Abortion, GM subsidies, redistricting: Missouri lawmakers save hot topics for final week

The Republican-led House and Senate have saved some of the most controversial topics for last: abortion, legislative redistricting and tax subsidies for General Motors.

After sending Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, a dozen bills outlining the state’s budget for next fiscal year last week, lawmakers are now preparing for a marathon that could include more GOP infighting and the likelihood of impassioned Democratic filibusters designed to slow progress on Republican initiatives.

Unlike previous years, said Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, Democrats have been aided by open sparring on the Senate floor between a conservative bloc of six senators and GOP leadership. Democrats have been able to sit back and watch the “implosion,” she said.

“We as Democrats didn’t really have to do a lot of heavy lifting these last two weeks because these conservative six were fighting with leadership,” Nasheed said. “We just sat back and we just watched the show.”

But, in the final week, Nasheed said, she expects Republicans to put aside differences to bring to the Senate floor a strict abortion bill, a controversial redistricting proposal to be put on the ballot, or both.

If they do so, she said, Senate Republicans risk effectively ending all other work by sparking Democratic filibusters meant to run out the clock. The Legislature is constitutionally required to adjourn by 6 p.m. Friday.

The redistricting proposal Republicans want to put on the ballot would ask voters to scrap a “nonpartisan demographer” who would draw legislative maps after the 2020 census. Voters approved the demographer as part of the “Clean Missouri” ballot initiative last year.

GOP backers want a bipartisan panel to draw the maps, which critics argue has led to horse-trading and unfair advantages for Republicans in the past.

“If they were strategically planning to undermine the will of the people they would do it the last day,” Nasheed predicted.

Abortion, GM expansion

The sweeping anti-abortion proposal is designed to trigger a court challenge that the GOP sees as a way of overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal nationwide.

In February, the House forwarded legislation to the Senate requiring a doctor to check for a fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion or face a $1,000 fine and a potential loss or revocation of his or her medical license.

It also includes a provision to ban a woman from aborting a fetus that might have Down syndrome, as well as a requirement that both parents be notified before a minor receives an abortion.

The package contains no exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest.

It would ban almost all abortions in the state if the U.S. Supreme Court would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Senate Democrats are expected to use their filibuster powers to try to block the measure.

Under Senate rules, 18 votes are needed to force a vote on legislation. The parliamentary procedure, however, is used sparingly because it triggers legislative logjams, spurring hourslong speeches by scorned members who don’t have any limits on how long they may speak.

In a preliminary debate on the abortion changes last week, Democrats criticized the legislation.

“I personally view that abortion should be a woman’s decision, not the government’s,” said Sen. Scott Sifton, D-St. Louis County, adding that he and colleagues were prepared to debate the bill on the floor indefinitely.

The two chambers also are being pressured by Parson to approve a $50 million incentive package spread over 10 years for General Motors, which is considering a $1 billion expansion of its truck and van assembly plant in Wentzville.

As part of the package, Parson has folded in authorization for his “Fast Track” scholarship program and a “Missouri Works-Deal Closing Fund” designed to help with attracting businesses. Detractors, including Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, have compared the closing fund to a “slush fund.”

“I’m not very interested in expanding corporate welfare programs,” Eigel said Friday, declining to speculate why the governor’s office included two of its top priorities that Eigel opposes in a package designed to draw jobs to Eigel’s county.

Eigel said GM has never told him the mechanisms were a major factor in GM’s decision-making process.

“I think we’ve been a great partner to GM and if we weren’t then they would never be considering additional investment in the first place,” Eigel said.

Differing dynamics

Each year, there are different dynamics that dictate the outcome of a session.

In 2018, the closing days unfolded against the backdrop of former Gov. Eric Greitens’ meltdown. At this time last year, a House investigative committee was firing off subpoenas and engaging in an open public relations war with the scandal-plagued governor’s office.

Despite the chaos Greitens’ problems created, the Legislature approved scores of bills on a variety of subjects, including legalizing the production of industrial hemp, loosening regulations on hair braiders and raising the age for juveniles to be prosecuted as adults.

