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Welcome back to Under the Dome, your weekly update on the goings-on of the Missouri state legislature.

Legislators promise ballot candy will be back in SJR 74 when session resumes

Even Spring Break couldn’t deter legislators from attacking majority rule in Missouri. House Speaker Dean Plocher took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce that the House would be adding back the ballot candy the Senate previously removed.

Specifically, Plocher said they would be addressing “noncitizen voting,” which he would know was already illegal if he took two seconds to read the requirements on the Missouri Secretary of State website. But while it’s fair to question his literacy based on how many scandals he’s been involved in this session, he and his fellow supermajority are more likely doing it to trick Missouri voters into passing incredibly unpopular legislation by sweetening it up (hence the term).

Specifically, Plocher said they would be addressing “noncitizen voting,” which he would know was already illegal if he took two seconds to read the requirements on the Missouri Secretary of State website. But while it’s fair to question his literacy based on how many scandals he’s been involved in this session, he and his fellow supermajority are more likely doing it to trick Missouri voters into passing incredibly unpopular legislation by sweetening it up (hence the term).

Protecting majority rule has broad bipartisan support. Conservative, pro-democracy organizations such as Show Me Integrity and Conservatives Against Corruption have spoken out against the legislation that would change Missouri’s century-old law.
KMOV News highlighted the voice of conservative Fred Steinbach, former mayor of Chesterfield and finance director for former Gov. John Ashcroft:

“I oppose SJR 74 and any efforts to make it harder for Missourians to exercise our Constitutional freedom of the citizen initiative process. In 1992, my former boss Governor Ashcroft vetoed similar attacks on the citizen initiative process. The then-Democratic majority was attacking the will of the people, and trying to make the initiative process more difficult, because the Democrats were bitter that conservatives had been using the citizen initiative, including to pass the Hancock Amendment with only 55% of the vote.”

Scandal-ridden Speaker Plocher feels the walls closing in

While Plocher went on a buzzword-riddled tirade attacking majority rule, he also spent his Spring Break trying to discredit the Missouri Independent, which has been a journalistic leader in its reporting on his near-constant stream of scandals. Not once in the rant did he refute a single fact from their extensive and well-sourced reporting.

From the latest Missouri Independent story, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee investigating Plocher will reconvene at 4 p.m. Tuesday, the fifth hearing on Plocher in 2024.

In case you’ve missed his laundry list of scandals, he’s been accused over the last few months of pushing for the House to enter into a contract with a private company outside the normal bidding process; threatening retaliation against legislative staff who pushed back on that contract; improperly firing a potential whistleblower; filing false expense reports for travel already paid for by his campaign; and arranging meetings between legislators and an out-of-state vendor.

Maybe he left his tinfoil hat in the new $60,000 liquor pantry he replaced a fellow legislator’s office with.

Welcome back to Under the Dome, your weekly update on the goings-on of the Missouri state legislature.

Stranger and stranger things: The dome appears to be stuck in The Upside Down as legislators gleefully strip voters of rights

The Missouri House thumbed its nose at Missouri voters this week and moved SJR74 forward, taking another step toward upending majority rule as the Show Me State has known it for more than 100 years. 

The House Elections Committee heard from more than 800 Missourians across the political spectrum on the topic – in person and in written comments. Only 27 voiced support for the measure, though that didn’t stop committee members from moving forward with taking away voters’ rights anyway.

The legislation would require a statewide majority AND majority vote in five of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass a constitutional amendment through the initiative petition process or a state convention. This could mean a fraction of the population – as few as 23%, according to a Missouri Independent analysis –  could override the will of the majority.

“I am dismayed that politicians in Jefferson City are attacking our deepest held democratic ideals by aggressively pushing forward changes to the initiative petition process despite overwhelming opposition to these changes voiced by Missourians like me,” said Beth Franklin, a U.S. Army veteran and Missouri native from Plattsburg.

The next step for the legislation is the Senate, but the earliest that will happen is after legislators enjoy the week off for spring break. 

Before the House committee passed the resolution, SJR74 sponsor Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman urged the body to restore so-called “ballot candy,” showing once again that Coleman recognizes Missourians won’t easily give up their rights without a slight of hand.

State budget proposal cuts higher ed, child care funding

Meanwhile, the top House budget negotiator unveiled a pared-down version of Gov. Mike Parson’s spending proposal Thursday, saying his plan funnels less money to colleges and universities in exchange for more money for road building.

