Appeals court sets arguments in right-to-work case

Missouri's Western District appeals court will hear oral arguments July 26 in the battle over the state's new right-to-work law.

The court on Monday blocked Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green's June 22 order that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft "immediately certify the corrected summary statement as part of the official ballot title."

The legal fight is over the Jefferson City-based Missouri AFL-CIO's petition to hold a referendum on the new law Gov. Eric Greitens signed in February, which goes into effect Aug. 28.

Current Missouri law allows an employee to opt out of joining a union, but the union - which is required by federal law to represent all workers in a workplace - is allowed to charge the non-union members for the costs of union representation.

Under right to work, no employer can require any employee to pay those fees, nor to join a union as a condition of employment.

Missouri's Constitution allows residents to place issues on the ballot by initiative petition and also by referendum to challenge laws the Legislature and governor have approved.

If a petition is authorized for circulation and gets enough signatures to make it on the ballot - before the law takes effect Aug. 28 - the law is blocked from taking effect until Missourians can vote on the issue in the next general election.

That's the Nov. 6, 2018, general election for the right-to-work issue.

As with initiative petitions, state law requires the secretary of state's office to draft a summary of the proposal to appear on the petitions as they're being circulated and on the official ballot - if enough signatures are gathered to force an election.

After Ashcroft's office approved the ballot language for the unions' "PETITION FOR REFERENDUM," three Kansas City area people - a nurse and two police officers - challenged the ballot language in the Cole County Circuit Court on April 7.

After a June 12 hearing, Green ruled Ashcroft's ballot language was "unfair and insufficient," and instead of certifying the secretary of state's language, he wrote a different summary statement.

If upheld, Green's ruling would require the AFO-CIO to start over on gathering signatures, because the signatures it already has gathered were under the "wrong" ballot language.

The appeals court ordered the attorneys for Ashcroft and Mike Louis, the AFL-CIO's state president, to file their written arguments by July 12 on why the court should overturn Green's decision.

The appeals court's three-judge panel will hear the oral arguments from both sides at 2 p.m. July 26 in the Kansas City courthouse.