The political gods are cruel bastards.
We left off last Thursday with House leadership leaving session on what would be final Friday of session having killed the projects in HB19 and I assume feeling that they proved a point to someone and with a decent, but not stellar line of defense that the Senate made HB19 too expensive and they didn’t have enough time to review their changes.
Well, there were Senators driving to the Capitol the following Monday, and they were fuming. As were House Democrats, and around a fourth of House Republicans weren’t particularly happy.
Either way, House leadership was preparing for a busy last week of session, thinking that things would be relatively normal.
When the Senate gaveled in, they TAFP’d a Senate bill, then the floor leader apparently thought they were going to start passing House bills, to which a bipartisan coalition of Senators, including the Appropriations Chairman, put an abrupt stop to until adjournment Monday evening.
You would normally think that the House pulled a fast one and the Senate would spend a couple days pissed, then relent and the last week of session would unfold as normal.
It was at this point that a cold hand of fate was dealt to the House.
You heard the rumblings the prior week that there was some sort of deal worked out in principle on the Royals stadium funding. I say the Royals because you don’t need a deal on the Chiefs stadium renovation that has plenty of support without any deals, and DED could probably do a lot of it with existing programs.
Governor Kehoe is just so good at this. It’s really incredible, he is simply a winner. He knows a stadium funding vote is a really tough vote for Republicans, and any stadium funding plan will only get less popular with Republican primary voters the longer it’s out there.
So he would wait until the budget was done, then on Monday afternoon and evening, he would start putting his plan out and have it voted out of both chambers in 48 hours.
He had literally everything set up perfectly.
Then the House screws up HB19. You can imagine his heart sank when his literally perfect plan, that very likely would have worked, got 100 times harder after Friday.
The House, which just 72 hours before had said publicly on the record that they needed more than 3 days to review a $550 million spending plan that was $400 million of spending they had already passed, was going to vote on a plan they had only seen for a handful of hours.
Then, to put salt in the wound, they said the additional $150 million the Senate added was just too much money for the state to afford to spend. Now they were going to have to say that they have nearly a billion dollars to build a stadium for a team in the Royals that barely has 5,000 fans show up to a game.
The political gods can be cruel bastards sometimes.
However, the House took up the bill after it was presented to their members in caucus around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, and it was on the floor a couple of hours later. They were able to get the Democrats on board and pass the bill easily, and with a straight face, in a real testament to Speaker Patterson’s ability to win tough votes.
Patterson, like Kehoe, has proven to be a winner.
It was attached to Senator Gregory’s Senate bill and sent over to the Senate, where they almost immediately got it on the floor. That’s where the ghost of Friday came back to haunt Tuesday’s near-perfect plan.
The conservative Republican Senator who stood up on the senate floor to block a plan for a taxpayer-funded stadium plan wasn’t Senator Carter, it wasn’t Senator Schroer, it wasn’t Senator Brattin.
No, the only conservative Republican who stood up on the Senate floor to oppose the taxpayer-funded stadium plan was Senator Lincoln Hough. (Let that sink in, rightwing Twitter trolls.)
Senator Hough then started asking the question that was on everyone’s mind. How in the hell could Senator Justin Brown vote to send tax dollars to a Royals stadium and not to the hospital in Salem? How could Senator Bean vote for a stadium when he was told just 72 hours earlier there was no money for a crime lab in Poplar Bluff to test rape kits?
It simply made no sense to any thinking person, and there was no time left to make it make sense. It didn’t help that the House members were sending tweets from their bus on the way to a Jelly Roll concert and a winery.
The bipartisan filibuster lasted several hours when, around 8:00 p.m. a quorum call motion was made and it took nearly 20 minutes to get a quorum of senators including some conservative senators such as Senator Ben Brown who I cannot imagine votes for a taxpayer funded stadium plan and yet that only got them to 17 Republicans.
It was Republicans such as Senators Hough, , and Justin Brown who were not answering the quorum call.
Another nearly 10 minutes passed when a democrat, Senator Washington, answered the quorum call to get them to 18.
At that point, everyone acknowledged that the House’s action Friday on HB19 had foiled what was a nearly perfect stadium plan, and set the course for a crash landing of the entire session.
The Senate’s last legislative day would turn out to be the next day. However, there were two issues that had been boiling all session. The voter’s approval of Prop A – a socialistic idea for bureaucrats to tell businesses how to run their business, and that one issue that will never die, abortion that ended the session.
