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The Week of Feb. 3, 2025

On the Floor

This week, our work on the Senate floor began in earnest as the first pieces of legislation were brought up before the body for discussion, including Senate Bill 4, which would enact several provisions:

The chamber also began discussion on Senate Bill 10, which would repeal the Sept. 30, 2029, sunset date on the hospital federal reimbursement allowance and also repeals the Sept. 1, 2026, sunset dates on the authority for political subdivisions to use the construction manager-at-risk and design-build methods for certain construction projects.

Additionally, the Senate gave first round approval to Senate Bill 59, which would allow an income tax deduction of all survivor benefits derived from service in the Armed Forces of the United States, in addition to the deduction for retirement benefits for military service currently authorized in law. 

Finally, the Senate passed the first bills of the 2025 legislative session and sent them to Missouri House of Representatives for consideration:

In the next couple of weeks, I expect to see Senate Bills 52 & 44 be brought up before the full Senate for discussion. As you may know, this bill would establish state control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. I remain in opposition to this bill and will continue to fight for the city of St. Louis to keep control over their police department.

Bills and Committees

Judiciary Committee:

The committee also heard Senate Bill 134, which states that any person required to register as a tier III sexual offender who is a parent, legal guardian or custodian of a student cannot be present in any school building, any real property that comprises a school or any place where a school-related activity is taking place.

Commerce Committee:

The committee heard testimony regarding Senate Bill 186, which creates provisions relating to integrated resource planning for electrical corporations.

Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee:

The committee heard three concurrent resolutions this week. Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide and designates July 11, 2025, as "Srebrenica Genocide Remembrance Day" in Missouri. Senate Concurrent Resolution 4 expresses support for the federal Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, which requires that vessels carrying cargo between locations in the United States be owned by American companies, crewed by American mariners and built in American shipyards. Senate Concurrent Resolution 6 recognizes and celebrates the special relationship between the United States and Ireland.

Appropriations Committee:

The following departments and offices shared their funding requests for the Fiscal Year 2026 state operating budget in this week’s hearing:

Other News

House legislation moves to nullify protections for abortion rights

The House Children and Families Committee on Feb. 4 considered legislation seeking to nullify the abortion rights protections Missouri voters added to the state constitution last year and instead impose tight restrictions on reproductive rights – without actually repealing the new constitutional provisions.

Voters ratified Amendment 3 in November to restore reproductive rights in Missouri after the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority eliminated the federal right to abortion in 2022. The new state constitutional protections declare that “reproductive freedom shall not be denied, interfered with, delayed, or otherwise restricted” absent a compelling state interest that is achieved by the least restrictive means.

The right to an abortion is now protected up to the point of fetal viability, which typically is around 24 weeks of gestation. The state could impose restrictions after that point, with exceptions if a medical professional deems an abortion necessary to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”

House Joint Resolution 54 would add a new provision to the Missouri Constitution that would supersede Amendment 3 and ban all abortions, with narrow exceptions in cases of medical emergency, fetal abnormality, rape or incest. However, whether many women would actually qualify for one of those exceptions is questionable.

The rape and incest exceptions, for example, would apply only up to 12 weeks of gestation and only if the offenses have been reported to police. The purported exception for medical emergencies uses the same language included in a 2019 state law rendered unconstitutional by Amendment 3 that banned abortions in nearly all instances. That language was so vague it prompted some medical providers to refuse necessary care to women suffering severe pregnancy complications out of fear of being criminally prosecuted or losing their medical licenses.

In order to sell its abortion rights nullification provisions to voters, HJR 54 includes as so-called “ballot candy,” an unrelated section banning gender-transition surgeries or other gender-affirming care from being performed on or provided to children. In the months leading up the Amendment 3 vote, opponents centered their campaign on false claims that it would protect transgender rights, only to immediately abandon those claims once Amendment 3 was ratified.

Supporters of reproductive rights dominated the four-hour hearing on HJR 54, strongly opposing its attempts to effectively overturn the recent statewide vote. Only a handful of people testified in favor of the measure. If passed by both chambers of the General Assembly, HJR 54 automatically would go on the November 2026 statewide ballot.