This year, the House and Senate spent much of the penultimate week squabbling over whether the Senate would move to approve an elusive prescription drug monitoring program.

In previous years, one senator, Republican Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph, used the filibuster to block Missouri from joining the rest of the nation with a monitoring program over privacy concerns.

With Schaaf gone because of term limits, the Senate’s so-called Conservative Caucus has filled that void and has said it would not allow the opioid abuse-fighting program to get on the books.

In response, the House Rules Committee, chaired by Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, has stopped the flow of Conservative Caucus-backed legislation, halting progress on some of the conservatives’ priorities.

Eigel said Friday that he realizes Rehder is passionate about passing her drug-monitoring proposal, but he indicated he was willing to let some conservative bills die in committee if it meant letting Rehder’s bill fail.

“It’s just not something that I envision happening at this point,” he said of Rehder’s proposal.

Budget woes

With revenue up over last year’s level, lawmakers avoided having to make painful cuts to planned state spending for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

After months of committee hearings and hours of floor debate, the most controversial issue became whether public colleges and universities should be able to use state money to grant in-state tuition to students with unlawful immigration status who live here.

After a House-Senate conference committee voted to allow schools to do so, House GOP leadership moved to renege, saying taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize tuition for those who came to the country illegally.

But the move triggered consternation from Democrats and some Republicans who thought the budget wording was a done deal.

“What is happening to this institution is disrespectful,” said House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, on the House floor on Thursday. “The way that this body operates has been so frustrating.”

House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-O’Fallon, called the impasse unexpected.

“This week was certainly more contentious than we thought it was going to be,” Wiemann said Friday. “But we dealt with it and got it done like we are supposed to do.”

One bill environmental and farming interests are watching is Senate Bill 391, which would forbid counties from imposing on large feeding operations rules that are more stringent than state standards.

More than 20 Missouri counties have passed more rigorous regulations, but groups such as the Missouri Farm Bureau argue the ordinances impede the spread of modern farming in what are known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.

Senate Democrats won some concessions, including rules on what are known as “export-only” feeding operations, which ship manure to other farms so those farms can use the manure as fertilizer. The creation of a joint committee to study environmental impacts of agriculture was included in the bill.

The House could move fast to approve the proposal in the final days.

The House and Senate have a number of other issues pending that could fall by the wayside if abortion and redistricting dominate debate.

In a year when lawmakers promised to tackle criminal justice reform, much of the House legislation that would do so still awaits approval in the Senate.

On Thursday, the Senate approved a proposal that restricts courts from incarcerating defendants for not paying “board bills” charged to them for previous stays in county jails, along with an initiative that allows judges to depart from minimum sentences in nonviolent cases.

The Senate is prepared to add other provisions to a separate minimum sentencing proposal that has been vetted by the House, including drone restrictions around state prisons and the addition of “vehicle hijacking” as a separate crime.

Other pending legislation includes an initiative to allow older inmates to seek early parole, a requirement to supply women in state prisons with free tampons and efforts to expunge certain crimes from residents’ records.

An effort to stop eminent domain from being used in the construction of the Grain Belt Express wind transmission line appeared to be faltering last week in the Senate even though House Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, marketed the bill as one of his priorities.

“There could be a lot of bills that could die just because of lack of time,” Wiemann said.

An expansion of charter schools into other areas of the state could be one of them.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said last week that charter school legislation remains one of his top priorities.

A proposal from Eigel would allow charter schools to open in areas other than Kansas City and St. Louis, while adding oversight and intervention possibilities if the schools do not perform well.

The chamber’s conservative caucus has also been pushing for a voucher program that would finance parents’ first choice for their child’s K-12 education while changing the way students are allowed to move from under-performing schools.

But, without enough support to advance out of the House, neither item is likely to cross the finish line.

“There’s really no way that’s going to get done this year,” Wiemann said.

Lexi Churchill of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.