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The Week of May 12, 2025

The Missouri Senate on May 14 cleared a proposed constitutional amendment for the statewide ballot to completely repeal existing protections for reproductive rights and instead impose an abortion ban. 

After invoking a procedural move that’s uncommon in the Senate to end a filibuster, the chamber voted 21-11 to send the measure, House Joint Resolution 73, to voters. By default it will go on the November 2026 ballot unless the governor exercises his constitutional authority to set an earlier election date. The House of Representatives approved HJR 73 nearly a month ago.

Repealing Amendment 3, which Missouri voters just ratified in November, was a top priority for members of the majority party this year. Under the current constitutional language, abortion rights are protected up to the point of fetal viability – usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Legal restrictions are allowed after that point, except when a medical professional deems an abortion necessary to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.” 

This joint resolution broadly bans abortion, with narrow exceptions for “medical emergencies” and cases of rape or incest. However, abortions involving the latter two categories are only allowed during the first 12 weeks of gestation.

Despite deleting Amendment 3 from the Missouri Constitution in its entirety, including protections for access to contraception and other forms of reproductive care, the ballot language for HJR 73 entirely omits that fact and instead claims it would “guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages,” which is already guaranteed by Amendment 3.

The ballot language also says it would “protect children from gender transition,” referring to a provision of HJR 73 that would constitutionally prohibit gender-affirming care for minors. That provision is unrelated to the measure’s primary purpose of eliminating abortion rights but I suspect was added as so-called “ballot candy” intended to appeal to voters. The ballot language is expected to face a court challenge.

The decision to cut off debate on HJR 73 and another bill to eliminate earned sick leave requirements in state law prompted the Senate to adjourn for the year two days before session was scheduled to end pursuant to the state constitution. With the Senate gone, the House spent one more day passing bills before also calling it quits early. This marks the first time in memory that neither chamber was in session for what should have been the last day.

Majority party bill to repeal new earned sick leave law sent to governor

A new state law requiring private employers to provide workers with earned sick leave will be repealed Aug. 28 under legislation the majority party pushed through the Senate on May 14 over the objections of the minority party, who had blocked the measure for weeks.

After preventing members of the minority party from engaging in further debate, the Senate voted 22-11 in favor of the measure, with just one member of majority party joining the unanimous minority party in opposition. The House of Representatives approved the bill in March by a vote of 96-51. 

House Bill 567, which the governor is expected to sign into law, would repeal the sick leave provisions of Proposition A, which Missouri voters approved in November with nearly 58% support. Those provisions took effect May 1 and require most employers to give their workers one hour of leave for every 30 hours worked, while establishing civil and criminal consequences for employers who violate the law. 

Proposition A also boosted the state’s minimum wage from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 an hour, with a second increase to $15 an hour coming on January 1. House Bill 567 won’t affect that scheduled increase. However, it does repeal a 2006 statutory requirement that the state’s minimum wage be adjusted annually based on inflation.

Since by the time HB 567 takes effect on Aug. 28, workers will have been accruing sick leave for nearly four months, it is unclear what will happen to that accumulated leave at businesses that decide to no longer offer it.

Governor’s last-minute KC stadium plan dies in Senate

After sailing through the House of Representatives on a lopsided vote, a package of public subsidies the governor proposed at the last minute to keep the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals in Missouri crashed against the rocky shores of bipartisan Senate opposition on May 13.

The stadium plan followed a highly unusual process since it wasn’t filed as a bill in either chamber, nor subject to the normal legislative process that includes committee hearings and the opportunity for public comment. Instead, with just four days left in the 2025 legislative session, it was made public for the first time when its House sponsor offered it as an amendment to a Senate bill that sought to modify laws governing name, image and likeness compensation for high school athletes.

Other than a select few who had been given advance notice, most lawmakers didn’t see the proposed statutory language of the amendment until just minutes before it was brought up for debate. This prompted bipartisan criticism that controversial and potentially costly legislation to subsidize billionaire professional sports team owners was being rushed through at the last minute without meaningful review. Despite those concerns, the legislation, Senate Bill 80, passed easily on a vote of 180-40, with seven lawmakers voting “present.” Both support for and opposition to the bill was bipartisan.

The complaints about the secretive process and lack of public vetting gained more traction in the Senate when SB 80 returned to the upper chamber for a final vote, with senators from both parties spending about six hours filibustering the measure before Senate leadership set it aside.

The Royals want to construct a new baseball stadium while the Chiefs are seeking to, at a minimum, upgrade and expand the existing Arrowhead Stadium. After Jackson County voters overwhelmingly voted against a countywide sales tax to help fund the projects in April 2024, the Kansas Legislature approved a package of incentives to lure one or both teams across the border. Until the issue was brought up in the House, there had been little public discussion from state or local officials in Missouri about a counterproposal.

The governor’s plan would have authorized the state to pay half of the costs of any stadium project for a Major League Baseball or National Football League team. It also called for redirecting existing tax dollars generated by the teams toward repaying the bonds that would finance those projects. To protect taxpayers, a team would have been required to repay all public funds invested in a stadium if it later relocated to another state. Because the legislation didn’t specifically apply to Kansas City, it could have funded future stadium projects in St. Louis. 

On the Floor

This week, the Senate discussed the following bills:

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

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.

Other News

Kit Bond, former governor and U.S. senator, dies at age 86

Christopher “Kit” Bond, a Republican who served two non-consecutive terms as Missouri governor before spending 24 years in the U.S. Senate, died May 13 at age 86. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bond died of pneumonia at a St. Louis-area hospital.

Bond began his political career in 1968 with an unsuccessful bid for Congress before being elected state auditor in 1970 when he defeated a five-term Democrat incumbent. Halfway through his term as auditor in 1972, Bond, at age 33, won an open seat to become the youngest governor in Missouri history and the state’s first Republican governor in nearly 30 years.

Despite a productive first term in which he spearheaded a major reorganization of state government, Bond lost his re-election bid in the post-Watergate election of 1976. But in a remarkable political comeback, he reclaimed the Governor’s Mansion in 1980.

Two years after his second stint as governor ended, Bond was elected to the first of four U.S. Senate terms in 1986. As a senator, he was unabashed about securing millions of dollars in so-called pork-barrel spending for Missouri. Bond chose not to seek a fifth term in 2010, subsequently becoming a lobbyist.

Bond, who resided in Ladue in recent years, was born in St. Louis on May 6, 1939, but grew up in Mexico, MO. He is survived by his second wife, Linda Pell, and his son from his first marriage, Sam Bond, plus two grandchildren.

I will be emailing my 2025 End of Session Report soon that will have what my office was able to accomplish this year. Stay tuned!

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.