Section III Section 2

Constitution

Effective - 06 Dec 2018, 3 histories, see footnote   (history) 

  *III Section 2.  Prohibited activities by General Assembly members and employees — campaign contribution limits and restrictions. — (a)  After December 6, 2018, no person serving as a member of or employed by the general assembly shall act or serve as a paid lobbyist, register as a paid lobbyist, or solicit prospective employers or clients to represent as a paid lobbyist during the time of such service until the expiration of two calendar years after the conclusion of the session of the general assembly in which the member or employee last served and where such service was after December 6, 2018.

  (b)  No person serving as a member of or employed by the general assembly shall accept directly or indirectly a gift of any tangible or intangible item, service, or thing of value from any paid lobbyist or lobbyist principal in excess of five dollars per occurrence.  This Article shall not prevent candidates for the general assembly, including candidates for reelection, or candidates for offices within the senate or house from accepting campaign contributions consistent with this Article and applicable campaign finance law.  Nothing in this section shall prevent individuals from receiving gifts, family support or anything of value from those related to them within the fourth degree by blood or marriage.  The dollar limitations of this section shall be increased or decreased each year by the percentage of increase or decrease from the end of the previous calendar year of the Consumer Price Index, or successor index as published by the U.S. Department of Labor, or its successor agency, and rounded to the nearest dollar amount.

  (c)  The general assembly shall make no law authorizing unlimited campaign contributions to candidates for the general assembly, nor any law that circumvents the contribution limits contained in this Constitution.  In addition to other campaign contribution limitations or restrictions provided for by law, the amount of contributions made to or accepted by any candidate or candidate committee from any person other than the candidate in any one election for the general assembly shall not exceed the following:

  (1)  To elect an individual to the office of state senator, two thousand five hundred dollars; and

  (2)  To elect an individual to the office of state representative, two thousand dollars.

  The contribution limits and other restrictions of this section shall also apply to any person exploring a candidacy for a public office listed in this subsection.

  For purposes of this subsection, "base year amount" shall be the contribution limits prescribed in this section.  Contribution limits set forth herein shall be adjusted on the first day of January in each even-numbered year hereafter by multiplying the base year amount by the cumulative Consumer Price Index and rounded to the nearest dollar amount, for all years after 2018.

  (d)  No contribution to a candidate for legislative office shall be made or accepted, directly or indirectly, in a fictitious name, in the name of another person, or by or through another person in such a manner as to, or with the intent to, conceal the identity of the actual source of the contribution.  There shall be a rebuttable presumption that a contribution to a candidate for public office is made or accepted with the intent to circumvent the limitations on contributions imposed in this section when a contribution is received from a committee or organization that is primarily funded by a single person, individual, or other committee that has already reached its contribution limit under any law relating to contribution limitations.  A committee or organization shall be deemed to be primarily funded by a single person, individual, or other committee when the committee or organization receives more than fifty percent of its annual funding from that single person, individual, or other committee.

  (e)  In no circumstance shall a candidate be found to have violated limits on acceptance of contributions if the Missouri ethics commission, its successor agency, or a court determines that a candidate has taken no action to indicate acceptance of or acquiescence to the making of an expenditure that is deemed a contribution pursuant to this section.

  (f)  No candidate shall accept contributions from any federal political action committee unless the committee has filed the same financial disclosure reports that would be required of a Missouri political action committee.

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(Adopted November 6, 2018)

*Transferred 2018; now Article III, § 3.  This new section has no continuity with the former version.