Let’s set abortion aside for a moment, because as we have seen so many times in recent Missouri history, there is no way for adults in Missouri to talk about abortion in any sort of rational way.
I’ll just be candid, I think Prop A is one of the worst public policies that the State of Missouri has enacted this millennium. However, a majority of the voters disagree with your simple hillbilly pal.
Senator O’Laughlin, being a businesswoman, knows exactly how toxic this level of socialism can be on businesses. After all, as she correctly says, it doesn’t matter how many hours of sick time you can accrue if you don’t have a job in the first place.
She was determined to pass a rollback of some of Prop A’s most harmful provisions. Even if that meant passing a PQ motion to end the free and fair debate of the Missouri Senate.
There are several arguments out there as to why things got so far out of hand. I think the real surprise was that this was just the type of high-stress, high-level negotiations that she has closed so many times over the last three years that I honestly believe that everyone thought that she would ultimately close this deal too.
When these things go south there are always accusations on both sides of moving the goalposts and poor deal craft.
However, the best I can put together is that on the first night, the bill was on the floor, they were told they had “all night” to negotiate. Now the term “all night” can mean different things to different people, and this time it meant till around 1:00 a.m.
Some on the Democratic side claim that if they had stayed at it that night, there would have been a deal and the Senate would have been spared the smear of a PQ.
Some on the Republican side claim that on the second night the bill was on the floor, there were several offers on both sides, but the Democrats had to confirm with people out of the room, many suspect they were in Washington, before they could agree. Senator Doug Beck refuted this claim publicly on our TWMP daily with him.
There is also the apparent fact that the Democratic caucus in the Senate isn’t exactly the most cohesive group. Now they certainly aren’t anything like the Republican caucus of the last half decade, but you have several factions, and they don’t always communicate all that well together or in unison.
Now I will say this, I absolutely detest these Washington assholes when they stick their nose into Missourian’s business.
If anyone was having to check with anyone in Washington on a deal, I can see how one never happened. These Washington groups do not do things FOR Missourians, they do things TO Missourians. All of Missouri is to these groups in Washington is the shape on a map to color in.
Now before you get to thinking the liberals are the only problem, those assholes at the Federalist Society are just as bad. A bunch of elitists who throw millions at our state so they can force their Ivy League assholes onto Missouri Republican voters and into office.
Both of them remind me of a famous quote that really sums up how every single Washington asshole thinks of us here in Missouri.
“Rather…than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my (federal) government in any manner, however important I would see you, and you, and you, and you, and every man, woman, and child in this State dead and buried”
It was told to a group of Missouri elected officials on June 11, 1861, by federal bureaucrat Nathaniel Lyon, and I haven’t seen one east coaster feel one ounce differently since.
Jobs with Justice and the Federalist Society are just two packs of assholes looking in a mirror at each other. Nathaniel Lyon could easily run either of them today, and neither one of them give a damn about Missouri or anyone in it.
Now that you’ve been kind enough to read my rant, I’ll get back to the story.
Whether you believe that the business community saw the chance to PQ the Prop A revisions and decided not to compromise, or you believe that it was impossible to negotiate with folks in Washington, is probably determined by your own existing political biases.
The only people who will ever truly know are the Senators in the room.
Either way, the actions of the House of Friday with HB19 turned a very productive and pragmatic mood into a contentious one that was bound to end like it did.
Any hope of a Prop A compromise with the Democrats was probably over after the stadium bill, and how it reopened the fresh wounds of HB19.
On abortion…well, look, when the voters passed Amendment 3, something was just gonna happen. Now the approaches break down like this:
The Democrats believe that they can win any up or down vote on abortion being legal in Missouri. Even if the Republicans put some exceptions in the ballot measure, they know getting a no is much easier than getting a yes, and they think they can win, and wouldn’t have forced a PQ over something that was coming either way,. and they felt they would win at the ballot box either way.
While the Republicans believe that they cannot win an up or down vote on abortion being legal in Missouri. If they put rape and incest exceptions into a ballot measure they think they have a 50/50 shot of winning.
However, if they can put the “ballot candy” of something to do with trans in there with abortion, they think they can win.
The Democrats were not going to budge on what they termed the “trans ballot candy” The irony is that they invented the modern concept of “ballot candy” on Clean Missouri.
