CITY OF ST. LOUIS

JULIAN L. BUSH LAW DEPARTMENT LYDA KREWSON
CITY COUNSELOR 1200 MARKET STREET, ROOM 314 MAYOR
ST. LOUIS, MO 63103-2864
(314) 622-3361

July 13, 2020

Alderwoman Cara Spencer
Board of Aldermen

Room 230, City Hall

St. Louis, MO 63103

Re: Charter Amendment by Initiative
Dear Alderwoman Spencer,

You have asked for my opiniOn as to the process by which the Charter of the City of
Saint Louis might be amended by initiative. Speci?cally you wonder whether the process
requires one vote by the people or two. My answer is, assuming that the initiative may be used
to amend the Charter, which I doubt, that sometimes one vote is suf?cient and sometimes two
votes are required. I will explain.

Article VI, Section 31 of the Constitution of Missouri recognizes the City of St. Louis
and its present charter. Article VI, Section 32(a) allows that charter to be amended ?by proposals
therefore submitted by the lawmakz?ng body ofme city to the quali?ed voters thereof, at a special
election held at least sixty days after the publication of such proposals, and accepted by three-
?fths of the quali?ed electors voting for or against each of such amendments or revisions so
submitted.? (My emphasis.) So two steps, each requiring an act and each performed by a
speci?ed actor, are required to amend the Charter: 1) submission of a proposal, which
submission is the act of the lawmaking body of the City of St. Louis, and 2) approval of the
submitted amendment, which approval is the act of the quali?ed voters. Turning your attention
to the ?rst step?submission of a prOposal by the lawmaking body of the City?it is necessary to
consider the identity of the lawmaking body of the City. The lawmaking body of the City of
St. Louis is indubitably the City?s Board of Aldermen. See Article IV, Section I of the City
Charter, which provides that the legislative power of the City of St. Louis, subject to the Charter,
is vested in its Board of Aldermen. As the Board of Aldermen acts by ordinance, Article IV,
Section 23, the Board of Aldermen may submit a propesed Charter amendment to the quali?ed
voters by adapting an ordinance so providing. But the City of St. Louis might be considered to
have another lawmaking body??the quali?ed voters?because the Charter allows the voters to
adopt ordinances when proposals for the adoption of ordinances are submitted to the voters by
initiative petition. See Article V, Section 1, City Charter. The Supreme Court long ago held that
the 1875 Constitution did not preclude the Charter from providing for the adoption of
ordinances by initiative. I?iimzm y. Drabelle. 183 SW 1055 {Mo banc 1916.) (However the

Court did not, of course, consider whether Article VI, Section 32(a) of the current constitution
forbids the adoption of ordinances that propose charter amendments by initiative petition.) So it
could be thought that the City has two lawmaking bodies?the Board of Aldermen and the
qualified voters?and that either could submit a proposal to amend the City Charter. But the
Constitution speaks in terms of ?the? lawmaking body, not lawmaking body. This usage
strongly suggests that the Constitution contemplates that there is only one lawmaking body with
the power to propose Charter amendments, and not more than one. And if there is only one such
lawmaking body it is surely the Board of Aldermen, and not the voters. In so stating I am aware
that at least once in the past an ordinance proposing a charter amendment was submitted to the
voters by initiative petition with the approval of a court, see 
600 110 (Mo. App. 1980), but none ot?the parties to that case raised the issue of whether
the Constitution allows for the voters to submit proposals for an amendment to the Charter, and
consequently the court didn?t decide the matter. So I doubt whether a preposal to amend the
City?s Charter can be submitted by a lawmaking body other than the Board of Aldermen.

