Singer said the proposed amendment doesn't require that person's work to be separate from the demographer in the amendment.
"It's possible those duties could be added to the existing demographer's role," he said.