A proposed constitutional amendment requiring that Missouri’s conservation sales tax be renewed by voters every six years will be heard by a House committee in Jefferson City on Monday evening.

State Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, speaks on the Missouri House floor in Jefferson City on February 28, 2019 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel of House Communications)

The House Conservation and Natural Resources Committee will hear testimony Monday at 7 from State Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, who’s the bill sponsor.

Committee chairman State Rep. Tim Remole, R-Excello, tells Missourinet he expects a standing-room only audience on Monday evening. Moon is also expecting a big turnout, telling Missourinet a group called the “Missouri Hunting and Working Dog Alliance” plans to support the bill Monday.

Under Representative Moon’s measure, which is House joint resolution 18, Missourians would cast ballots on the measure in November 2020.

The conservation sales tax was first approved by Missouri voters in November 1976, and it hasn’t been voted on since.

Moon’s proposed constitutional amendment, upon voter approval, would require the conservation sales tax to be approved by voters in 2020 and every six years thereafter.

Former State Sen. Brian Munzlinger, R-Williamstown, filed similar legislation in 2018. That bill died.

The conservation sales tax is a separate tax from the one-tenth-of-one percent parks, soil and water sales tax that was created through a constitutional amendment. That tax was first approved by Missouri voters in 1984, and was earmarked specifically for the state park system and efforts to stop soil erosion.

Missouri voters have re-approved it four times: in 1988, 1996, 2006 and in 2016.

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