But let me put aside that doubt, and proceed on the assumption that the Constitution
doesn?t preclude amending the City Charter by a process that begins with an initiative petition.
Indeed, the framers of the City?s Charter appear to have thought (or hoped) that it doesn?t and
made provision in the City?s Charter to allow for it. So the authorization of the initiative in the
Charter extends that power to ordinances preposing charter amendments: ?The people shall have
the power, at their option, to prOpose ordinances, including ordinances proposing amendments to
this charter, and adopt the same at the polls, with the same effect as if adopted by the board of
aldermen and approved by the mayor, such power to be known as the initiative.? Notice that the
process provides for the adoption by initiative of ordinances proposing charter amendments. So
under this scheme there still must be the two steps required by the Constitution: 1) the adoption
at the polls by a lawmaking body?the quali?ed voters?of an ordinance submitting a Charter
amendment, and 2) the acceptance at the polls of the Charter amendment submitted pursuant to
the ordinance that had been adopted. Now this may seem counterintuitive and unnecessarily
cmnbersome?why not allow the submission of a proposal to amend the Charter without
requiring the intErinediate step of adoption of an ordinance submitting the proposal to amend the
Charter? The answer is that the Constitution requires proposals to amend the Charter to be
submitted by the lawmaking body of the City. And while the quali?ed voters assembled at the
polls might or might not be considered the lawmaking body within the meaning of Article VI,
Section 32(a), it is not possible that a small subset of voters?those who have signed a petition?
could be thought the lawmaking body of the City. The reason the Charter requires that
submission to the voters of a charter amendment originating with a petition for the voters?
approval be preceded by the adoption of an ordinance providing for its submission is that the
Constitution requires nothing less. And in the Blackwell case that I adverted to earlier that
appears to be exactly what happened: ?The petition to the Board of Election Commissioners
proposed an ordinance callingfor the submission to the qualified voters ofan amendment to the
600 at 111. (My emphasis.)

So does this require two votes? Not always. The Charter provides that the Election
Board, if it finds that a petition proposing an ordinance is accompanied by suf?cient signatures,
must certify the petition to the Board of Aldermen. Article V, Section 4, City Charter. The
Board of Aldermen then has the opportunity to adopt the proposed ordinance. If it does, and if

2

the Mayor approves the pr0posed ordinance, then the proposed ordinance becomes law and the
proposed ordinance is not submitted to the voters. Id. And then the quali?ed voters vote on the
prOposed amendment to the Charter. In other words, just one vote by the quali?ed voters. But if
the Board doesn?t adOpt the proposed ordinance calling for submitting the Charter amendment or
if the Mayor doesn?t approve the proposed ordinance, then the proposed ordinance must be
submitted to the voters, In other words, two votes by the quali?ed voters. So the answer to your
question whether one or two votes by the electorate is required is that it depends: one vote if the
Board of Aldermen adopt and the Mayor approves the proposed ordinance; two votes if they
don?t.

I am sure that your questions were prompted by the recently submitted initiative petition
proposing an amendment to the Charter relating to the possible lease to St. Louis Lambert
International Airport. Therefore I took the liberty of obtaining a copy of the petition ?led with
the Election Board by a committee of petitioners, and not by a lawmaking body of the City, and I
have examined that petition. The signers state that they ?order that the following proposed
charter amendment be submitted to the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis, Missouri and
if the Board of Aldermen fails to place it on the next available ballot, that it be submitted to the
voters Thus it can be seen that the petitioners aren?t proposing an ordinance proposing a
charter amendment, indeed are not proposing an ordinance of any kind, but are proposing a
charter amendment. This is not allowable under the Constitution, and it is certainly not
allowable under the City Charter. In particular, it is impossible for the Board to exercise its
power to preempt the initiative election by adopting the proposed ordinance by the petition, a
power that it ordinarily has, see Article V, Section 4 of the City Charter, because no ordinance
has been proposed. In this instance, the proposal should not be submitted to the voters twice, or
once, or at all.

You mention in your letter that my former colleagues James J. Wilson, Thomas J. Ray,
and Edward J. Hanlon have come to similar conclusions. I am pleased to be able to concur with
the views of these ?ne lawyers.

Very truly yours,

.L.

. Law

Julian L. Bush
City Counselor