John Martin:
Out of touch with Boone County.

What Boone County voted

Proposition A passed statewide in November 2024. It guaranteed Missouri workers paid sick leave, raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, and tied future raises to inflation so the wage would keep up with prices.

Boone County said yes, 63.5 to 36.5.

What John Martin did

Four months after the vote, he voted for House Bill 567. It wiped out the paid sick leave before most workers had used a day of it, and it struck the automatic inflation raises from the minimum wage. The governor signed it. Sick leave ended August 28, 2025.

If we want to offer sick leave, I think we should leave it up to the business, not force it upon them.

John Martin, Boone County Democrats town hall, May 21, 2025 (KOMU 8)

What Boone County voted

Amendment 3 wrote the right to reproductive freedom into the Missouri Constitution in November 2024.

Boone County said yes, 66.9 to 33.1. Two out of three voters.

What John Martin did

Five months later he voted for HJR 73. It repeals Amendment 3 in full and replaces it with an abortion ban that allows only narrow exceptions. It will be on your ballot this November as a new "Amendment 3." If it passes, the right you voted for is gone.

He had already put out an official press release calling providers "abortionists" and naming only one exception he believes in: the life of the mother.

It's not overturning what the voters did last year.

John Martin on HJR 73, Columbia Missourian, May 20, 2025

What Boone County voted

Missourians have written their own laws by petition since 1908. In August 2026 the legislature asked voters to give some of that power up. Amendment 4 would have required a citizen amendment to win in every one of the state's eight congressional districts, so a handful of districts could veto the rest of the state.

Boone County said no, 84.7 to 15.3. It failed statewide by four to one.

What John Martin did

He voted to put Amendment 4 on the ballot. Before that, he wrote his own bill. House Bill 551, filed five weeks after Proposition A and Amendment 3 passed, would have closed petition records to the public, banned paying circulators per signature, and thrown out signatures already gathered if a ballot title changed. At the hearing, 117 people filed testimony. Three supported it.

People vote on things that are there, but at the same time, we as a legislature can put things back on the ballot.

John Martin, Boone County Pachyderm Club, Oct. 17, 2025 (Columbia Missourian)

What Boone County voted

Amendment 5, on the August 2026 ballot, would have phased out the state income tax and let the legislature raise and expand sales taxes to make up the difference. Groceries, services, the things everyone buys. The people who benefit most from ending the income tax are the people who pay the most of it.

Boone County said no, 86.3 to 13.7. Statewide, 83 percent said no.

What John Martin did

He voted to put Amendment 5 on the ballot, then called ending the income tax his biggest accomplishment of the session. The year before, he defended wiping out the state tax on capital gains, a break that goes almost entirely to people who sell stock and property, as "a positive win."

We have a historic opportunity to help Missourians have more take-home pay and they can choose to spend that.

John Martin on the House floor, Mar. 12, 2026 (KOMU 8)

The paper trail

Three houses in three House districts in three years. Here is the sequence, from Boone County property and tax records and his own campaign filings.

1. 2017 to 2023His personal property tax declarations list a home on Longfellow Lane in Columbia. That is House District 45.
2. Spring to fall 2022He runs for the 47th District. His campaign finance reports list a rented private mailbox on West Broadway as his address. His own contributions to the campaign list the Longfellow Lane home in the 45th.
3. Aug. 31, 2022A 3,500-square-foot home on McGill Creek Road near Rocheport, in the 47th, closes. That is 29 days after the primary and ten weeks before the general election. It had been listed at $749,900.
4. Nov. 8, 2022He loses the 47th to Adrian Plank by 754 votes.
5. Jan. 27, 2023He forms a new committee to run in the 44th. The paperwork lists the McGill Creek Road address, which is in the 47th.
6. May 1, 2023The Longfellow Lane home sells for about $353,000.
7. July 21, 2023A 1,420-square-foot house on Buffalo Drive, inside the 44th, sells for $235,000.
8. Aug. 11, 2023Three weeks later, his committee paperwork is amended to add the Buffalo Drive address.
9. Jan. 2024The year he files for and wins the 44th, his personal property declaration lists McGill Creek Road, in the 47th, as both his mailing address and his property address. It is the only year that address was used.
10. Jan. 2025 and 2026His declarations list the Buffalo Drive house in the 44th. He still owns the McGill Creek Road home in the 47th and has paid taxes on it every year since 2022.

What he says

My primary residence is in the 44th. I mean it's no secret that I own some property in another district. But, you know, my primary is in the 44th and I've registered with the Secretary of State, the Boone County clerk and I've got all my, you know, as far as all my paperwork is taken care of there to be a resident of the 44th.

John Martin, KMIZ interview, Oct. 2, 2024

He has never said when he moved in, how much time he spends there, or what he does with the larger house in the 47th.

What the water meter says

A screenshot posted in a comment on his own Facebook page, since removed, appeared to show the water account for the Buffalo Drive house over the summer of 2026. The committee has not been able to authenticate the document. If it is genuine, this is what it shows.

The EPA puts average household water use at about 82 gallons per person per day. Low usage does not settle where someone lives. Travel, a bad meter, or something else could explain it. But 282 gallons in a summer is not what an occupied home looks like, and he should explain it.

What the Constitution says

Article III, Section 4 requires a representative to have lived in the district for one year before Election Day. Section 13 says a representative who moves out of the district vacates the seat. Section 18 makes the House itself the judge of whether a member meets those requirements. Missouri courts look at where a person actually lives and intends to stay. Owning property, getting mail, or filing paperwork at an address does not by itself make it a residence.

He lives somewhere. The record does not make it clear where, and he has not cleared it up.