## Facts

- Missouri requires a statewide initiative petition to be accompanied by an official ballot title consisting of the Secretary of State’s summary statement and the State Auditor’s fiscal note and fiscal-note summary under § 116.175, RSMo.
- Multiple lawsuits challenged the placement on the November 2012 ballot of three initiative petitions: a tobacco-tax increase, a minimum-wage measure, and a payday-loan regulation measure.
- Challengers argued § 116.175 unconstitutionally imposed duties on the State Auditor beyond Mo. Const. art. IV, § 13, which limits legislatively imposed auditor duties to those related to supervising and auditing the receipt and expenditure of public funds.
- Challengers also alleged the Secretary’s summaries and the Auditor’s fiscal-note summaries were unfair or insufficient because they allegedly omitted important effects, used misleading phrasing, or presented an incomplete picture of the measures.
- In the tobacco-tax dispute, a challenger claimed the fiscal-note summary wrongly suggested new revenue would be used only for tobacco prevention and education and inadequately described certain escrow-related consequences for tobacco manufacturers.
- Trial courts issued varying rulings across the consolidated cases, upholding some ballot-title components and rejecting others; appeals and cross-appeals followed and were consolidated.

## Issues

1. Whether § 116.175, RSMo, violates Mo. Const. art. IV, § 13 by requiring the State Auditor to assess fiscal impacts and prepare fiscal notes and fiscal-note summaries for initiative petitions.
2. Whether the Secretary of State’s summary statements and the State Auditor’s fiscal notes and fiscal-note summaries for the three initiatives were unfair or insufficient, warranting judicial modification or removal from the ballot.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Missouri (en banc) held § 116.175 constitutional because estimating an initiative’s fiscal impact is related to supervising and auditing the receipt and expenditure of public funds.
- The Court generally upheld the challenged ballot titles as fair and sufficient when considered as a whole and in light of statutory word limits.
- Tobacco-tax initiative: affirmed the judgment sustaining the ballot title.
- Minimum-wage initiative: affirmed in part and reversed in part.
- Payday-loan initiative litigation: affirmed in part and reversed in part.
- The measures were not kept off the ballot based on the broad constitutional and ballot-title challenges asserted in these consolidated cases.

## Legal Principles

- Under Mo. Const. art. IV, § 13, the legislature may assign the State Auditor duties that are related to supervising and auditing the receipt and expenditure of public funds; preparing fiscal-impact statements for initiatives falls within that category.
- A ballot title (Secretary’s summary statement plus fiscal-note summary) must be fair and sufficient: neutral in tone and not materially misleading as to the measure’s purpose and probable effect.
- Fairness and sufficiency do not require exhaustive detail; statutory word limits permit omission of secondary details so long as the summary accurately conveys primary purposes and likely fiscal consequences.
- Judicial review of ballot titles is limited and deferential; courts intervene only when language is materially misleading, prejudicial, or self-serving in a way likely to misinform a reasonable voter.

## Conclusion

The Missouri Supreme Court upheld § 116.175’s fiscal-note scheme as consistent with the Auditor’s constitutionally permitted role and largely sustained the initiative ballot titles, holding that the summaries were sufficiently neutral and informative within strict word limits, though specific components in the minimum-wage and payday-loan disputes required partial correction on appeal.


Brown v. Carnahan, 370 S.W.3d 637 (Mo. 2012)