Senator Josh Hawley is up for reelection for the first time since he joined the United States Senate, and he should be nervous. He’s going to have to stand behind his record on veterans.

As the race heats up, Hawley’s trying to convince us he’s worked for veterans. So let’s take a walk down memory lane and remind ourselves where Josh Hawley really stands.

Hawley Voted Against Treatment For Veteran Burn Pit Victims

Just last year, Hawley voted down a bill that would provide medical treatment to veterans who were victims to toxic burn pits overseas. 

Open-air burn pits are large areas of land where the military burns all sorts of waste, including plastics, rubber, human waste, and toxic chemicals. Veterans exposed to burn pits can wind up with any number of medical conditions, including asthma, chronic sinus and throat conditions, and more than 14 types of cancer.

Hawley Held Up Funds For Veterans Affairs

In 2021, Hawley delayed a vote to continue funding the department of Veterans Affairs, which would have caused furloughs and reduced services for veterans across the country. 

Over 400,000 Missourians and their families could be affected if the VA had to reduce services. The VA offers vital services in varying facets of veterans’ lives – medical care and prescription drugs, home loans, education and training, job preparedness and employment, and so much more. Without these services, veterans could face unemployment, a lack of health care, and homelessness.

Hawley’s Record Is Black And White – Don’t Let Him Convince You Otherwise

Our veterans do not deserve to be used as political pawns. They’ve risked their lives to uphold the same democracy Hawley tried to destroy. Hawley should use his power in the Senate to stand up for our veterans.

Posted March 16, 2023

On Thursday, the Missouri legislature adjourned for their week-long spring break, marking the halfway point of 2023’s legislative session. What do we have to show for it?

Well, not much. After 37 days of back-and-forth, the legislature has fought a lot over issues that Missourians just don’t care about, and passed just one bill. Yeah – we’re serious.

So in case you need a reminder of what’s top of mind for the out-of-touch politicians we elected to represent us, here’s everything our electeds in Jeff City have done so far, and everything we’re still waiting on.

Fought Over Whether Missourians Deserve Birth Control

Radicals in the Missouri Senate have suggested that Medicaid recipients should not have access to birth control or other healthcare services provided by Planned Parenthood. This is the next step in a crusade to completely take over our bodies.

…But Haven’t Addressed Maternal Mortality Rates

While the Missouri Legislature is obsessed with your pregnant body, you’re on your own once the kid is born. Missouri has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, and since Missouri Republicans won’t put aside political infighting to expand Medicaid postpartum, things won’t get any better any time soon.

Given Guns To Kids and Criminals

One of the Legislature’s top priorities in the first half of session was guaranteeing toddlers and criminals could have access to guns. We’re not kidding.

…And Failed To Address Gun Violence In Schools And Neighborhoods Around The State

Children who survived school shootings called on the legislature to do something. A man was shot point-blank in the middle of the day. And the Missouri legislature is prioritizing arming kids and criminals over keeping families safe.

Tried To Ban Honest And Accurate Education For All Ages – Even In Medical Schools

Both chambers have considered laws banning talking about gay people in schools. Some legislators even want to stop students from K through medical school from learning accurate history about slavery and the Trail of Tears.

…But Didn’t Look Into The Real Issues Plaguing Schools, Like Teacher Shortages And 4-Day School Weeks

The fact is, Missouri parents trust teachers to teach their kids. Parents are far more concerned about the teacher shortages and 4-day school weeks that prevent their kids from learning. The legislature should instead focus on bringing in teachers and fully funding our schools to give kids the freedom to learn.

Came Up With A Dozen Ways To End Majority Rule

Many of the first few bills to pass the House were variations on the same concept: ending majority rule in Missouri. The legislature disagrees with Missouri voters about Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, and a liveable minimum wage, so they want to change the rules.

…And Hasn’t Come Up With A Stop-Gap Solution For Anti-Voter Fraud Organization

Right before spring break, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft pulled Missouri out of an interstate organization to help fight voter fraud. When the state government left for break, he hadn’t found a back-up solution. Missouri politicians should make sure our elections are free and fair, not taking power away from voters.

The Bottom Line

We send politicians to Jeff City to build a future that works for our families, not to fight political battles. Our leaders owe it to us to address the issues plaguing Missouri families. When our elected officials come back from spring break, they should prioritize helping Missourians, not culture wars.

