Missouri
Thank you for your interest in Save Our Secret Ballot! I spent my last eight years in the Missouri Senate as Chairman of the Small Business Committee because everything we want as a society begins with empowering individuals and small business owners with options. Stripping people of the fundamental right to choose their representation, free from intimidation, in secret, cannot be tolerated by a democratic society.
While those who attempt to strip us of the right to a secret ballot deny that they are actually stripping a right, even liberal activists like Al Sharpton and George McGovern are opposed to the effort to strip your right to secret ballot. We have a plan to guarantee the right to a secret ballot by placing a simple 48 word amendment in the Missouri Bill of Rights.
We thought the right to a secret ballot was a fundamental guarantee, but it is not. However, it should be! Please consider joining our effort by donating to the cause either financially or by becoming a volunteer and signing up for our mailing list. If the President and Congressional leaders strip us of this sacred right, we can restore it in our Missouri Constitution. We need your help!
Respectfully,
John Loudon
Chairman, Save Our Secret Ballot Missouri
Save Our Secret Ballot Missouri
PO Box 4441
Chesterfield, MO 63005
636-530-1888
Questions? Email us at sosballotmo@gmail.com
State Senator Jack Goodman
State Representative Mike Cunningham
State Representative Shane Schoeller
November 9, 2009
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your support this summer! Together we are pioneering an innovative strategy to defeat card check in Missouri, and I appreciate your common vision for combating EFCA.
As of this week, we have collected over 60,000 signatures to get the secret ballot question on the November 2010 ballot. Every day, rain or shine, our circulators collect tirelessly.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Joe Biden recently pledged that the Obama administration will do all in its power to pass EFCA before the year is out. Rumor has it that the bill is waiting in the wings until the healthcare debate subsides, and will be taken up this month or next.
Imagine the message Missouri would send to Congress if we qualified for the ballot by then!
Secret ballot amendments have already qualified for the ballot through legislative referral in Arizona and Utah. While this is a victory, there is nothing that intimidates Congress quite like a citizens' initiative petition that sends the message "We see what you are doing. We don't like it. And we feel so strongly that we are taking the law into our hands in order to undo it!"
Missouri has a unique opportunity to lead the way.
We have raised more than $300,000 to date. Still, we are $250,000 shy of the funds required to complete the signature gathering effort. There is urgency to qualify for the 2010 ballot as soon as possible, sending an unmistakable message to Washington: don't touch my right to a secret ballot!
This is a tall order. Will you help us?
If you have considered contributing, but never got around to it, now is the time! As you know, contributions to our national 501(c)4 are not reportable as political donations.
Please join us in preserving the right to secret ballot. Can we count on your support?
All my best,
John Loudon, Chairman
Save Our Secret Ballot Missouri
PO Box 4441
Chesterfield, MO 63005
P.S. Thank you to those of you who called US Senators to oppose the appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board! Thanks to your advocacy and Senator John McCain, Becker's nomination has been stalled for the present. We will keep you posted.
As always, I am happy to speak to interested groups or organizations. Our coalition partners include the Associated Industries of Missouri, Associated Builders and Contractors, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Southwest Area Manufacturers Association, and many other companies and individuals committed to providing Missouri jobs and preserving the right to a secret ballot.
11/12/09: Unions Lose Court Attempt to Deride Save our Secret Ballot Campaign
STATEMENT BY JOHN LOUDON, CHAIRMAN OF SAVE OUR SECRET BALLOT IN MISSOURI ON THE UNION'S LOSING THEIR FRIVOLOUS SUIT AGAINST THE BALLOT LANGUAGE
"The unions lost on all points in their challenge of our ballot language guaranteeing secret ballots in Missouri elections.
The Circuit Court stated that the SOS Ballot initiative clearly will guarantee the secret ballot rights of public union members, as well as the general public in candidate and initiative elections. The Court further confirmed that there was reason to believe the language would apply to all union elections. While Federal statutes generally pre-empt state law, even the union's lawyers were forced to agree in court that sometimes state law can stand as the authority. Further, the Circuit Court ruled that the State Auditor's office was correct in its fiscal note that guaranteeing secret ballots for all elections, including union organizing elections, will have no financial impact on the state or Missouri municipalities.
This case demonstrates just how desperate some unions have become in their efforts to deny voters' secret ballot rights. Save Our Secret Ballot now stands at 2 and 0 against frivolous union lawsuits, having won in both Missouri and Colorado."
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Labor Day Opinion Editorial
Preserving the Right to Secret Ballot: Looking Out for Workers
As we relax and take time to celebrate the rewards of our labor this weekend, we are reminded of a time when the typical workplace was fraught with more strife than most of us care to imagine.
While fast union growth was once spurred by management excesses, union membership is now at an all-time low. Workers have found that while their stated intention was combating ugly management practices, unions themselves often become the oppressive force they portend to oppose.
Employees caught between warring managers and union bosses know that the right to a secret ballot in union organizing elections is the one solid protection from both sides.
To the dismay of most of us, we have learned that the presumed right to secret ballot elections is really not a right at all. The Congress stands ready to strip it from workers in the form of the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. If Missouri citizens are to be shielded from manipulation in the voting booth, this must be blocked. Holding the threat of arm twisting in union organizing elections is no way to thank the American worker.
Missouri citizens have the ability to preserve the right to secret ballot this year by signing the Save Our Secret Ballot initiative petition. This would allow voters to amend the Missouri Bill of Rights in the 2010 election. To learn more, go to sosballot.org.
We have much to be grateful for this weekend, but the journey is not over yet. Workers of Missouri are vulnerable to workplace intimidation by employers and unions alike. The best Labor Day gift we can give the American laborer, and ourselves, is a constitutional guarantee of the right to secret ballot. The ball is in our court.
Former Missouri State Senator John Loudon, ret.
Chairman, Save Our Secret Ballot Missouri
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“The terribly misnamed ‘Employee Free Choice Act’ represents the greatest reversal of voting rights and government intrusion into the management of private enterprise America has ever faced. Congress is just one or two votes away from passing EFCA, which will cripple Missouri companies with as few as 10 employees and strip workers of their right to a secret ballot. That’s why we must act now to protect this right in union organizing elections.”
- State Senator John Loudon (ret.)
Chairman, Save Our Secret Ballot/Missouri
Save Our Secret Ballot Missouri
PO Box 4441
Chesterfield, MO 63005
636-530-1888
sosballotmo@gmail.com
Volunteering to collect signatures? Call 314-229-7232
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