‘Won’t pass any bills this session’: MO Senate slams back into gridlock after map fight

Missouri Senators returned to the Capitol on Tuesday after a week of filibuster, intending to move past gridlock over a new congressional map and pass other legislation.

They sank back into stalemate on the very first bill.

This time the hardline Senate Conservative Caucus clashed with rank-and-file Republicans over the renewal of a scholarship program for adults to attend college or earn a trade certification, one of Gov. Mike Parson’s top workforce development priorities.

Other Republicans, together with Democrats, engaged in procedural maneuvers that left the caucus unable to attach hard-right measures related to transgender athletes and critical race theory. Fellow Republicans opposed coupling the measures with the scholarship renewal over fears it would threaten the program.

The hardliners, incensed, immediately vowed to impede the program’s renewal and threatened to filibuster overnight. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Lincoln Hough of Springfield, tabled the measure.

“I can talk for a long time,” shouted Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Warrensburg Republican and Conservative Caucus member. “If that’s the game we’re going to play, we won’t pass any bills this session.”

A month-and-a-half into the General Assembly’s session, the Senate has yet to pass any legislation.

The chamber’s swift slam into another gridlock after last week’s debate over the congressional map indicates no end in sight for the fractured relationship between hardliners and GOP leadership.

That could threaten chances for a compromise on new district boundaries and passage of other important legislation this year, such as a budget bill to give state workers raises and to distribute millions of dollars in federal aid for schools that must be allocated by March 24.

The Conservative Caucus, demanding a gerrymandered map that splits up Kansas City’s safe Democratic seat to deliver an additional district for the GOP, blocked passage of a map for days last week. Republican leadership announced late on Saturday that Senators would move on to other bills for the time being.

Business on Tuesday started out smoothly. But soon after, caucus member Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican, moved to add a provision to the scholarship program’s renewal that would bar colleges that accept the scholarship students from also enrolling undocumented immigrants.

Sen. Bill White, a Joplin Republican, urged Moon not to tie the scholarships to immigration, which he said was a federal issue. After the measure was voted down, Moon quickly offered another — to bar participating colleges and universities from allowing transgender women to play women’s sports.

White said he agreed with that measure but again asked for it to be removed from the scholarship bill, explaining universities would simply reject the scholarship recipients.

“You’re leveraging somebody getting to go to school to better themselves against men getting to play women’s sports,” White said. “They’re two separate topics ... The only thing you’re doing here is keeping Missourians from going to school to learn.”

The fight was reminiscent of a showdown last year over renewal of a critical hospital tax that funds the state’s Medicaid program.

The Conservative Caucus successfully tacked on a provision that would have barred the program from covering certain forms of birth control, rankling both Democrats and Republican leadership because it risked violating federal Medicaid regulations.

Caucus members framed support of the measure as a test of Senators’ opposition to abortion. Lawmakers ultimately failed to pass the renewal during the legislative session, bringing the Medicaid program to the brink of insolvency and forcing Parson to call a special session and threaten budget cuts. Senators ultimately renewed the tax without cutting out birth control coverage.

On Tuesday night, they averted that showdown.

After voting down the immigration-related measure, Senators employed parliamentary moves to kill the transgender sports amendment and another provision the caucus tried to tack on, which would have barred universities and colleges participating in the scholarship program from teaching critical race theory (CRT). The moves essentially cut off debate.

CRT, a graduate-level academic framework examining the role of American legal institutions in perpetuating racial inequality, has become a catch-all term for race-related curricula that have become a conservative target.

But the procedural moves infuriated the caucus.

“I was planning on letting [the bill] come to a vote this evening, but when three different amendments get cut off ... That’s garbage,” said Sen. Bob Onder, a Lake St. Louis Republican and caucus member.

In raised voices, Onder and Hoskins excoriated fellow Republicans for professing to support conservative priorities.

They pointed out that in declaring the Senate would move on to other legislation, Majority Leader Caleb Rowden on Saturday had said the hardliners’ redistricting filibuster was “standing in the way of critical policies Missourians are asking for — election reform, banning Critical Race Theory, providing more choice for Missouri parents, and the list goes on.”

“We’ve lost our way,” Hoskins said. “I’ve got some more tricks up my sleeve too. We can start filibustering the journal again if our colleagues are too nervous, too scared to vote on a critical race theory amendment.”

He was referring to parliamentary roadblocks Senators can throw up to block the chamber from formally debating bills on the floor. The caucus employed those moves frequently last week to prevent passage of GOP leadership’s preferred congressional map.

Onder wondered aloud why the caucus should “let them have a ... vote on this bill.”

Sen. Jeanie Riddle tried to reassure her colleagues that fellow Republicans did support the measures themselves.

“It’s not that my colleagues, that they want CRT or that they want the transgender stuff,” Riddle said. “I don’t want it misinterpreted ... I hate us going after each other.”

Onder responded with a quorum call, forcing other Senators from their offices to the floor during the filibuster.