(Missouri Independent) – A constitutional amendment asking Missourians to let lawmakers decide year-to-year whether the state will offer Medicaid to working-age adults moved closer to passage on Wednesday. By an 8-5 vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent the House-passed proposal to the full Senate for debate. Only Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, voted with Democrats to oppose the measure, which […]
(Missouri Independent) – The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request by five counties and health departments to quickly hear arguments and review a case that they say “upended the longstanding public health framework” in Missouri. The decision means an appeal of a Cole County judge’s November ruling will have to first go through […]
(Missouri Independent) – The Missouri Senate is poised to take up a long-running effort to stymie the Grain Belt Express, a massive transmission line meant to carry wind energy from southwest Kansas across three states. The $2 billion project would carry 4,000 megawatts of energy, dropping some off in Missouri before ending at the Illinois-Indiana […]
Governor Mike Parson has granted 10 pardons pursuant to Article IV, Section 7 of the Constitution of the State of Missouri. Official documents have been filed with the appropriate government agencies and are being sent to the individuals. To review the names of the individuals granted clemency, please see attached. Governor Parson has instructed his […]
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office announced that 506 candidates have filed for the August 2 primary election. The filing period closed yesterday, March 29, at 5 p.m. Candidates that filed on the first day, February 22, drew a random number to determine the order their names will appear on the ballot. The names of […]
The Missouri Legislature is considering whether to legalize the adult use of marijuana. This comes less than four years after nearly seven out of ten voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing for the use of medical marijuana. The 2022 “Cannabis Freedom Act”, sponsored by Republican State Representative Ron Hicks would authorize the recreational use, taxation, […]
(Missouri Independent) – A bill that would make it a felony to donate fetal tissue from abortions for research or therapies won first-round approval in the Missouri House Tuesday, but lawmakers blocked an effort to make it illegal to help women obtain an abortion outside the state. The bill sponsored by Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, […]
The U.S. Supreme Court at its Mar. 25 conference agreed to hear a case brought by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation against California’s Proposition 12, which bans the sale of pork from hogs born to sows that weren’t raised according to the state’s “arbitrary” production standards. “We are extremely […]
The House Veterans Committee heard from bill sponsor Jason Chipman, a Republican from Steelville in southeastern Missouri. He wants to ask voters to add extra reporting on the tax revenue that comes from legal medical cannabis after the cannabis program pays its bills. The rest of the tax revenue is supposed to go to the […]
(Missouri Independent) – When the Good Samaritan Care Clinic opened in 2006 in Mountain View, only about 5% of the free clinic’s clients were eligible for Medicaid. When it closed late last year, that number had risen to 70%, Dr. John Roberts, one of the clinic’s founders, told the Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. Medicaid […]
(Missouri Independent) – Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson began her four-day confirmation process to become the nation’s first Black female associate justice on Monday, listening to hours of opening statements from Senate Judiciary Committee members before giving her own. In her first public remarks since President Joe Biden nominated her last month, Jackson, who grew […]
(Missouri Independent) – As a fight over who can regulate industrial hog and cattle operations awaits action by the Missouri Supreme Court, counties that sought more stringent protections against them wait in limbo. The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to hear an appeal by county commissioners who sought to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, […]
The Missouri General Assembly has been on spring break this week and will reconvene March 21st. State Representative Rusty Black of Chillicothe says he thinks the House of Representatives did good work in the first part of the session. Black is in his sixth year as a State Representative. He enjoys being involved […]
The Missouri Supreme Court has sided with the state’s public defenders in the so-called Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights challenge case. Missouri State Public Defender Mary Fox and other public defenders challenged the part of the law that required the defense in a sex crimes case to inform the alleged victim of their rights […]
(Missouri Independent) – A panel of Missouri judges tasked with redrawing 34 state Senate districts released a tentative plan Monday, part of a once-in-a-decade process that reconfigures political boundaries following the U.S. Census. The new map, drawn by the Judicial Redistricting Commission after a citizen commission failed to reach consensus, will be formally submitted to […]
A federal indictment was unsealed in Portland, Oregon, charging a former Oregon Department of Corrections employee with sexually assaulting a dozen female inmates while serving as a nurse at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s only women’s prison. Tony Daniel Klein, 37, of Clackamas County, Oregon, is charged with 21 counts of depriving the victims […]
(Missouri Independent) – Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit Thursday against Missouri’s Department of Social Services, alleging the agency unlawfully plans to restrict Medicaid payments to the provider. A March 4 notice sent to Planned Parenthood of St. Louis Region cites a supplemental budget bill lawmakers passed last month that bars abortion providers or their affiliates from being […]
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt joined a coalition of 27 states filing an amicus brief in Kennedy v. Bremerton, supporting a Washington state football coach’s right to engage in his private exercise of religion by praying after football games. Coach Joseph Kennedy was suspended by Bremerton School District after praying while in view of his […]
(Missouri Independent) – With a change of just a few words, a bill to expand the sales tax exemption for food purchases became a bill virtually ending the exemption, infuriating its sponsor and forcing a Missouri House committee to give it another look. On Monday, the House Rules – Administrative Oversight Committee voted to send state Rep. […]
Groups advocating for health-care access for all Missourians urged the state Senate to reject a proposed constitutional amendment to undermine Medicaid expansion passed by the House. House Joint Resolution 117 would empower the Legislature to block services to the hundreds of thousands of newly eligible residents who are signing up, by repealing expansion and making it […]
