Lawsuit in Missouri Aims to Halt Sports Betting Initiative

A lawsuit has been filed in Cole County Circuit Court to stop sports betting from appearing on the November voting ballot. This lawsuit came ahead of the Thursday 10-day deadline to challenge it. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft certified the initiative, and he’s listed as the defendant. 

Who Filed the Lawsuit?

According to Missouri Court documents, the plaintiffs include Jacqueline Wood and Blake Lawrence. Marc Henry Ellinger represents them. Stephanie Bell and Matthew Brian Vianello will represent Ashcroft. 

According to LinkedIn, Wood owns JWood Political Strategies, a lobbying firm that provides campaign consulting. Lawrence has a consulting company and previously served as chief counsel in the Missouri Senate. 

The judge assigned to the case is Cottom Walker. Should the court find any truth in their claims and reverse Ashcroft’s certification, sports betting won’t appear on the ballot in November. 

The Basis of the Lawsuit

Qualifying initiatives in Missouri require signatures from 8% of voters from the last gubernatorial election in six of eight congressional districts. 

Ashcroft said they met this mark. District 1 received 55,864 signatures, but only 25,714 were deemed valid. 

Still, this is 82 more votes than is required. 

The lawsuit has four complaints:

• Ashcroft should’ve divided the total number of voters in 2020 and made signature requirements equal across the districts. The argument is that Ashcroft should’ve done that instead of taking the 8% from each district’s voting total. 
• Decreasing the weight of District 3 votes compared to District 1 violated equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment. 
• Missouri did some redistricting following 2020. According to the lawsuit, Ashcroft used the prior district map. 
• The closest districts, including Districts 1 and 5, had signatures counted improperly. 

Is This Lawsuit an Opposition Campaign?

This Amendment is set to be viewed as Amendment 2 on the voting ballots, and while the St. Louis Cardinals led a group of six Missouro-based sports teams, FanDuel and DraftKings funded the $10 million campaign to qualify it. 

However, polls in the state show that sports betting may not be supported enough. 

Since the certification news, the Winning for Missouri Education campaign said that more than 60% of voter support was from polls in March and April. However, a poll from Emerson College/Nexstar Media showed 38.3% in support, 35.4% against, and 26.3% were unsure. 

For an amendment to pass, it needs more than 50%.