Politics
Missouri lawmakers return from break with big to-do list
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With eight weeks left in the 2024 Missouri legislative session, the House and Senate have passed several bills on their own, but none has passed through both chambers.Items that still must pass this year include the state budget and the Federal Reimbursement Allowance, which is a tax on hospitals and other health care that creates around $4 billion for the state’s Medicaid program.Here are four things to look out for in the second half of the session.A less flashy state budgetThe past few state budgets took advantage of federal COVID dollars and a surplus in general revenue to fund larger projects. That included last year’s funding of an I-70 expansion to three lanes both directions across the state, as well the approval of a list of projects improving colleges through the Federal American Rescue Plan Act.While the first draft of this year’s operating budget totals not quite $50 billion, it is roughly $2 billion less than Gov. Mike Parson initially asked for.It also lacks some of those larger, big-ticket items, in part because those federal dollars have already been allocated.“The Missouri House budget brings that ongoing spending back within the range of the revenue estimate, and we are prioritizing balancing that budget with our ongoing revenues with an eye on sustainability going towards the future,” House Budget Chair Cody Smith, R-Carthage, said.Smith said this year’s budget emphasizes public safety, transportation infrastructure and education.What is included in this budget is over $727 million toward rebuilding Interstate 44, money to fully fund the state’s foundation formula for public schools, as well as the state’s share of school transportation funding and $8 million for the Missouri National Guard to go to the Texas-Mexico border.On the topic of education spending, Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, said the adequacy target that is a part of calculating school funding hasn’t been updated in years.“In real dollars, that’s a reduction every year as inflation happens. So yeah, we’re fully funding our foundation formula, that’s because we’re actually spending less on our kids,” Merideth said.The budget still must go through both the House and the Senate, meaning the final product will differ come May.Changes to a resolution making it harder to amend Missouri’s constitutionSpeaking before the House began its week away from the Capitol, House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, talked about a resolution that would ask voters to make it harder to amend Missouri’s constitution.“IP reform will get done. The Senate did it. It’s coming over here, we have that ready to go,” Plocher said.However, what the final resolution will look like is unknown.Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, recently angered Senate Democrats when she asked a House committee to add back in a series of additional provisions that were ultimately stripped out of the Senate resolution before it passed out of that chamber.Coleman herself referred to those provisions on the Senate floor as ballot candy, which is a term describing language included to make a ballot proposal appeal more to voters.When asked what would happen to the bill in the Senate if that language was added back on, Coleman referred to the previous question motion, which is used to end debate.“Often there’s a willingness to use more procedural measures, or there is a willingness to stand longer as we get to a final step,” Coleman said.Coleman’s comments led to a shutdown of Senate work one day later by Democrats.“Maybe it’s the first time certain people have had people from the other side of the aisle have the ability to stand up for themselves and that’s unusual, but we can do that over here because there’s a process and we respect one another,” Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, said.On whether the House will add those provisions back into the resolution, House elections committee Chair Peggy McGaugh said she did not have a definitive answer yet and referenced the actions by Senate Democrats.“I think they made it clear that they don’t like the plan that we were working toward. So, I think there’s going to be a lot of give-and-take there,” said McGaugh, R-Carrollton.An omnibus education bill getting House inputBefore they went on spring break, senators passed an over 150-page omnibus education bill that included priorities for both Republicans and Democrats.“We were able to put together something that I’m not sure anybody can say doesn’t move the needle and move the ball down the field as it relates to K-12 education, whether you’re talking about the choice side, traditional public, etc.,” Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said.That bill contains language that allows charter schools in Boone County and expands the state’s K-12 tax credit scholarship program.It also raises the statutory minimum pay for teachers in the state to $40,000 and changes how Missouri calculates school funding by factoring in school enrollment.“Currently, schools are funded on attendance, ignoring the reality of fixed costs involved in operating a school. We changed this to the hybrid approach that has half attendance and enrollment that will increase public school funding,” Sen. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City, said.That particular provision will be fully implemented over several years.While no Democrats voted for the legislation, they did ultimately end their filibuster over this version of the bill and let it come to a vote.However, that bill now must go through the House, where it will likely undergo changes. Whether those changes would be enough to once again cause Senate Democrats to filibuster against the bill remains to be seen.Tough discussions over the Federal Reimbursement AllowanceThis session, lawmakers also must pass a tax that funds that bulk of Missouri’s Medicaid program.Originally, legislation that would reauthorize the Federal Reimbursement Allowance was the first bill lined up for debate on the Senate floor.But ultimately, that bill was laid over and has not been brought up since.“They themselves put it on the calendar as the top bill, and then decided to put it on the backburner, I guess, indefinitely,” Rizzo said.The FRA was last up for renewal in 2021. It took a special session in order to pass it then.With only eight weeks left, the FRA must be passed by both the Senate and the House. If it isn’t, they will have to again pass it during a special session.“We need to get it done. I believe that we will get it done. And we’ll have a lot of conversations about that,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina, said.The heart of the conflict is whether the FRA should include language that bars public dollars from going to abortion providers or their affiliates like Planned Parenthood. The consensus from Democrats and some Republicans is that the language should not be included.“I believe it’s a bipartisan belief that we need to pass it clean,” Plocher said.However, the opinion remains from some Republicans that anti-abortion language should be included within the FRA.Currently, a statute change that stops public funds from going to abortion providers or their affiliates like Planned Parenthood, has passed the House, while a similar Senate bill has been up for debate once.According to Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, that legislation must pass in order to consider passing an FRA without that language.“If we’re able to defund those that are doing harm and be able to help fund those that aren’t, we’re willing to and able to make that happen,” Brattin said. “But until that happens, it’s going to be an issue with this Freedom Caucus.”House Minority Leader Crystal Quade believes the legislature will again have a fight over the FRA like the last time it was up for renewal.“We are not only having discussions in this building about access to reproductive health care, and the other side, coming after things like birth control, which is what happened last time, now, IVF is an active part of this discussion,” Quade said.The last day of the legislative session is May 17.
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Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

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A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.
Brian Munoz
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St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.
One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”
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Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

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Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.
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As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

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Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.
Dilpreet Raju
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Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.
No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
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