Panel considers making transgender restrictions permanent

For about eight hours on Feb. 3, scores of transgender Missourians and their families and supporters took turns telling their stories and asking members of a House committee not to approve legislation extending a pair of laws enacted two years ago allegedly suppressing their community. Despite their pleas, the panel is expected to advance the bill.

The laws the General Assembly enacted in 2023 separately made it illegal to provide gender-affirming health care to transgender minors and prohibited transgender athletes from competing on a sports team – at any level from kindergarten through college – that doesn’t correspond with their birth gender. As part of a compromise to overcome resistance in the Senate, however, the restrictions in both bills are set to expire in 2027.

The House Emerging Issues Committee considered four identical bills to eliminate the sunset provision on the medical care prohibition, along with three identical bills to make the sports participation ban permanent. Only a half-dozen people testified in favor of the measures.

In an unexpected move two days after the House hearing, the Senate voted 22-8 to eliminate both sunset provisions. The vote came on an amendment to a larger bill to remove expiration dates from several other statutes. After the amendment was adopted, the Senate set aside the legislation, Senate Bill 10, without bringing it to a final vote. 

Sponsors of the medical care ban legislation said it is intended to protect kids from decisions they might later regret, while continuing the restriction on sports participation is portrayed as needed to protect the integrity of girls’ athletics. Opponents derided both measures as political attacks that would only harm transgender children.

Since the ban on gender-affirming care took effect, those services have been unavailable in Missouri, forcing some families with transgender children to relocate to other states where such care remains accessible if they wish to move forward with treatment.

House committee advances legislation to legalize video slots

The House Emerging Issues Committee on Feb. 3 voted 8-5 in favor of legislation to legalize and eventually regulate unlicensed video slots machines, which have proliferated at gas stations, bars and other locations around Missouri in recent years. However, three members who voted “yes” said before the vote they were doing so only to advance the bill to the full House of Representatives for debate and could oppose it later unless substantial changes are made.

Both the Missouri Gaming Commission, which oversees the state’s licensed casinos, and the State Highway Patrol consider the machines, known as video lottery terminals (VLTs), to be illegal gaming devices under existing state law. While a few local prosecutors have successfully brought cases against VLT companies, most have chosen not to, claiming they fall into a legal gray area.

House Bill 970 would grant authority for regulating VLTs to the Missouri Lottery Commission. Owners of existing machines would be allowed to keep them in operation until the commission put regulations in place, at which point owners would have another six months to either license or remove them.

Missouri lawmakers have deadlocked for years over how to best address VLTs, with some wanting to make it clear the machines are banned under the law, while others want to regulate and tax them. During the prolonged inaction, VLTs have continued to spread to the point that officials with the Lottery Commission on Feb. 5 testified during hearings on the state budget that tax revenue from lottery sales is down due to competition from untaxed VLTs.

Bills seek to gut minimum wage, sick leave law

The House Commerce Committee on Feb. 5 heard two bills aimed at gutting the minimum wage hike and sick leave guarantee Missouri voters approved in November. The panel took no immediate action on the bills, but is expected to advance legislation on the issue to the full House of Representatives for debate.

Voters passed Proposition A with 57.6% in support. The measure bumped the state’s standard minimum from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 an hour as of Jan. 1, with a second increase to $15 an hour slated to take effect in 2026. After that, the wage will be adjusted annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as has been required under state law for nearly 20 years. Starting May 1, Proposition A also will require private sector employers to provide workers with one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

House Bill 758 calls for repealing the annual CPI adjustments and exempting workers under age 20 from being subject to state minimum wage, instead allowing them to be paid the much lower federal minimum wage of just $7.25 an hour. It also would exempt businesses with gross sales of under $10 million a year from the sick leave requirements, thus carving out the vast majority of businesses.

The other measure, House Bill 958, would exempt workers from the state minimum wage if they are under age 21, work at a business with fewer than 50 employees, quit without giving two weeks’ notice or have received written notice for violating company policies.

Members of the majority in the Legislature previously moved to undo voter-approved minimum wage hikes passed in both 2006 and 2018, but those efforts went nowhere. However, the situation could be different this year since the governor has been a vocal opponent of Proposition A, claiming it harms small businesses.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Thank you for your interest in the legislative process. I look forward to hearing from you on the issues that are important to you this legislative session. If there is anything my office can do for you, please do not hesitate to contact my office at 573-751-3599.