Missouri’s 2023 Regular Legislative Session ended May 12. While the Missouri Legislature passed a couple important bills, there was so much left on the table. Here’s a summary of the few things that were accomplished – along with the numerous bills that should have made it to the floor but languished in the process.
As a rule, it’s generally better if the legislature passes as few bills as possible. Usually, the more bills any legislative body passes, the more liberty is taken away from individual citizens. Many lawmakers believe passing legislation justifies their existence. So, the result is an abundance of bills introduced with relatively few being considered and most then dying for good reason.
The Legislature is designed to be inefficient. Here's an analogy. Think of a drag racing strip. The House is like the track’s paved quarter-mile portion. Many bills are introduced and quickly move through the committee process to final passage. At the end of the drag strip is the finish line. When a car crosses the finish line, the driver applies the brakes and deploys the car’s parachute to slow the speed of the car. If that fails to slow the car sufficiently, the car will run into a pit of sand at the end of the pavement. That’s the Senate. Senators actually have a simple job. Their job is to say “No.” So, the inefficiency of the Senate limits the legislative session's work product.
This year, the House adopted several rules’ changes at the beginning of the session. Here are a couple examples without getting too far “into the weeds:"
- Power was consolidated in the Speaker’s Office. The Speaker already appoints committee membership and decides who will be the Chair and Vice-Chairs of each committee. The Speaker was given the additional power to remove any committee member including the Chair at any time. He then could replace them with a member unilaterally, at his discretion.
- The House also adopted a rule that they would not hear any Senate Bills on the floor until after Spring Break.
- Each House member was limited to introducing a total of 20 bills. A House member could introduce more than 20 bills but only with the permission of the Speaker.
- Each House committee could only pass two bills each out of their committee prior to Spring Break.
The intent of the first rule's change is obvious. The second provision was intended to focus on House Caucus priorities. The stated purpose of the last two rules’ changes was to focus the House on priority legislation – instead of less important legislation that had a lower likelihood of passage.
In order to gauge their thoughts on these rules changes, I spoke with several legislators. The consensus was there was one way these changes would be successful and a hundred ways they would fail. You can guess which outcome prevailed. Other than the 20 mandatory Appropriations Bills, only seven bills originating in the House currently are headed to the Governor’s desk.
The House failed to move legislation on the House Speaker’s and House Republican Caucus’ (same thing) priorities of Education and Initiative Petition Reform. Due to the limitation in the number of bills passed out of committee prior to Spring Break, multiple bills were lumped together in an attempt to pass the House. This process is called a Christmas Tree. Visualize the tree being the underlying legislation and other “related” bills being added as ornaments on the tree. An example of this is House Bill 402. It was introduced as a one-page bill and passed both chambers as an 85-page bill.
The Senate continued moving forward rather smoothly until the final couple weeks of the session. Trouble began as the Senate debated the budget sent to them by the House. The House had “trimmed” the Missouri budget to $48 billion dollars. It also had placed restrictions on funding departments using funds for so-called “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging” (DEIB) programs. The Senate added $3 billion back into the budget and stripped the DEIB restrictions.
When the versions of a bill differ between the House and Senate, the bill goes to a Conference Committee to resolve the bill’s language differences. The Conference Committee report was passed in the Senate and sent back to the House one hour prior to the constitutionally mandated deadline to pass the budget. After sending the Conference Committee report back to the House, the Senate adjourned. This prevented any further budget negotiations. So therefore, the Senate was saying to the House, “pass our version or violate the Missouri Constitution.” The House took up and passed the Conference Committee report with the additional $3B in spending.
Our Convention of States Action’s Commissioner Selection Bill was a casualty to this process. SB274 was passed in the Senate Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee on April 4. The House version (HB823) was passed in the House Government Efficiency and Downsizing Committee on April 5 and the House Rules-Legislative Oversight Committee on April 12. Both bills were in position to be taken up for floor votes for final passage..
At that point we were told no new stand-alone bills would be taken up by either chamber. In fact, we were told we’d need to add our bill’s language to a passed Senate Bill the House was considering. Under the direction of the Speaker’s Office, we added our HB823 language to Senate Bill 155 sponsored by COS supporter Senator Rusty Black. We were told that our bill would come to the House Floor for a vote. But in the subsequent weeks, the House stopped moving Senate Bills. In fact, the Senate retaliated by not moving House Bills. This was a playground game of chicken that killed many good bills, with ours being one of them.
“We shall go onto the end…..we shall never surrender.” – Sir Winston Churchill
So, what do we do now?
We remain undeterred. Using the lessons we learned at the 2023 session, we’re currently developing our 2024 Legislative Strategy. If we are going to be successful, we need to provide greater grassroots “encouragement” for the Missouri Legislature. THIS MEANS YOU! We have to communicate our expectation that the Missouri Legislature will help stand up and push back against a federal government acting outside its specific enumerated powers. As always, we will do this respectfully, cheerfully, professionally and passionately. We will provide additional information through our Statewide Calls, e-mails and Calls to Action. Please take the opportunity to participate in these calls and volunteer for leadership roles at www.conventionofstates.com/takeaction.
Our republic is at stake. We will never stop fighting. We will never surrender.
In Liberty,
Brett
HERE is a summary of the 2023 Regular Session of the Missouri Legislature. For future reference a copy is also linked to our Missouri Information Page shown below.
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