Missouri Sierra Club’s Democracy Action

 Why does Sierra Club Care About Democracy?

At the Sierra Club, we believe that in order to effectively advocate for our air, water, land and to ensure that everyone has a sustainable, healthy community, we must have a fair and working democracy for all. We need to make sure that we have laws that protect voters, not suppress their vote, when we vote for pro-environmental advocates and policies. We need to advocate for accessible administrative procedures by our government to allow for more public participation in decision making power. We the people hold the power to make the changes we need to make to meet the climate crisis and to address the ongoing pandemic and economic crisis. Together, through a democracy that works for all, we can achieve our goals. Learn more about our National Sierra Club Democracy action here.

Missouri Chapter Democracy Committee

The Sierra Club Missouri Chapter Democracy Committee was formally created in 2020 after years of engaging our members, allies, and community partners around needed voter protections, advocating against voter suppression bills, and participating in several ballot initiative petition campaigns. We work to build relationships with community partners about democracy issues, tell our stories by testifying or writing to local media, and take action towards decision makers.  The grassroots led Democracy Committee meets the last Friday of the month at 11 AM. 

Please email ashton.kuehnel@sierraclub.org to get involved. 

2023 Specific Voting Resources

Missouri's voting rules have been updated due to a block by a Missouri Judge's  preliminary injunction in regard to voter registration and absentee voting issues in House Bill 1878. 

 

2022 Election Voting Resources 

Legislative Priorities

During the legislative sessions we partner with our allies in the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition to protect our democracy. In 2022, we defeated 20+ bills to undermine the initiative petition process as a part of the Will of the People Missouri Coalition.

Unfortunately, House Bill 1878 went into effect and drastically changed Missouri's voting rules. Together with our allies in the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition & the League of Women Voter's Missouri, we hosted an educational webinar to breakdown HB 1878 and it's impact on voters. Watch the webinar or these short videos to understand Missouri's new voting law. 

Activists holding signs at Lobby Day

 

Election Protection Program

Participating and volunteering in Missouri's Election Protection Program is a Sierra Club Missouri priority as voter suppression and misinformation spreads. Being a nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer is one of the most important and rewarding things we can do to protect our democracy -- and in turn, help protect our environment. Election Protection volunteers help connect voters to election experts by sharing the number to the voter hotline (866-OUR-VOTE) and helping voters with general troubleshooting and navigating complicated or confusing voting rules. There are a variety of roles from poll monitoring to social media monitoring to legal help and much more. It's a powerful way everyday people can engage in our democracy. 

Sign up at sc.org/ProtectTheVote and get placed in a role that's right for you!

Redistricting

The Sierra Club - Missouri Chapter has been engaged around redistricting engagement since 2017 with the Clean Missouri campaign. From there we have continued to work with multi-issue, multi-racial coalition members to advocate for fair redistricting and representation of all Missourians.  Our 2021-2022 priorities are to ensure Missourians are aware and participate in our state’s upcoming redistricting process.

FAQs

What is ‘Redistricting’?

  • Redistricting is the once every ten year process of redrawing district boundaries to reflect population shifts according to Census Data. This is an important process which, if done correctly, means voters are represented by leaders who speak for them and represent their community.

What is ‘Gerrymandering’?

  • Gerrymandering is manipulating district maps to achieve a specific outcome that favors one party over the other. This is typically done by artificially cutting up communities to disperse their votes. For example, if a city typically votes Democratic, gerrymandering would be to divide that city into several smaller pieces and add them to surrounding districts that vote Republican. The result is: the same number of people vote for Democrats and Republicans but only Republicans are elected.

Why does it matter to the Sierra Club?

  • If done without participation and input from Missouri residents across the state, the redistricting process can split up communities and prevent communities from receiving the resources for public services such as schools, parks, and hospitals and fair representation at the local and state level. 

Additional Resources