JEFFERSON CITY, MO – October 6, 2026 (STL.News) Missouri voters heading to the polls Nov. 3 will decide two constitutional amendments that could have consequences extending far beyond a single election cycle.
Amendment 7 proposes an unusual long-term approach to financing Missouri government: creating a permanent state investment fund designed to grow until its investment earnings could eventually replace state-imposed taxes.
Amendment 8 addresses a very different subject. It would place the election, duties, and removal of most county sheriffs directly into the Missouri Constitution, rather than leaving those provisions primarily in state statutes.
The Missouri General Assembly referred both measures to voters rather than placing them on the ballot through citizen initiative petitions. Amendment 7 originated as Senate Joint Resolution 95, sponsored by Sen. Adam Schnelting. Amendment 8 originated as Senate Joint Resolution 87, sponsored by Sen. Jill Carter.
Neither proposal should be confused with similarly numbered Missouri amendments from previous elections. Missouri reuses amendment numbers from one election cycle to another.
Amendment 7: The Show-Me Prosperity Fund
Amendment 7 asks voters whether Missouri should establish the Show-Me Prosperity Fund, which the legislation describes as a permanent public endowment.
The stated long-term goal is extraordinary: generate enough investment income that Missouri could eventually eliminate state-imposed taxes.
It would not, however, eliminate Missouri taxes on Nov. 4, 2026.
It would not immediately reduce the state income tax.
And it does not place a predetermined multibillion-dollar sum into the new fund.
Instead, Amendment 7 establishes the constitutional structure under which such a fund could be built over a period potentially measured in decades or generations. The Secretary of State’s fair-ballot language explicitly says the measure would have “no immediate impact on taxes.”
Where would the money come from?
Under SJR 95, the Show-Me Prosperity Fund could receive money appropriated by the Missouri General Assembly along with gifts, donations, grants, and bequests.
That distinction is important.
Amendment 7 creates the investment vehicle, but its passage alone does not provide the enormous amount of capital ultimately needed for investment earnings to replace Missouri’s existing tax revenues. Future lawmakers would have to decide how much state money, if any, to deposit into the fund.
The Missouri State Treasurer would invest the money in exchange-traded funds tracking the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500, subject to fiduciary standards applicable to public trust funds.
That would effectively give Missouri a state-owned investment portfolio designed to compound over a very long period.
Supporters have compared the concept to a sovereign wealth fund.
But Missouri’s proposal differs from prominent resource-backed funds because the constitutional amendment itself does not establish a major new external revenue stream, such as oil royalties, to continuously capitalize the fund.
The principal would be protected
One of Amendment 7’s most significant provisions protects the fund’s principal.
The principal could not be appropriated, pledged, or borrowed against.
Money generally could not begin flowing out of the fund for the tax-replacement program until the State Treasurer determined that the fund’s net investment earnings were sufficient to eliminate state-imposed taxes under the amendment.
Even then, withdrawals would be restricted.
The total amount appropriated from the fund in a fiscal year could not exceed 3% of the fund’s average market value during the preceding five fiscal years.
That provision is designed to prevent the state from rapidly consuming the investment portfolio.
It also illustrates the enormous size the fund would eventually have to reach before investment returns could replace billions of dollars in annual tax collections.
Which taxes could disappear?
The measure is designed ultimately to eliminate state-imposed taxes.
Legislative summaries identify taxes including the individual income tax, state sales and use tax and corporate income tax, along with other state-imposed taxes covered by the amendment.
But the key phrase is eventually.
Schnelting has publicly described his proposal as a generational project rather than an immediate tax cut. In discussing the measure, he has contemplated a horizon of roughly 100 to 125 years for Missouri to reach the goal of operating without state taxes.
That means voters are not deciding whether to eliminate Missouri’s income and sales taxes immediately.
They are deciding whether to put a constitutional financial mechanism into operation that future legislatures could capitalize and future generations could potentially use to replace tax revenue with investment earnings.
What happens after taxes are eliminated?
