GOP Headquarters, Blue Springs Kansas City skyline Jackson County Courthouse, Independence
Missouri Legislature
continued from June 2023 newsletter
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Plan to widen I-70 from Blue Springs to Wentzville, costing $2.8 billion.
Passed a huge $49 billion state budget, but the Senate added back in DEI (diversity, equity, Inclusion) programs that the House had taken out. Really, Senators? Is this an accomplishment or a failure?
SB 34- Authorizes school districts and charter schools to offer elective social studies courses on the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Sent to the Governor on May 30.
SB 298 - Passed a ban on texting and calling while driving, hands-free calling is still allowed.
Bill to let car dealers collect sales tax instead of the DMV. They think they are losing $40-60 million in revenue.
SB 49 - The SAFE Act - Doctors banned from giving transgender drugs to kids under 18 or doing trans surgery.
SB 39 requires athletes to compete on team of their biological sex.
SB 190 “allows” counties to freeze property tax rates for seniors. Do they need to be allowed? And eliminating state income tax on social security
GOOD FAIL- Did not pass a bill on sports betting — we think it’s a WIN for Missouri! We have enough gambling in our state already. Hoskins-R and Houx-R (both from Warrensburg) fought to have sports betting. Maybe Johnson County needs to reconsider who they elect in 2024
GOOD FAIL - SB 7 & HB 1165 - Chief Data Officer. Missourians stood up against this and caused it to fail. But it might come up again next year.
FAILURES:We desperately need some changes in our State Legislature!
BIG FAIL - Missouri needs a tougher path to changing the constitution. Our current 51% of the vote in an election allows dark money and other questionable practices to add laws to our constitution (as in: the cannibus bill, Clean Missouri, losing Right to Work, boat gambling….). It also allows our 2 big cities to completely override the wishes of the rest of the state. The House passed a version to change how we add to the constitution; the Senate did not. (They’re too busy debating how to do sports betting.) Now we worry that ballot measures next Fall will put abortion, same-sex marriage, and ranked choice voting into our constitution. Senators, what are you doing?
FAIL - SB 190 - Some wanted to hold the property tax increase to no more than 3-4% a year. But all they did was "allow" (not mandate) counties to freeze property taxes for senior citizens. I'm not sure why counties need the State's permission to do that. I call this a big fail!!!
FAIL - HB 903 would have lowered the amount of MO agricultural land that can be owned by foreigners (like China) from 1% to .5%. It was passed by the House but failed in the Senate. Senator Eigel requested that the governor call a special session to address this bill.
FAIL - Missouri has the lowest starting teacher pay in the country. The House passed a bill (HB 497) to raise the pay. The Senate didn’t even bring it up for debate.
FAIL - Over 40 states allow open enrollment in schools (kids can enroll in a different public school). HB 253 was passed. The Senate did not bring it up for debate.
FAIL - HB 634 would have banned K-12 schools from teacher about gender identity. It didn’t even make it out of the House committee.
FAIL - HB 1169 would have forced manufacturers to label products that used rMNA in vaccines or any other products. It was opposed by lobbyists and so didn’t even make it out of the House committee.
FAIL - SB 100 - the Senators failed to give Missourians the right to use gold or silver for personal transactions, and would have prohibited testate from requiring digital currency as payment for debt.
FAIL - HB 336 - would require that employers who require employees to be vaccinated can be held responsible for injury resulting from the immunization.
