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The Week of April 28, 2025

On the Floor

This week, the Senate began floor discussion on House Bill 711, which would establish the Public School Open Enrollment Act, enabling students to transfer to nonresident local education agencies. After five hours of debate, this measure was set aside. The bill had previously cleared the Missouri House of Representatives by a vote of 88-69.

House Bill 711 would create a voluntary system under which public school districts could opt-in to accepting transfer students from other districts. To minimize the impact on districts losing students, the House version of the bill set a 3% cap on how many students could transfer out of given district. However, the Senate version bumped that cap to 5%.

Before setting the bill aside, senators amended it to require suspension of the open enrollment program in years in which the state failed to meet statutory funding minimums for K-12 schools, their transportation costs or teacher salary grants. Senators also added a variety of other provisions pertaining to public education.

Open enrollment supporters say it would create a school choice option within the context of traditional public schools. Opponents argue it could further weaken financially struggling school districts by siphoning off students – and the state revenue that would follow them to their new districts.

Additionally, the Senate third read and passed the following bills:

On April 29, the Missouri Senate passed a $49.5 billion state operating budget for the upcoming 2026 fiscal year that differs significantly from the $47.9 billion spending plan the House of Representatives approved in early April, setting up final negotiations over the final budget with just a week to go before the May 9 constitutional deadline for sending the various appropriations bills to the governor.

Education funding is a major area of disagreement, with the Senate including an additional $300 million for local public school districts to provide the minimum amount of basic K-12 funding called for under state law. The House budget plan excludes that funding, which also wasn’t included in the governor’s proposed FY 2026 budget.

The Senate also eliminated $50 million in direct taxpayer funding for private school vouchers, which is included in the House version at the governor’s request. The state’s voucher program currently is funded by private donations subsidized by state tax credits and is structured this way to circumvent a constitutional prohibition against providing direct public funding to private individuals or organizations. The governor’s plan for direct state funding of the program likely runs afoul of that provision.

On higher education funding, the Senate endorsed a 3% funding increase for public colleges and universities, double the 1.5% bump sought by the governor and approved by the House. However, the Senate did side with the governor’s request for $107 million for child care subsidies, funding the House omitted.

The Senate also added numerous earmarks for local projects sought by lawmakers, while deleting some of the earmarks included by House members. If lawmakers are unable to agree on a final budget by the deadline, they would have to return in a special legislative session to finish the job before the new fiscal year begins on July 1. 

The following bills were truly agreed to and finally passed by the General Assembly this week. They have been sent to the governor’s desk for his consideration.

Bills and Committees

Senator May’s Legislation:

This week, I was proud to present Senate Bill 693 to the Senate Education Committee. This legislation would prohibit the establishment of new charter schools in St. Louis City beginning Aug. 28, 2025. The provisions of this bill would not apply to the renewal of charter contracts or transfers of sponsorship for any charter school established in St. Louis City prior to Aug. 28, 2025. I am deeply concerned about funding for public schools. I believe that until we can ensure public schools are fully funded, we should not allow more charter schools to be established in the city. This conversation does not have to pit public schools against charter schools. Instead, we should all be working toward providing the best education possible for students, and that includes ensuring schools have the resources they need to succeed. 

Commerce Committee:

The committee heard two bills this week. House Bill 493 would provide a sales tax exemption for certain used personal property, including property that is sold a second time or any number of additional times after the initial point of sale, at an auction. This bill would not apply to motor vehicles, boats or outboard motors for use on state highways or waters, which are required to be titled. House Bill 516 would modify criteria of hazardous waste investigations and increase the hazardous waste fund appropriations.

Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee:

This week the committee heard House Bill 1041, which would modify inspection and gauging fees imposed on barrels of malt liquor.

Other News

Supreme Court upholds minimum wage, sick leave law

Without dissent, the Missouri Supreme Court on April 29 rejected an election contest brought on behalf of business groups seeking to invalidate voters’ recent approval of Proposition A raising the statewide minimum wage and guaranteeing earned sick leave for most workers. Missouri voters enacted the measure last year with 57.6% in support.

In their election challenge, the business groups alleged the ballot language and accompanying fiscal estimate on Proposition A misled voters as to the measure’s true purpose and cost. Those groups opposed the passage of Proposition A and have been lobbying the General Assembly to repeal its earned sick leave provisions.