Amendment 7 goes further than simply creating an investment account.
Once the specified state-imposed taxes are eliminated, the General Assembly generally would be prohibited from reenacting them.
However, a major emergency safeguard exists.
If the fund became unable to meet its obligations because of insolvency, a revenue shortfall, or program failure, lawmakers would retain authority to appropriate money from lawful sources and establish or increase taxes or other revenues as necessary to maintain state programs and expenditures.
After state taxes were eliminated, lawmakers could also use qualifying investment earnings to replace federal money Missouri received or make dividend payments to Missouri residents.
The Missouri State Auditor would be required to audit the fund at least once every three fiscal years.
The central question surrounding Amendment 7
The appeal of the proposal is straightforward: build an enormous pool of invested capital and eventually finance government from investment returns rather than continually taxing residents and businesses.
The difficult question is capitalization.
Unlike Alaska’s well-known permanent fund, built largely from petroleum-related revenue, Missouri does not have an equivalent natural-resource revenue stream established by Amendment 7.
Patrick Tuohey of the Show-Me Institute raised that issue in discussing the proposal, questioning where sufficient money would come from when Missouri simultaneously faces demands for current government services.
Other critics have raised the broader question of whether state government should accumulate and invest enormous amounts of taxpayer-derived capital rather than leaving that money in the private economy.
Supporters, by contrast, see the extremely long investment horizon as the point: money deposited today could compound for generations, eventually creating an asset that could support government without conventional taxation.
The measure therefore represents more than a tax proposal. It is a debate over how Missouri should finance government across generations.
The legislature’s fiscal analysis illustrates some of the uncertainty. Fiscal analysts said transfers into the Show-Me Prosperity Fund would depend on future General Assembly appropriations and therefore listed their amount as unknown. They also noted that implementing the eventual reduction or elimination of taxes would require additional legislation, whose fiscal consequences would have to be evaluated at that time.
What a YES vote on Amendment 7 means
A yes vote establishes the Show-Me Prosperity Fund in the Missouri Constitution.
It authorizes the long-term investment structure, protects the principal, restricts withdrawals, and creates the mechanism through which investment earnings could eventually replace state taxes.
It does not mean Missouri residents immediately stop paying income or sales taxes.
What a NO vote on Amendment 7 means
A no vote leaves the Missouri Constitution unchanged, and this amendment would not establish the Show-Me Prosperity Fund.
Amendment 7 would not change Missouri’s existing tax structure.
Amendment 8: Putting sheriffs into the Constitution
Amendment 8 deals with one of Missouri’s oldest local elected offices: county sheriff.
Missouri already requires sheriffs to be elected in most counties.
Under Section 57.010 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, voters elect a sheriff every four years. The statute also establishes qualifications and identifies the sheriff as the county’s chief law enforcement officer.
Amendment 8 therefore is not simply creating elected sheriffs where none existed.
Its significance is that it would move fundamental protections concerning the office from ordinary statutes into the Missouri Constitution.
That matters because future legislatures can change statutes.
Changing the Missouri Constitution generally requires another constitutional amendment submitted to and approved by voters.
What Amendment 8 would require
Under the final version of SJR 87, most Missouri counties would constitutionally be required to elect a sheriff to a four-year term by a majority of qualified county voters.
The amendment also constitutionalizes certain duties associated with the sheriff’s office and recognizes the office as part of the administration of justice.
Most significantly, it changes the constitutional framework governing removal of an elected sheriff.
The measure provides that the Missouri Attorney General may remove an elected sheriff through a quo warranto proceeding.
Quo warranto is a judicial proceeding used to challenge a person’s legal authority to hold public office and, in appropriate circumstances, remove that person.
Missouri’s Constitution provides more generally that officers not subject to impeachment may be removed in the manner and for the causes provided by law. Missouri statutes currently govern the removal of public officers.
Amendment 8 therefore would make the removal mechanism for sheriffs more constitutionally specific.
Three major exceptions
One of the most important details in Amendment 8 is easy to miss from the abbreviated ballot discussion.
