Missouri lawmakers opened the 2024 session on Wednesday with GOP majority leaders of the House and Senate expressing optimism that they can accomplish major policy initiatives.
To do that, they’ll have to overcome widespread pessimism that election year pressures and a softening budgetary picture may make it challenging to have a productive session.
“And my question for us is simple: Will we seize the moment?” said Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia. “Will we focus on principle progress or political pandemonium? Will we care more about Missouri's future or our own futures? Political experts and onlookers don't think this session is going to matter too much. And my simple message is: Let's prove them wrong.”
For the most part, Wednesday was ceremonial, and lawmakers are not expected to vote on legislation for several weeks. But both Rowden and House Speaker Dean Plocher did use opening day to lay out their general priorities, which include:
- Reauthorizing a critical tax on hospitals that helps fund the state’s Medicaid program.
- Reexamining the state reassessment process.
- Asking voters to make it more difficult to enact constitutional amendments.
- Limiting foreign ownership of Missouri farmland.
- Passing legislation expanding school choice options in the state.
“You know, as we all know, Missouri is the Show-Me State,” said Plocher, R-Des Peres. “And therefore we can't just talk a big game, but we must show results.”
Election year politics
A number of lawmakers, including Plocher and Rowden, are running for statewide office — or in the case of House members, state Senate seats. And since the most heated primaries are on the GOP side of the aisle, some Democrats said they expect infighting to be a major session roadblock.
“There are a lot of things that have happened over the past few months, pitting our Senate and House chambers against each other more so than usual,” said House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, who is also running for governor. “We are apprehensive about what the Republican majority will be able to accomplish this year. But we are hopeful that there may be some room for some bipartisan things to do.”
At least three Republicans, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and state Sen. Bill Eigel, are seeking the governorship this year. Eigel in particular is focusing his message on how the GOP supermajorities in the legislature have failed to accomplish aspects of the GOP agenda.
“I've traveled the state, I've heard the same thing: frustration, disappointment, anger,” said Eigel, R-Weldon Spring. “Frustration for people who are struggling to make ends meet every single day. And they feel like there's a government in Jefferson City that honestly couldn't care less about what they're going through.”
Top issues include Medicaid reimbursement funding
One must-pass piece of legislation is the reauthorization of the Federal Reimbursement Allowance, a tax that hospitals pay to help fund the state’s Medicaid program.
Efforts to approve that measure in 2021 got bogged down after Republicans tried to attach amendments restricting certain types of birth control and funding for Planned Parenthood. Plocher said the failure to approve a FRA renewal would have major ramifications for the state’s budget.
“If we don't get it passed, I don't think our budget can absorb a $3.5 billion to $4 billion hit,” Plocher said.
A possible place for bipartisan agreement is help for the state’s Children’s Division, which has struggled for years to recruit and retain critical employees. Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, said she expects both parties to push to make the agency more stable and to slow the turnover that’s made it difficult to accomplish some of the department’s primary goals.
“Government was never intended to be a parent,” said Kelly, chairwoman of the committee that oversees the Children’s Division. “And my objective and goal is to make sure that the department does our work to ensure that we either get kids back to strong [biological] families, or we get them into strong adoptive homes.”
Quade said members of her caucus are supportive of increasing pay for Children’s Division investigators, who have a starting salary of around $43,000 a year. But she said that it remains to be seen whether the GOP makes that a priority, especially since the state budgetary picture is not as robust as in the past couple of years.
“We continuously see the Republican majority not invest in places where we believe it makes the most sense, and helps the most people,” Quade said. “So we'll see.”
With former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s departure from office, city lawmakers are not expecting the GOP to focus as much on trying to exert more state control over that prosecutor’s office — or trying to reimpose state control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
But Rep. Steve Butz, D-St. Louis, said he’s hoping lawmakers can come with some sort of bill that would curtail juveniles from carrying guns.
“The fact that [St. Louis Circuit Attorney] Gabe Gore has returned sanity and competency to the circuit attorney in St. Louis — it's a game changer. I think we all see that, we all feel it,” Butz said. “With Kim Gardner being gone, the emphasis on crime being unsolvable in the city of St. Louis is no longer on the table.”
Some lawmakers have put forward proposals to curtail who would pay St. Louis’ 1% earnings tax on people who work or live in the city.
“If this was just about St. Louis, I would say we're in trouble,” said Rep. Donna Baringer, D-St. Louis. “But it's not. Kansas City has an earnings tax. And I know that Kansas City carries a lot of weight here in Jefferson City. And so they're not going to hurt Kansas City. So that's why I'm going to focus on what Kansas City is saying.”
Cracks emerge in the Senate
One sign that the session may not go as smoothly as leaders hope arose soon after the Missouri Senate gaveled into session.
Several conservative lawmakers who have often clashed with leadership signaled that they plan to scrutinize legislation more closely — especially “omnibus bills” that often pass at the end of session and contain numerous ideas crammed into one piece of legislation.
“We've had so many different legislators that have been frustrated with the individuals prioritizing not the needs of the people and not protecting individual rights,” said Sen. Nick Schroer, R-St. Charles County. “And you always hear year after year after year, every single election season, it seems to be the same thing: ‘We didn't get anything done this year. But I promise we'll do it next year.’ I'm tired of talking. I'm tired of kicking the can. Let us actually get something done.”
Schroer is one of a number of House and Senate members who have become part of the conservative Missouri Freedom Caucus, an offshoot of the federal version.
“It's not to be an obstructionist. It's to be an advancer of freedom and liberty,” said Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville. “It's to be an advancer of the Republican ideals.”
Baringer said if the session isn’t productive, then Missourians will only have Republicans who have dominant control to blame.
“You're having infighting within the majority party,” she said. “So that's where I see the problems are going to come from.”
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