March 8 marks International Women’s Day, a global day to celebrate women’s achievements in their drive for gender equality, and a time to call on our electeds to do their part to keep women’s rights moving forward.

Unfortunately, in Missouri, so far this year extremists in the legislature have done the exact opposite of what’s best for women. From putting women’s lives at risk to regulating their clothes, the majority party has painted an ugly picture of what women’s future looks like in the state.

Prioritizing Political Stunts Over Moms’ Lives

After research emerged showing Missouri had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, Missourians called on their legislature to finally do something about it.

The legislature soon began working on a bipartisan effort to expand Medicaid coverage for new moms from 60 days postpartum to one year. Missouri is one of only nine states that hasn’t expanded coverage.

When the bill passed the House, many celebrated, but the fight isn’t over yet.

Radicals in the Missouri Senate, anxious to score political points, added an amendment to the bill that may prevent it from going into effect. That’s right – our state senate had the choice between politics and saving lives, and they chose the former.

An average of 61 women die each year within their first year postpartum in Missouri. How many will die waiting for politicians to care?

Trying To Ban Birth Control

After enacting the first abortion ban in the country following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Missouri has continued their extreme crusade to control women’s bodies.

Just weeks ago, the Senate began hearing bills to ban women on Medicaid from receiving any health care from Planned Parenthood. That includes birth control and even non-reproductive health care like cancer screenings.

This is the next step in the all-out war extremists in the senate are waging on women’s health and bodily autonomy.

Telling Women (Only) What Clothes They Can Wear

Radical legislators once again found themselves so obsessed with women’s bodies that they simply couldn’t get any other work done.

This year, the house kicked off the legislative session by making dress code changes exclusively for women legislators, making national news in the process.

The legislature could have landed their first headlines of the year for finally addressing Missouri’s abysmal maternal mortality rate. Instead they chose to focus on jackets.

Jeff City Politicians: It’s Time To Do Better

Today is a day to celebrate progress – but in Missouri, we don’t have much to celebrate.

Women in Missouri should be able to count on their politicians to work for them: to guarantee their access to health care, to treat elected women like equals, and most of all to keep them alive.

As the majority party, it’s Republicans’ responsibility to ensure legislation serves ALL Missourians, including the half of the state some of them decided to throw under the bus to serve their own interests.

It’s time the legislature does better by women, ends the cycle of stripping women’s rights, and moves the fight for equality forward.

Posted March 8, 2023

Almost three years ago, Missourians banded together and went to the ballot box to expand access to healthcare for working families and save lives by expanding Medicaid. Back then, our Republican legislature tried to defy the will of the people by dragging their feet and not funding life saving healthcare— they even dawdled after the court forced them to take action and expand Medicaid, putting 290,000 Missourians at risk in the process.

It’s almost three years later, and our Medicaid woes aren’t over.

Missouri is one of only nine states that has not yet attempted to expand Medicaid for postpartum mothers. In Missouri, new moms are kicked off Medicaid only 60 days after giving birth, locking them out of critical postnatal healthcare.

Not coincidentally, Missouri also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and it’s even higher for women on Medicaid. Even Governor Parson said at the beginning of the year that it was time to take action.

Missouri lawmakers are making a half-hearted attempt to expand Medicaid for postpartum moms, potentially expanding healthcare for nearly 5,000 new moms. But as we’ve seen time and time again with healthcare, Republicans are making every possible effort to avoid taking care of our most vulnerable Missourians.

In a selfish effort to score political points, Republicans have put postpartum Medicaid expansion – and in turn, the lives of new moms – at risk, attempting to add an amendment at the last minute that might get the law overturned in court. 

While Republicans could compromise, pass the bill without the amendment, and save lives, they’d rather maintain the status quo — a system that ignores Missouri’s maternal mortality rate and puts lives on the line.

Missourians know we need to take care of each other, especially our working families. It’s time we call on the State Senate to set aside culture wars and focus on saving lives.

Missouri Republicans are obsessed with our bodies – until after the baby is born. Read about their efforts to take away birth control access here: Abortion Bans Were Never Enough: Missouri Senate Moves To Restrict Birth Control Access

Posted March 2, 2023

Missouri’s most famous achievements in reproductive health include being the first state to ban abortion completely. If that’s not enough to make you scream — it gets worse.