The constitutional provisions would not apply to St. Louis City, St. Louis County, or St. Charles County.
Those exceptions matter especially for voters in the St. Louis metropolitan region.
St. Louis and St. Charles counties have governmental and law-enforcement structures that differ from the traditional sheriff-as-primary-county-law-enforcement model used throughout much of Missouri.
St. Louis City, meanwhile, is an independent city rather than part of a county.
The exemptions were added as SJR 87 moved through the legislature and became an important part of the final version sent to voters.
Why supporters want sheriffs protected constitutionally
Carter has framed the measure around direct electoral accountability.
When SJR 87 advanced through the Senate, she argued that sheriffs should remain chosen by and accountable to county voters rather than becoming appointed officials controlled by other political bodies.
The Missouri Sheriffs’ Association has similarly argued that constitutional protection would preserve local control and guard against a future legislature eliminating or fundamentally restructuring the elected sheriff’s office. Recent reporting notes that no legislation in the 2026 session proposed statewide elimination of sheriffs’ offices, although legislation concerning how the St. Louis sheriff could be selected had been introduced.
That distinction matters.
Amendment 8 responds principally to what a future legislature might do rather than to an existing statewide plan to abolish elected sheriffs.
The accountability question
Amendment 8 also creates a policy debate about two different forms of accountability.
Supporters emphasize electoral accountability: sheriffs answer directly to voters, and the Constitution should prevent government officials from circumventing those voters.
The counterargument concerns accountability between elections.
By constitutionally specifying a quo warranto proceeding initiated by the Attorney General as the removal mechanism, the amendment would reduce the legislature’s ability to redesign sheriff-removal procedures through ordinary legislation.
That does not make a sheriff immune from removal.
It does make the constitutional route more specific and gives the Missouri Attorney General a critical initiating role.
Current Missouri law already recognizes quo warranto as a means of removing public officials. Missouri court precedent includes cases involving removal of sheriffs and other county officers through such proceedings.
The change is therefore less about inventing quo warranto than about giving the sheriff’s office and its removal process explicit constitutional protection.
What a YES vote on Amendment 8 means
A yes vote places the four-year election of sheriffs, specified duties, and the quo warranto removal mechanism into the Missouri Constitution for the counties covered by the amendment.
The measure would not apply to St. Louis City, St. Louis County, or St. Charles County.
The Secretary of State says the amendment would neither increase nor decrease taxes.
What a NO vote on Amendment 8 means
A no vote leaves the Missouri Constitution unchanged.
Existing Missouri statutes requiring county sheriffs to be elected every four years and governing their duties and removal would remain in place unless subsequently changed by law.
In other words, voting no would not suddenly eliminate elected sheriffs.
The principal difference is whether those provisions should remain primarily statutory or receive stronger protection in the state Constitution.
Two amendments with very different time horizons
Amendments 7 and 8 have almost nothing in common substantively.
Amendment 7 asks Missourians to consider a financial model whose ultimate objective may not be achieved for generations.
Amendment 8 asks whether Missouri should constitutionally protect a local law-enforcement institution that already exists throughout most of the state.
Amendment 7 could ultimately change the fundamental relationship between Missouri government and taxation if the fund ever becomes large enough to replace state tax revenue.
Amendment 8 could shift the balance among voters, the legislature, the Attorney General, and elected sheriffs by making the office and its removal mechanism harder to alter through ordinary legislation.
Neither measure produces the immediate transformation that a quick reading of its ballot title might suggest.
Amendment 7 does not immediately eliminate taxes.
Amendment 8 does not establish elected sheriffs from scratch.
Those distinctions may be the most important facts Missouri voters should understand before casting their ballots Nov. 3.
Sources: Missouri Secretary of State certified 2026 ballot measures; Missouri Senate records for SJR 95 and SJR 87; Missouri House of Representatives legislative records; Revised Statutes of Missouri; Missouri legislative fiscal notes; Missouri Senate legislative summaries; and contemporary reporting concerning the measures.
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