Will Chiefs’ exit mark the official end of the Missouri-Kansas border war truce?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Missouri lawmakers refuse to renew 2019 border truce after Chiefs move.
- Collapse of truce signals renewed cross-border incentive competition and poaching.
- Missouri shifts focus to retaining Royals and planning legislative responses.
Missouri will not renew a landmark economic agreement with Kansas after the Kansas City Chiefs announced plans to cross state lines, a top state lawmaker confirmed to The Star on Monday.
“We’ve got a big legislative agenda planned for the session and a border war truce isn’t part of it,” said Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican. “I have no plans to advance a border war truce bill, even if it is offered.”
The stark acknowledgment likely signals the official death knell of the 2019 agreement that largely stopped the two states from swiping Kansas City metro businesses from one another.
The collapse of the so-called “border war” truce could mark a new era of business poaching after the two states spent the past 18 months fighting over the Chiefs and Kansas City Royals. The Chiefs’ announcement of plans to move to Kansas, backed by that state’s supercharged bonding program, likely fueled the agreement’s downfall in Missouri.
Earlier this year, Kansas City officials voted unanimously to repeal a local ordinance tied to the Missouri-Kansas agreement.
In defense of Missouri’s decision not to pursue a new agreement, Patterson pointed specifically at the Chiefs and Missouri’s ongoing efforts to keep the Royals inside state lines.
“The underlying principle of the truce is noble, but the events of the last month demonstrate what a chimera it really is in practice,” Patterson said. “The Chiefs deal is a perfect example of an incentive package that the truce sought to avoid. If it didn’t apply to that, I’m not sure what it applies to.”
Kansas-Missouri Border War
Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Missouri’s governor at the time, Republican Mike Parson, struck a deal in 2019 to limit the use of state-level incentives to encourage business border hopping within the metro.
Kansas’ side of the truce was enforced through an executive order while Missouri lawmakers codified it in a state law that expired in August.
Missouri legislators ended last year’s legislative session without renewing the agreement, but at least one lawmaker previously told The Star he had planned to refile a new bill during next year’s session, which begins in January. However, the Chiefs’ announced move appears to have halted that effort.
Missouri Sen. Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican who filed the renewal bill last year, echoed Patterson’s argument in an interview. He said he hadn’t heard interest in pursuing a renewal from Kansas City officials.
“I don’t know that there will be an appetite to get this done this year, particularly if Kansas City is not pushing for it,” Cierpiot said. “So it may just be dead for a while. We’ll have to see.”
A spokesperson for Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, declined to comment on the future of the agreement with Kansas. However, a chorus of Missouri lawmakers — from a Kansas City Democrat in the Missouri Senate to the leader of the hard-right Freedom Caucus — appeared to be in agreement about letting the truce collapse.
Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat, said on Monday that Kansas officials were “secretly working” for the past two years to violate the agreement. Kansas leaders, however, have previously rejected that argument and claim that efforts to lure the Chiefs were not in violation of the truce.
“At this time, it would be foolish to enter into another agreement with Kansas knowing that they will fleece their own taxpayers to line the pockets of billionaires - which was the exact thing the truce was meant to stop,” Nurrenbern said.
Sen. Nick Schroer, a Defiance Republican who chairs the right-wing Freedom Caucus, also made clear that he would not support a new agreement and said there would be “zero going back to a border war truce.”
“Kansas officials made it clear they have zero interest being respectful neighbors to Missouri, and are more worried about poaching businesses based in our state,” Schroer said. “I think you’ll see a bipartisan effort to play by that same rule book when it comes to how our legislature treats Kansas.”
Schroer went a step further and said he would be filing a slew of bills this upcoming session in the wake of the Chiefs’ decision, including legislation “zeroing in on surcharges on larger venues to help contribute to demolition if the subsidized team leaves the state” and “removal of any recognition of the chiefs as an official team of our great state.”
Kansas defends Chiefs move
Despite the hurt feelings in Missouri, Kansas officials have regularly argued that their efforts to lure the Chiefs through the use of incentives did not violate the border war truce.
Kelly, the Kansas governor, told The Star before the Chiefs announced their move across state lines that stadium deals were “a completely different kind of thing” than the intent of the truce with Missouri.
“I know that Missouri has essentially ended the deal that we had. I’m standing by it,” Kelly said at the time. “We will not go across the border to try to entice companies to come across the state line. We will stand by our commitment that we made in 2019.”
Meanwhile, the attention for top leaders in Missouri has now shifted to keeping the Royals. Multiple lawmakers last week framed the Chiefs’ planned exit as a sign that Missouri needed to double down on its efforts to keep Kansas City’s other major professional sports team.
A spokesperson for Kehoe, Missouri’s governor, made those intentions clear in a statement on Monday.
“Governor Kehoe and his team are continuing conversations with Royals leadership, as well as city and county leaders, on options for the team to remain in Missouri,” said spokesperson Gabby Picard.
The Star’s Matthew Kelly contributed.
This story was originally published December 29, 2025 at 2:59 PM.
