A new lawsuit alleges Missouri's proposed fuels tax increase should not be placed before voters in November because lawmakers violated the state Constitution when they passed it.
The lawsuit's main argument is that the bill ordering a statewide vote on raising the state's fuels taxes, House Bill 1460, "is unconstitutional due to procedural infirmities and is therefore void, and (the court should issue) an injunction to prevent the enforcement of any of its provisions, including an order that the Secretary of State refrain from placing it on the ballot."
Ron Calzone, of Dixon, and state Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, filed the 20-page lawsuit Monday in Cole County Circuit Court, naming Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Revenue Director Joel Walters, Transportation Director Patrick McKenna and Highway Patrol Superintendent Sandra Karsten as defendants.
Calzone and Moon argued the bill began as a simple, five-page measure "relating to a tax deduction for certain Olympic athletes."
But on May 17 - the next-to-last day of the 2018 General Assembly session - state Sen. Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, offered a Senate Substitute to HB 1460 which changed the bill's title and added provisions "relating to fuel taxes, funding for the Highway Patrol, a new 'Emergency State Freight Bottleneck Fund' and a referendum clause.
Both the Senate and House passed the bill May 18 - the last day to pass bills during the 2018 regular session.
The lawsuit claims the process violated the Constitution's Article III, Section 21, which says: "No law shall be passed except by bill, and no bill shall be so amended in its passage through either house as to change its original purpose."
The lawsuit also argues the bill violated Article III, Section 23, which says: "No bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title."
Calzone and Moon argue the original bill involved enacting a statute, while the final version "was to place a question before the voters of Missouri."
And, they argued, "The altering of the purpose of HB 1460 does great harm to the integrity of the legislative process, was an obstacle to the ability of legislators to grasp and intelligently discuss the bill (and) placed legislators in a position of having to accept some matters which they do not support in order to enact that which they earnestly support."
The case was assigned to Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green.
Maura Browning, Ashcroft's spokewsoman, told the News Tribune the secretary of state's office said it had not, yet, received a copy of the lawsuit, but wouldn't comment "on any lawsuit in which we are named."