Like much of the state Monday, life at the Missouri Capitol was interrupted by Mother Nature, as icy conditions forced the cancellation of the Senate floor schedule and committee hearings, as well as most House committees.
When things return to more normal circumstances Tuesday, observers will be looking to see if the icy relationship between members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus and Senate GOP leadership has thawed.
On Thursday, Freedom Caucus members spent a marathon day holding the floor and holding up a slate of gubernatorial nominees when Senate leadership wouldn’t take immediate action on legislation to reform the state’s initiative petition process.
Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia eventually pulled the motion for the nominees.
Tensions between conservative members and GOP leadership in the Senate has boiled for several years, but the latest row comes less than 10 working days into a legislative session that already had low expectations in terms of productivity thanks to being an election year.
State Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, one of the Freedom Caucus members and a candidate for governor said in a weekend interview that the way to move past the differences in the Senate was for Rowden, also a candidate for Secretary of State, and Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, to be replaced.
Rowden’s response in a social media post Friday night? “Bring it on, Big Boy,” quoting the late Missouri House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard.
Legislatively, there are least two Senate committee hearings to watch. On Tuesday, bills that would create a Parent’s Bill of Rights when it comes to their child’s education and curtail some authority of the State Board of Education and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education could get voted out of the Senate Education and Workforce Development committee.
On Wednesday, there will be a public hearing on SB 810 in the Health and Welfare Committee. The bill would make abortion-related facilities ineligible for Mo HealthNet funding.
In the House, weather conditions wiped out a Monday hearing that could have produced a vote out of the chamber’s Rules and Regulatory Oversight committee on a K-12 student transfer system bill.
On Tuesday, public hearings on initiative petition reform bills will dominate a hearing of the House Committee on Elections and Elected Officials.
HB 1749 would require anyone circulating petitions to be a Missouri resident or to be in the state for 30 days beforehand. They would have to be U.S. citizens and could not be paid based on the number of signatures they collect.
The panel will also hear public testimony on a pair of similar House Joint Resolutions. Each would ban the use of initiative petitions for a sales tax on food or imposing taxes or fees on real estate or personal property. One would tie passage of any constitutional amendment to receiving a majority statewide and in each of the state’s congressional districts, while the other would require a majority statewide and in a majority of the state’s House of Representatives districts.
Both of the Joint Resolutions would require voter approval.
A House attempt at legalizing sports wagering returns to the House Committee on Public Policy on Tuesday. The bill is similar to past efforts that have stalled in the Senate as some lawmakers continue to want to tie sports wagering legislation to video gaming terminals which have spread across the state and are unregulated. The state’s major league sports teams are now collecting signatures in hopes of putting an initiative petition measure on a statewide ballot later this year.
On Wednesday, Gov. Mike Parson delivers his final State of the State address, and releases his administration’s FY 2025 budget proposal. In recent years, Democrats who find themselves in the super-minority in both chambers have embraced some of Parson’s budget more than some of Parson’s fellow Republicans. But that has often been due to the availability of COVID-related federal aid. With that money in the past, officials have warned of tighter budgets to come.