In June 2022 after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights advocates argued that Missouri Republicans would only dial up their efforts to take control over reproductive health care, even after enacting the first abortion ban in the country. They were right: with SB 160 and SJR 8, Missouri Republicans are coming after birth control and all preventive care.

Republicans introduced SB 160 and SJR 8, which would block people with low incomes from accessing essential non-abortion health care like birth control from Planned Parenthood. This is the next step in a crusade to completely take over our reproductive rights, using our bodies and our futures to score political points.

For Missouri’s Republican Senators, sometimes it really does seem like all they’re after is cruelty and cheap political points. That’s why activists and Missourians from across the state continue to show up and fight back. Read what they had to say:

By targeting Planned Parenthood these bills target an expert health care provider. By targeting Planned Parenthood these bills threaten to further fray an already over-extended safety net. That’s the point – target people with low incomes, women, and people of color and their most trusted health care provider.

Vanessa Wellbery, VP of Policy and Advocacy at Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

Posted February 23, 2023

Last week, Jamie Reed, a former employee of the Washington University Transgender Center released an article alleging the center had committed wrongdoing against patients. But the timing and the key players surrounding the accusations, in addition to blatant political motivations, reveal she is part of a larger machine at work to attack LGBTQ+ people across the country.

Ambushing Kids and Families in Crisis

Attorney General Andrew Bailey has been investigating Washington University since late January without much fanfare – or any notification to the public.

Only five days before Republican state senators planned to introduce legislation barring kids from receiving life-saving gender-affirming care, Reed went public with the allegations.

Within hours, opportunistic Republicans from all over Missouri rushed to take advantage of the story. Ladder-climbing Virginia native Josh Hawley called for an investigation (even though one had been on-going for weeks) and later introduced legislation restricting gender-affirming care for kids.

Five days later, when the state senate heard the bills banning gender-affirming care for minors, Republicans were quick to reference the allegations against Washington University as support for their otherwise unfounded legislation.

Republican legislators needed to point the finger in committee hearings. They needed ‘evidence’ that their bigotry was founded. And so the allegations emerged.

Key Players: A Radical Georgia Lawyer and an Ambitious Local Politician

Most suspect is who Reed has roped in to help her cause, attorneys Vernadette Broyles and Ernie Trakas.

Ernie Trakas is a Republican county councilman out of St. Louis county. He has repeatedly and publicly used attacks on trans kids for his own political gain.

Reed’s other attorney is Vernadette Broyles, the president of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, a law firm that pushes back against “the harms caused by gender identity ideology.” Broyles and her firm have tried several cases to overturn transgender policies in schools and advised Ron DeSantis on the Don’t Say Gay law. Broyles once compared LGBTQ advocates to insects, claiming LGBTQ-inclusive school policies are “passed in the dark” and “there’s a reason why cockroaches like the dark.”

Broyles is also listed as an allied attorney of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ group that provides model legislation for conservative state legislators, including “bathroom bills”, trans kids in sports bills, “religious freedom” bills encouraging discrimination, and even bills criminalizing gay sex. The ADF employs over 3,000 allied attorneys who offer pro bono legal services to spread the idea that that homosexual behavior is ‘sinful and offensive to God.’”

Reed’s Fleet Of Activists Is Calling For Solutions That Would Hurt Trans Kids

In Reed’s article, she calls for a solution to her allegations: a moratorium on treating trans kids. The only individuals calling for these solutions are right-wing politicians and activists.

Advocates and doctors know that gender-affirming care is life-saving medical care for children and a moratorium is not a solution.

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Read more about Missouri’s most anti-LGBTQ+ session in recent history here: Powerful Quotes From Missourians Who Testified Against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill

Posted February 16, 2023

In case you missed it, this week the MO Leg is taking aim at LGBTQ kids and teachers, introducing a “Don’t Say Gay” bill that goes even further than the Florida bill that made national headlines last year.

Missourians from around the state came out in droves to testify against the legislation, which would prohibit any discussions about LGBTQ people in schools.

Here was some of the most powerful testimony:

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more disrespected by a single piece of legislation than this one. You are erasing me as a human from public schools. For the sake of the reputation of the State of Missouri, I hope [this bill] goes no further than this hearing… You’ve titled this the vulnerable child protection act…I was a vulnerable (gay) child, and I needed someone to stand up for me.

