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The Week of May 26, 2025

Governor calls extraordinary session on KC stadium package

After the governor’s last-minute push towards a stadium funding plan for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals died in the Missouri Senate during the last few days of the regular legislative session, he announced an extraordinary session for lawmakers to take another shot at it that will begin on Monday, June 2.

The Royals are seeking a replacement for the baseball team’s longtime home at Kauffman Stadium, while the Chiefs want to renovate and expand neighboring Arrowhead Stadium. However, Jackson County voters last year overwhelmingly rejected a countywide sales tax that would have helped fund the projects, prompting the Kansas Legislature to approve an incentives package aimed at luring one or both teams across the border. 

Instead of presenting a stadium plan as separate legislation early during the regular legislative session and working to build support for it, the governor waited until just four days before adjournment before publicly unveiling his proposal, which was offered as an amendment to a bill regarding high school athletes in the House of Representatives.

Despite bipartisan criticism that potentially costly legislation to subsidize billionaire professional sports team owners was being rushed through at the last minute without meaningful review, the amendment and underlying bill ultimately passed the House easily on a vote of 108-40, with seven lawmakers voting “present.” 

The governor’s plan encountered a far different reception in the Senate, with senators from both parties spending about six hours filibustering the measure before it was set aside. The bill died when the Senate adjourned for the year without bringing it back up for a vote.

The governor’s proposal would authorize the state to pay for half of any Major League Baseball or National Football League stadium project. It also would redirect existing tax dollars generated by the teams toward repaying the bonds that would be sold to finance those projects. A team would be required to repay all public funds invested in a stadium if it later relocated to another state. Because the legislation wouldn’t specifically apply to Kansas City, it could also be used to pay for future stadium projects in St. Louis. The total cost of the proposal to taxpayers is unclear.

The governor’s call also includes reconsideration of House Bill 19, a $513 million capital improvements appropriations bill for the upcoming 2026 fiscal year that unexpectedly died in the House during the regular session when leadership decided to not bring it up for a final vote. This bill included funding for research facilities at public universities, support for rural hospitals and scores of other projects large and small throughout the state. 

Additionally, due to the severe storms that have impacted the state over the past couple of months, the call includes establishing an income tax deduction for insurance policy deductibles incurred by homeowners and renters due to damages caused by severe weather, as well as appropriating $25 million to the Missouri Housing Trust Fund for general administration of affordable housing activities and to expand income eligibility for emergency aid.

Earned sick leave could go back on statewide ballot in 2026

Jobs With Justice, the group that led the effort to pass a ballot measure last year requiring most employers to provide earned sick leave to their workers, is already moving to place the issue back on the ballot as a constitutional amendment now that the General Assembly has voted to repeal the original version that only codified the law in statute.

Voters approved the measure with nearly 58% support. In addition to the earned sick leave requirement, Proposition A also calls for raising the standard state minimum wage to $15 an hour as of Jan. 1, 2026.

As a statute, however, Proposition A was vulnerable to legislative repeal, and lawmakers in the majority party made eliminating the sick leave law a top priority during the 2025 legislative session. The Senate took the final vote to send the repeal measure, House Bill 567, to the governor on May 14, with members of the minority party in unanimous opposition. The governor is expected to sign the bill into law.

Although it repeals the sick leave provisions, HB 567 leaves the pending $15 minimum wage intact. However, it does eliminate an annual inflationary adjustment to the state wage floor, a state law since 2006, which was also was voter approved.

The new initiative petition will put the sick leave issue back before voters in November 2026, but this time as a constitutional amendment that lawmakers couldn’t unilaterally repeal or modify without voter approval. In addition to restoring the sick leave requirements, the measure also would constitutionally protect the $15-an-hour minimum wage and reinstate the annual inflationary adjustment.

To put the sick leave amendment on next year’s ballot, the group will have to gather signatures from more than 170,000 registered Missouri voters by early May 2026. 

Lawmakers approve 50% increase in license fee

The service fee for renewing a driver’s license or vehicle license plates would increase 50% under legislation the Missouri House of Representatives sent to the governor on May 15 by a vote of 131-18, with one lawmaker voting “present.” The Senate previously voted 22-11 in favor of the measure.

Under Senate Bill 3, the service fee charged by the private contractors that run the state’s license offices would rise from $12 to $18 for two-year license plates or a six-year driver’s license, effective Aug. 28. The service fee is intended to cover a contractor’s operational expenses, with excess revenue retained by the contractor as profit.

The service fee is in addition to the actual cost of the plates or license, the revenue from which goes to the state and would not change under the bill. Lawmakers doubled the fee to its current rate in 2019 after it had remained flat for about two decades.

Supporters of the increase say it’s necessary to offset recent increases in the costs of running the license offices. Opponents say imposing another large fee hike on Missouri motorists so soon after the last one isn’t justified.

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.