In that battle, the Republicans were against ballot candy, but they saw how successful it could be on Clean Missouri, and have copied the Democrats’ concept.
The conversation on abortion in our state can really be summed up by the actions of Wednesday. The real negotiation behind the scenes was over the trans ballot candy while on the floor Senator Cierpiot gave a speech laying the passage of Amendment 3 at the feet of the leadership of Missouri Right to Life.
He then inquired of several of his pro-life Republican colleagues who agreed with his take on MRL before they all voted for a PQ on the bill that was Missouri Right to Life’s number one priority, with their preferred language. That’ll show ‘em,.
If I had to reckon, the folks of Missouri were a little more pro-choice than the prior law passed in 2018 by the legislature, and they are a little more pro-life than Amendment 3 that passed at the polls last year.
Now will this ballot measure be the compromise they are happy with? Well, the pro-life side is all going to have to all get on the same page before we can truly find out.
There were some last-ditch efforts at a global deal to pass a Prop A fix, an abortion IP without the ballot candy, and a Royals Stadium bill, and likely several other items, but it was all contingent on Senator Schnelting agreeing to remove the trans ballot candy.
It’s likely the only person who could have pulled off a deal that complex is Governor Kehoe, and he was in Kansas City Wednesday. It might not be fair, but there is just a different karma to the capitol, when he is physically present.
As it became clear there would be no deal on abortion or Prop A, the Democrats began slowing down every bill that came up.
So finally, the Republicans went to the abortion HJR.
Then word came out that Senator Luetkemeyer was giving them another hour and a half to filibuster, then the PQs would be coming.
Around 6:00, the Senate transformed into the House. Senator Jason Bean took the gavel to serve as Speaker for the proceedings, and won the respect of everyone in how he flawlessly ran the dais during the dramatic scene, including when the gallery erupted in some goofy protest.
He really did very well in the dais during a tough time.
The gentleman from St. Charles offered the PQ motion on the abortion HJR, signed by the required 10 Senators, and the vote was 23 Representatives to 11 Senators.
That was followed by the gentleman from Cole on the Prop A fix. It was closer, getting only 19 representatives in support.
With that, the House/Senate adjourned.
You might ask what is wrong with the PQ? Well, a lot actually.
The only reason our state is what it is, and has maintained its traditions that it covets is the strength of our state senate. The Missouri State Senate is the most important institution in our state. More important than the Governor, the Supreme Court, and nothing else, safeguards our state like our Senate.
You look at places where the governments have fallen into total disasters: The City of St. Louis, the State of Illinois, and the City of San Francisco. What do those places have in common? An unchecked supermajority.
They spin out of control into the extremes and things like human shit and drug needles on the sidewalks happen in San Francisco, bankruptcy in Illinois, and the state having to take over the police department in St. Louis happen.
Whether it was the great Senator Webster protecting the commonsense interests of our state with a 9-seat super minority or the great Senator Rizzo protecting the commonsense interests of our state with a 10-vote super minority, it’s the Missouri Senate that holds the line in defense of commonsense.
Every time there is a PQ to end the free and fair debate of the Missouri Senate, it degrades that sacred institution just ever so much.
You can have a special session to pass a stadium bill, you can get the signatures for your own abortion ballot measure,, but no one can ever undo the degrading of the Missouri Senate that took place Wednesday.
That is not to say that it’s the exclusive fault of the Republican leadership. A PQ is a failure of the body. Yes, on the Republican leadership and the Democratic leadership and every single one of the 34 senators. ,
On Wednesday, they chose that their pet issue, whatever it happened to be, was more important than the institution of the Missouri State Senate.
There are 34 shares of blame to go around.
If you don’t care about the Missouri Senate, that is your prerogative, but just know that if you turn the senate into a smaller House, you might not see the form of government in the State of Missouri that you hate, but your kids will or your grandkids certainly will.
You can think that there will never be another democratic majority, but do you think any Democrats in 1995 saw a quarter century of a republican supermajority coming?
So what happens next?
Well the House members who got projects in their districts gutted will grumble to people like me and of course to their Senators about how they were treated, but history shows they will ultimately shut up and take it and probably show up this week and vote for a stadium bill, whether or not their projects are added to the package.
The candidates running for House floor leader will probably field questions about whether they would require someone with business experience be appointed vice chair of budget, but that’s probably about it.
