Missouri House Speaker Jon Patterson is pledging support for legislation aimed at cracking down on “date rape” drugs, after two Democratic lawmakers said they believe they were drugged in Jefferson City during last year’s legislative session.
Patterson, a Republican and physician, said he found the lawmakers’ accounts “very troubling” and encouraged them to pursue criminal investigations.
“I just want them and everybody to know I support them 1,000% on doing that, whatever they need on that,” Patterson told reporters at a press conference last week. He added that it was the first he had heard of anything like that happening in Jefferson City, and said he would back the lawmakers “100%” if they need help at the Capitol.
Patterson pointed to legislation filed by state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs, a St. Louis Democrat, who went public last week about her experience and has sought to increase penalties for substances commonly associated with drink-spiking. The bill was approved last week by the House Emerging Issues Committee.
“I think one of the representatives has proposed legislation even, and has had a hearing, and I really support her in that,” Patterson said.
Fuchs said she was grateful to hear the speaker’s support — but emphasized that the next meaningful step will be whether House leaders help move the bill to the floor after it cleared committee last week.
“I hope that the support continues,” she said in an interview, “and now that it passed unanimously out of committee, I’m hopeful that the speaker is going to help encourage the floor leader to bring it to the floor so we can have a discussion about it and get it over to the Senate.”
Fuchs filed legislation to add several psychoactive substances — including GHB and its chemical precursors, as well as nitrous oxide — to Missouri’s Schedule I controlled substance list and to modify penalties for possession and delivery.
The speaker’s remarks came after Fuchs and House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat, testified in committee earlier this month that they suspected their drinks had been spiked during the 2025 session.
Fuchs told lawmakers she broke a rule she had long followed in Jefferson City — accepting a drink from someone she didn’t know well — and became disoriented and sick with gaps in her memory. She said she initially doubted herself, then later in session watched another colleague go from coherent to struggling with stairs, which made her suspicions feel less isolated.
Aune told the committee she questioned whether she had been drugged after a night in Jefferson City when she said she had been drinking only club soda. She said she later felt inexplicably inebriated, and spent the next day vomiting so severely she had to leave a leadership meeting repeatedly.
Since going public, Fuchs said she has heard from colleagues and from members of the public, including people who told her the testimony prompted them to reflect on their own experiences. She added that some people have privately disclosed similar stories, while others have expressed interest in being part of the conversation without wanting attention themselves.
“Once you start talking about things like this,” she said, “it brings awareness and also gives people thinking about their own experiences.”
Fuchs also framed the bill as a way to respond to a reality that can be difficult to prove after the fact: some drugs leave the body quickly, and victims may not seek testing immediately.
Debate around Fuchs’ bill has resurfaced a larger question about what has — and hasn’t — changed in Missouri politics since the Capitol’s most prominent sexual misconduct scandals a decade ago. In 2015, then-House Speaker John Diehl resigned after revelations he had sent sexually explicit text messages to a teenage intern, and state Sen. Paul LeVota resigned months later following allegations from interns of harassment and retaliation.
Fuchs, who first arrived in Jefferson City in 2015, said progress since then has been real but incremental.
“It’s incremental, and the light is shining on some of these things that happen in the dark,” she said. “We have sexual harassment policies here. We have trainings. We have people who are invested in making sure that the House and the Senate and this building are not only just safe for people who come here as elected officials, but for guests.”
Patterson’s statement of support is an opening, Fuchs said, but not the finish line.
“We could have bigger wins,” she said. “But if we’re measuring success according to how power structures work, yes, I do feel like we’re making progress.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
