Guns, sports betting and more. Here are five issues to watch when Missouri lawmakers return
Missouri lawmakers will have a packed agenda when they return for the legislative session to Jefferson City on Jan. 4.
The state is flush with cash, largely due to federal pandemic aid, and the General Assembly is coming off an election cycle that brought several new members to both chambers.
With the session on the horizon, lawmakers have started to craft their priorities. Republicans plan to target the state’s initiative process in the wake of several liberal ballot measures that voters have approved, including recreational marijuana.
Lawmakers will also try to get sports betting across the finish line as sports fans continue to cross into Kansas to place legal bets. And culture-war battles over what kids are taught in schools will once again be at the forefront for some Republicans.
Here’s a sampling of legislation to watch:
Initiative petition
After Missouri voters on Nov. 8 approved a constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana, Republican state lawmakers are again looking to make it harder for voters to bypass the General Assembly and put issues on statewide ballots.
Lawmakers have pre-filed a raft of bills that would ask voters to create new requirements for ballot initiatives to change the state constitution. Some of the proposals would increase the number of voters required for a measure to pass, such as requiring a majority of all of Missouri’s registered voters, not just those who voted, to approve a constitutional amendment.
Under this proposed threshold, none of the recently approved ballot initiatives — including medical and recreational marijuana and Medicaid expansion — would have passed. Currently, a simple majority of those who voted is required for an initiative petition to pass.
Other petition-related proposals aim to make it harder to put a measure on a statewide ballot in the first place by raising the signature requirement.
Republicans have argued that it’s too easy to amend the state constitution and that the current process has given outside interest groups too much of a role.
“The constitution is really the foundation of our government,” said state Rep. Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, who was recently chosen as majority floor leader.
“Permanent changes to it should reflect broad support from the citizens of the state, not just the special interests that can flood it with unlimited amounts of money.”
However, initiative petition defenders say it allows citizens to directly participate in the democratic process. Democrats are expected to put a significant amount of effort into fighting against the legislation.
“The attack on the initiative petition is really concerning to us — an attack on democracy, generally,” said state Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat, who said it was Democrats’ top issue to defend.
Sports betting
After neighboring Kansas legalized sports betting in time for the start of the NFL season, Missouri lawmakers plan to renew a push to legalize sports wagering this session.
But years-long disagreements over whether the sports betting legislation should also include legalizing controversial lottery machines, called video lottery terminals, are likely to continue.
State Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Warrensburg Republican, has pre-filed a bill that would legalize and tax sports betting as well as the gas station lottery machines. Hoskins told The Star that legalizing the lottery machines would allow the state to bring in an additional $250 million in revenue each year, pointing to modest returns seen in Kansas from legalizing sports betting.
“I think there could be a path where they kind of address both of those issues together and try and bring some regulation and transparency to the gray market machines and pass sports betting,” John Hancock, a GOP strategist and a former chair of the Missouri GOP, previously told The Star.
But other lawmakers, such as state Rep. Dan Houx, a Warrensburg Republican, said the video lottery machines need to be stripped from any legislation if Missouri wants to be the next state to approve sports wagering.
Houx said he plans to file a bill that would solely legalize sports betting.
Schools
Legislation crafted around culture-war battles over what is taught in Missouri school districts will once again be taken up by Republican lawmakers this session.
Some bills would ban public schools and colleges from gender or sexual identity classroom instruction. Others target Critical Race Theory, an academic that is not widely taught in Missouri’s K-12 schools, but has become a shorthand among conservatives for any lesson that delves into systemic racism’s role in U.S. history or politics.
Lawmakers will also take up bills that create a “parents’ bill of rights,” a set of rights parents may employ over their child’s education, including reviewing curriculum. And some Republicans have filed bills that would bar transgender students from competing on sports teams that match the gender they identify as.
Gun violence
After a deadly school shooting in St. Louis this year, Missouri Democrats will make tougher gun laws one of their top priorities this upcoming session.
They have pre-filed a bevy of bills designed to curtail gun violence by cracking down on gun ownership for certain individuals. Among the legislation is a bill that bans teenagers from buying semi-automatic or automatic weapons.
Another would ask voters statewide to amend the state constitution to require a background check whenever a firearm changes owners. And another bill would claw back a state law that prevents local governments from crafting their own gun-related rules.
“The more lax we’ve gotten with our gun laws, it’s no surprise that our gun violence has gotten out of control,” state Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat who has filed four gun-related bills, told The Star. “There are simple common sense laws with broad support that could help prevent such tragedies in the future and reduce the daily gun violence that we see in our cities and state.”
Gun law-related legislation from Democrats will likely face a tough uphill battle in the GOP-controlled General Assembly. After the St. Louis school shooting, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, told reporters that stricter gun laws would not have prevented the shooting.
Budget
Missouri is expected to be flush with cash when lawmakers return to Jefferson City next month. That’s in large part to surplus cash from revenue growth and federal COVID-19 money.
Parson’s office estimates that the state will collect more than $13 billion in general revenue next fiscal year — a small increase over the estimate from the current fiscal year.
“This shows that we can continue historic investments in education, infrastructure, mental health services, and public safety just as we have done,” Parson said in a news release earlier this month.
The Republican governor is expected to announce his budget priorities during his annual state of the state address next month. In the meantime, state lawmakers are preparing to negotiate their own budget priorities for session amid a rapidly changing economy bolstered by inflation fears. Increasing state worker and teacher pay are expected to be among some of the priorities.
“The budget is going to be at the top of the list,” said Merideth, the St. Louis Democrat. “We have a lot of money to figure out how to spend and we’ve got a lot of needs that have been shortchanged for a long time.”
Patterson said he expects a push to permanently increase teacher pay.
“It’s getting harder and harder to attract teachers and so we need to incentivize teachers to work in schools,” he said. “Otherwise I think you’ll see more schools go to a four day week, which I don’t think serves the students and parents very well.”