– State Senator Greg Razer, Missouri’s only openly gay State Senator

Should this legislation pass, thousands of families like mine across the state will seriously consider leaving the state. I think that’s exactly what this bill intends. To instill fear. To censor. To have a chilling effect… [This bill] systematically and very specifically erases LGBTQ identity and presence from classrooms.

– Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of PROMO

The teacher may be the most stable adult in those children’s lives. There are so many circumstances in which you find teachers, counselors and club sponsors in schools being that literal lifeline for these kids. This bill … does nothing more other than take away that lifeline… [which is] a huge source of support for vulnerable teenagers.

– Aaron Schekorra, president of of PFLAG Springfield

As a school counselor, I sat with many who were so afraid that their parents would reject them as they struggled with their sexual orientation or gender identity. Censoring what students can share with school professionals will only endanger their lives and increase the risk that they will harm themselves.

– Andy Schuerman, director of school counseling at the Park Hill School District

It’s fear. It terrifies me. What do kids talk about in high school–’who are you dating? What are you going to do this weekend?’ You can’t talk about that anymore. I would probably pull my kid out of school.

– Chris Hyman, mother of an LGBTQ child from St. Charles

MO Republicans have pulled the same hateful stunts time and time again – they introduced this same legislation back in 2012. Missouri lives are at stake, and we cannot afford to let the legislature bring this bill back to the floor.

Posted February 8, 2023

In case you missed it, last night, Virginia’s third Senator Josh Hawley made a bet against J.D. Vance: “his” Chiefs or Vance’s Bengals, loser buys BBQ.

The problem? Hawley picked a Kansas BBQ joint… as Missouri’s Senator.

Obviously Missourians took to Twitter to point out Hawley’s ignorance. Here’s some of our favorite reactions.

Missourians cringed at Hawley’s effort to be relatable to his constituents

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas showed admirable restraint

… While former Senator Claire McCaskill felt no need to hold back what we all were thinking

Some shared photos from Hawley’s last time in Missouri, when he was skipping work to shop for wine

Or the last time he tried to show Missouri loyalty… and AGAIN confused us with Kansas

Many Missourians knew why Hawley recommended a Kansas place – he doesn’t live in Missouri

Some empathized with Josh – after all, his home state doesn’t have an NFL team

Even KCMO BBQ joints jumped in on the action

He drew comparisons to his favorite president, who also got us confused with Kansas

Honestly we’re just amazed he hasn’t run away from the embarrassment

Posted January 30, 2023

This afternoon, the Missouri General Assembly Committee on Elections and Elected Officials held a public hearing on five bills proposing new restrictions on ballot initiatives.

Missourians Want Their Voices To Be Heard

Rep. Peggy McGaugh, chair of the committee, remarked that “quite a bit more” witnesses appeared to testify against the five bills than in favor of the bills to limit the ballot initiative progress, and witnesses from across the state came to Jefferson City to speak out against the legislation.

“When we send a message to the legislature, we mean it,” remarked a witness from St. Charles who self-identified as a Republican. “I am embarrassed and scared of some of the representatives’ intentions, even in my own party… Get this straight, you work for us… Stop taking away our rights.”

“The League of Women Voters of Missouri (LWVMO) is opposed to any efforts by the General Assembly to make [the ballot initiative process] even more difficult,” said Marilyn McLeod, President of the League of Women Voters of Missouri. “The citizen initiative petition process is the most direct form of voter participation in our democracy…The people resort to the initiative petition, especially regarding changes to the Constitution, only because they feel their voice isn’t being heard.

Majority Wants To Essentially Get Rid Of The Ballot Initiative Process

Two bills proposed by Rep. Davidson would require a majority of registered voters to vote in favor of a ballot initiative to pass the initiative, as opposed to a majority of votes in that election.

As an example of the damage this would cause, Rep. Woods mentioned that in 2010, 83.7% of voters approved a ballot measure concerning real estate taxes. Under Rep. Davidson’s laws, that measure would not have passed.

When asked if the legislature could purposely manipulate when ballot measures were put on the ballot to limit their passage, Rep. Davidson admitted “that’s a concern, but not one that can be addressed.”

The MO House Doesn’t Trust the Voters

Throughout the testimony, the Republican majority and its supporters repeated one line of thinking: Missouri voters don’t understand enough to vote on the issues. It’s disgusting that the Republican legislators think voters don’t deserve a voice in our laws.

We believe in the people of Missouri. We think Missourians are smart, understand their values, and deserve a seat at the table in our state government.

Posted January 25, 2023