On Monday, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found in Miller v. Ziegler that a Missouri law banning lobbying for two years after an official leaves elected office was unconstitutional.

The law in question, Article III, Section 2(a) of the Missouri Constitution, was enacted through a ballot initiative in 2018. It states that “no person serving as a member of or employed by the general assembly shall act or serve as a paid lobbyist … until the expiration of two calendar years” after the conclusion of their time in office.

The court struck the law down using the First Amendment. It first established that the ability to lobby qualifies as political speech since it involves the desire “‘to influence’ government policy”.  Therefore, the law invited the high standard of “strict scrutiny” by the court because, according to the US Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, “[l]aws that burden political speech are subject to strict scrutiny”. The court rejected Missouri’s claims that the ban was necessary to prevent corruption, finding there was no evidence of corruption. It found that Missouri could not have a compelling interest in solving a problem that was not proven to exist.

Despite the court dismissing Missouri’s corruption concerns, US non-governmental organization Center for Public Integrity gave Missouri a D- rating in their 2015 State Integrity Investigation. The center cites the 11 Missouri legislators who left office or resigned to become lobbyists since 2012. The organization found Missouri’s largest problem was that “so little is against the law”. Relatedly, Missouri’s 2018 “Clean Missouri” plan, which was a ballot initiative, supported the law in question but also included a plan to use a non-partisan office for redistricting. The redistricting plan was already replaced by a ballot initiative in 2020 with a commission appointed by the governor.