Will the House Democrats be willing to throw their votes behind a stadium plan after how the session ended? I suspect that they will, but I also wonder if the Republicans still have 82 Republican votes for this.
Will a vote for tax dollars being spent on a stadium bill become the first attack mailer in House Republicans’ primaries? well, you can ask Catherine Hanaway about that.
Governor Kehoe came out last week and issued the call. He did not include the projects of HB19, just one or two, but did include some disaster relief.
They also would like the legislation to start in the Senate.
Well, in the Senate, you have a quite unhappy Appropriations Chairman, but I suspect he can be brought along on the stadium plan, he said as much on the floor, and if he doesn’t carry the bill, there is no point in having a special session.
However, by my count, you only have about a dozen Republican Senators who would vote for a stadium bill, and most of them are only voting for a Governor Kehoe proposal and really do not want to vote for a stadium bill.
You might get Senators Bernskoetter, Black, Burger, Cierpiot, Crawford, both Gregorys, Hough, and O’Laughlin to support the stadium bill. That’s 9. Those combined with all 10 democrats would get you there.
The next few you might get are, Senator Bean. However, if he is going to run statewide I know what the first attack ad will be, but if you get him, that’s 10 Republicans.
I assume you could get Senator Brown if you restored the funding to the sheltered workshop and hospital to get you to 11 republicans.
Senators Trent and Fitzwater are interested in leadership and I think they would be initially inclined to vote no, but if you got them too, that’s still just 13 Republicans.
I don’t think he is a yes today, but you would have to think there is some way to get Senator Henderson to a yes, to make 14 Republicans.
Senator Luetkemeyer recused himself because of a conflict, so that is a yes you won’t have.
I’m not sure you get Senator Nicola, who has already come out against this. Senators Schnelting and Schroer seem to be opposed. I have a hard time seeing Senators Hudson or Ben Brown, or Moon voting for this.
Senator Carter seems to have avoided a re-election fight, voting for this could change that. I struggle to see how Senator Coleman votes for this after her comments on the floor.
Then you have Senator Brattin. This is in his backyard, and I know he is a Chiefs fan, but I have a hard time seeing him vote for it.
It seems like you could add Senator Washington on the Democrats side to get you optimistically to 15. Senators Nurrenbern and Lewis are in a tough spot, but I doubt they cross over without a significant incentive.
That means you’re going to have to get several more Dems to get you to 18. Those same Democrats who were just PQ’d.
Things have likely been made more complicated after last Thursday’s bill signing session, when Senator Webber and Senator Beck made a quorum call during the middle of what is normally a ceremonial duty. Senator Webber’s response was a heated one, which hasn’t been seen in the chamber for some time now. I would expect that this was a sign of what’s to come during the beginning of special session.
If you get the Democrats, all of your problems are solved; if you don’t, I’m not even sure Mike Kehoe can get 18 Republican Senators to vote yes.
However, Governor Kehoe knows the complexities of the situation. He was part of a Right to Work PQ that ended up blowing up in their face so he knows the choppy waters he is in.
If you’re a Senate Dem, especially Senators Beck and Webber, after their floor speeches Wednesday, you had better get something really good in any deal for your vote, or no one will ever take them seriously again. I cannot imagine Senator Webber endorsing a deal without all of his $50 million for the reactor.
One thing I think is certain, if there is to be a deal, is that the Governor’s call of putting only the amount he listed in general revenue spending is simply an initial offer.
House Dems probably come over and vote for the bill regardless of any leveraging, but I can’t see the Senate Dems doing so.
The question of special session and the fate of the Royals will become how much money does Governor Kehoe allows Senate leadership to spend in fulfilling HB19’s projects by adjusting his call.
Then the question will be how much of that number will the House swallow?
This all likely falls on the Kansas City Speaker to negotiate with the Governor and the Senate to keep that number as low as possible and with his own house members to get their number as high as possible to make the two meet up.
If Speaker Patterson succeeds, he will be the toast of the City of Fountains. The Kingfish of the House will mark his place in history. He will go from a momentary point of civic pride to that next level of civic leaders where Emanuel Cleaver sits in esteem.
If not everyone will live, including Jake Kroesen and the tens and tens of Royals fans who will choose to not drive to Kansas just like they choose to not drive to Kauffman today.