In January, Parson called on lawmakers to approve a $53 billion spending blueprint that includes raises for Missouri school teachers, a 3% boost in funding for colleges and universities and more money for child care programs.

• Rather than a 3% bump, House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith is calling for a 2% increase.

• The proposal also contains fewer dollars to expand child care availability in the state. Smith suggested that there is less need for child care than the governor and business groups believe.

• The spending plan also includes $4 million to boost minimum teacher pay to $40,000 annually, up from the current national low of $25,000.

• Smith also inserted $8 million in the package to pay for Parson’s decision to send Missouri National Guard troops to help patrol the nation’s southern border in Texas.

As reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the House version was released on the legislature’s final day before a weeklong spring break that marks the unofficial midpoint of an annual session scheduled to end May 17.

Child marriage: Still a thing in Missouri

Finally, two Missouri legislators held a press conference this week to try to convince their colleagues that child marriage is a bad thing and should be outlawed. Currently, minors who are 16 or 17 can get married in Missouri with parental consent. 

“Clear and simple, child marriage is the legalization of child rape,” State Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Democrat from Kansas City, told KCUR. “Raising the marriage age to 18, it’s not just legislative action. It’s a moral imperative.”

Until the legislature voted to raise the minimum marriage age to 16 in 2018, Missouri had among the most lenient child marriage laws in the nation — making it an especially popular state for 15-year-olds to travel to be married.

Despite the 2018 change, Missouri law still does not align with international human rights standards, which set the minimum age at 18.

Welcome back to Under the Dome, your weekly update on the goings-on of the Missouri state legislature.

Governor’s clemency decision spotlights systemic injustice

The week in Missouri politics began with a shameful display of misplaced mercy as Gov. Mike Parson decided to shorten the prison sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid while admitting he had not bothered to reach out to the family of Ariel Young.

Young was 5 when she suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of an accident caused by Reid – son of Chief coach Andy Reid – who was driving while intoxicated. As the Kansas City Star pointed out in Vahe Gregorian’s column, the governor is an avid Chiefs fan. 

The case highlights the systemic injustice inherent in the commutation process. Earlier, Parson declined to pardon Kevin Strickland, whom a Jackson County prosecutor said was “factually innocent” of a 1978 triple murder. Despite the extraordinary plea from a prosecutor to release Strickland, who is Black, Parson declined because he said he didn’t know if the man was “innocent or not.”

Reflecting on the decision, Justice Horn, chair of the LGBTQ Commission of Kansas City, said simply: “There are two systems of justice in this country.”

Brother speaks up on legislator’s attempt to bully LGBTQ+ kids and their teachers

This week the brother of Missouri Representative Jamie Gragg spoke out against his Ozark sibling’s “hateful and malicious” anti-trans bill that would label teachers as sex offenders if they support transgender students by using their chosen name and pronouns. 

In an interview with the Riverfront Times, Charles Gragg Jr. said the legislation “will cost lives and recklessly destroy others just for the sin of being compassionate.”

Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, a Missouri House committee debated GOP-backed legislation that would face the same limits on drag performances as govern “sexually oriented businesses.”

The bill, sponsored by Bethany Republican Rep. Mazzie Christensen, would also create penalties for engaging in an adult cabaret performance in a location where it could be “reasonably expected to be viewed by a person who is not an adult.” The first offense would be a misdemeanor and the second a felony.

Opponents to the legislation argued that not all drag is sexual in nature, and the legislation would further marginalize LGBTQ+ Missourians.

And while the legislature pretends this is all to “protect children,” actual victims of sexual assault, like the Kanakuk and Agape tragedies, are asking legislators to address Missouri’s restrictive statute of limitations on legal recourse.

House backs political stunt to send soldiers and state troopers to Texas border

Speaking of misplaced priorities, this week the Missouri House overwhelmingly supported Gov. Mike Parson’s $2.2 million plan to send soldiers and state troopers to the Mexican border by voting 122-12 for the money needed to finance it.

As reported in the Missouri Independent, Parson is sending 200 Missouri National Guard soldiers and 11 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers to work with Texas law enforcement at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. There are also about 250 National Guard soldiers from Missouri in Texas operating under federal orders and paid from the federal treasury.