Star Politics: Inside a Kansas-Missouri truce teetering on collapse
Editor’s note: The following is from today’s Star Politics newsletter, published weekly on Wednesdays. You can sign up here.
Good morning, Star readers.
Today, we’re looking into why the landmark Border War truce between Kansas and Missouri risks collapsing later this year as the two states vie for perhaps the biggest prize of all: the Chiefs and Royals.
In fact, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe just called a special session focused on keeping the major sports teams in the state — but it faces a difficult path ahead.
Plus, a plan to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices is facing sharp criticism, including from a former chief justice who calls the plan a “very bad idea.”
Next, we’ll get into:
• Free speech: A transgender KU student spoke to a reporter about housing policy — then he was fired from his on-campus job. Now, he’s suing his school.
• $500M in cuts: Missouri Republicans made the stunning decision to cut hundreds of millions in statewide construction projects in the budget — including millions for a much-needed Kansas City project.
This week in politics
The landmark Kansas-Missouri agreement that largely stopped the two states from poaching Kansas City metro businesses from one another risks collapsing in August, after Missouri lawmakers failed to pass an extension.
The agreement’s imminent expiration sets the stage for a possible new era of cross-border poaching that comes as the two states vie for perhaps the biggest prize of all — the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals.
Both states want to win the teams with incentive packages worth hundreds of millions, echoing the era before the economic “border war” truce when they lavished businesses with tax credits and other perks to cross State Line Road. Kansas City civic and business leaders worked for years to put a stop to the practice, warning that the competition yielded little economic benefit.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe on Tuesday called a legislative special session focused on passing funding to keep the Chiefs and Royals — but it’s not going to be easy.
The Star’s politics team broke down several separate but interconnected developments over the past two weeks that destabilized the legislature and could resurface when lawmakers arrive back in Jefferson City.
More from this past week
• Funding cuts and staffing shortages at the National Weather Service are making local officials “nervous.” Are they impacting the Kansas City metro?
• A federal judge has green-lit plans for an ICE detention center in Kansas, tossing Leavenworth’s lawsuit and paving the way for immigrant detainees to be housed there sooner rather than later.
• After six teachers at a KC-area elementary school were diagnosed with cancer in the past five years, advocates want to know if other former staffers or students have gotten sick.
Looking for more?
• For more politics news, follow @bymatthewkelly.bsky.social, @kacen.bsky.social, @jonshorman.bsky.social and @grice1911.bsky.social
• Want to read more newsletters from The Star? You can subscribe to our free daily newsletters, the Morning Rush or the Afternoon Catch-Up.
That’s all for now! See you next week.
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