In an opinion written by the chief justice and joined by five other judges, the court found no merit to the allegations.

 “This case addresses the concerns brought by [Contestants] as to whether the summary statement and fiscal note summary for Proposition A were so misleading that they constituted an irregularity of sufficient magnitude to cast doubt on the fairness of the election and validity of its results” the chief justice wrote. “Because Contestants’ claims fall well short of this high standard, this Court finds there was no election irregularity and the election results are valid.”

The court further ruled contestants’ additional claims that Proposition A ran afoul of certain technical requirements for drafting legislation could not be considered in this case because they raised substantive constitutional issues that are unrelated to the validity of the election.

In a separate opinion, another justice argued the court lacks the legal jurisdiction to consider post-election ballot measure challenges and should have simply dismissed the case, Raymond McCarty, et al., v. Missouri Secretary of State, et al.. Setting the jurisdictional issue aside, however, the justice agreed with the principal opinion’s conclusions on the merits.

Proposition A increased Missouri’s standard minimum wage from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 an hour in January, with a second increase to $15 an hour set to take effect in 2026. And as of May 1, Proposition A also requires private sector employers to provide workers with one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours work.

In March, the House of Representatives approved House Bill 567 to repeal the earned sick leave requirement, but members of the minority party in the Senate so far have blocked it from winning final passage. Even though the sick leave law is now in effect, members of the majority party in the Senate are expected to continue to push for its repeal during the final days of the 2025 legislative session, which ends May 16.

Lawsuit challenges new law as attorney general tries to invoke it

On the same day the Missouri attorney general moved to take advantage of a new state law allowing his office to skip normal procedures to immediately appeal court-issued injunctions, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of that legislation was filed in Cole County Circuit Court.

A day earlier, on April 24, the governor signed Senate Bill 22 into law. The bill’s main provisions severely weaken the authority of Missouri courts to rewrite deceptive or misleading ballot language drafted by the General Assembly or the secretary of state’s office, thus making it harder to challenge such ballot language.

However, another provision of SB 22 authorizes the attorney general to immediately appeal preliminary injunctions that block enforcement of state laws or constitutional provisions. Typically, injunctions cannot be appealed until the trial court makes a final ruling on all issues in a given case in order to avoid unnecessary delays in the judicial process.

That provision was added to the bill to enable the attorney general to appeal a preliminary injunction a Jackson County judge issued earlier this year blocking enforcement of several anti-abortion state laws that were rendered unconstitutional after Missouri voters added protections for reproductive rights to the state constitution late last year. He filed that appeal on April 25.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of an activist could torpedo SB 22 and quash the attorney general’s appeal in the abortion rights case. The lawsuit claims SB 22’s ballot language and appeals provisions bear no relation to each other, thus violating constitutional requirements that bills be limited to a single subject that is clearly reflected in a bill’s title and not changed from its original purpose. It further argues the bill violates equal protection requirements by giving the attorney general – but not other parties in a case – the authority to appeal adverse ruling on injunctions.

The lawsuit, Sean Soendker Nicholson v. State of Missouri, also contends an emergency clause that allowed the injunction-appeal provision to take effect immediately upon being signed into law is invalid since the Missouri Constitution allows such clauses only on legislation “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety” and none of those circumstances apply to SB 22.

Governor pulls state school board nominee after backlash

The governor pulled his nomination of Tom Prater of Springfield to the Missouri State Board of Education on April 24 after a backlash from conservative groups over the nominee’s political donations to Democratic candidates threatened to derail his Senate confirmation.

While Prater, an eye surgeon, primarily has donated to Republican candidates, including $21,000 to a political action committee tied to the governor, he also has contributed to Democrats. Prater who briefly served on the board last year as an interim appointment of previous Gov. Mike Parson, was nominated as an Independent.

The governor has replaced half of the eight-member board in recent weeks. The Senate confirmed the other three appointees. Under the Missouri Constitution, no more than half of the board’s members can be from the same political party.

The partisan breakdown on the board currently stands at four Republicans, two Democrats and one Independent. The governor must nominate either a Democrat or another Independent to fill Prater’s spot, which represents the 7th Congressional District in southwest Missouri.

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.