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Every year, dozens of bills are filed in the Missouri General Assembly that target the LGBTQ+ community in one way or another, forcing queer legislative staff to sit quietly while our humanity is debated.  I am a gender non-conforming lesbian and a very visible member of this community. There are days I worry if it […]

The post Out of the closet and into the Capitol | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri House on Monday passed a new congressional redistricting map, agreeing to a plan that its sponsor says is intended to appease critics who have blocked previous efforts at agreement. With a Friday final adjournment looming, the bill debated Monday is a long-shot for passage. Under legislative rules, the first day the Senate could […]

The post Missouri House pushes ahead on last-chance congressional redistricting plan appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri Senate passed a wide-ranging elections bill Monday that would enact a photo ID requirement to vote as well as create a window to cast an absentee ballot without an excuse.  The bill will now go back to the House, which can send it to the governor or ask for a conference to work […]

The post Voter ID requirement, absentee ballot changes clear Missouri Senate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

After the Democratic mayors of Kansas City and St. Louis last year moved to shift police funds towards community outreach and crime prevention initiatives, Republican lawmakers in Jefferson City vowed a response.  GOP-backed legislation filed this year would increase the portion of Kansas City’s budget it must devote to its police department. Another bill would […]

The post GOP eyes bill forcing Kansas City to put more money toward police as session nears end appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missourians this fall may have a chance to legalize adult marijuana use and change the way elections are conducted. Two initiatives proposing amendments to the Missouri Constitution were submitted Sunday. If each has sufficient signatures, they will likely be on the Nov. 8 ballot. The marijuana initiative would build on the 2018 amendment that legalized […]

The post Legal marijuana, ranked-choice voting initiatives submitted for Missouri ballot appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri lawmakers enter the final week of the legislative session Monday with a laundry list of unfinished business and long-simmering tensions threatening to derail any hope of progress.  After finishing work on the largest state budget in Missouri history last week, GOP super majorities in the House and Senate hope to begin ticking through election-year […]

The post ‘Crescendo of craziness’: Missouri legislature enters final week with long to-do list appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When I was raped in 2016, one of my attackers reached inside me and pulled out my NuvaRring, an internal birth control device, and asked me what it was.  When I told him, he cast it aside where it was lost until police retrieved it a couple days later.  Following my attack, because of the […]

The post Pandora’s Box: Overturning Roe is only the beginning of the threats to women | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A St. Charles County Circuit Court judge dismissed Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s lawsuit Thursday against the local school district’s now-rescinded mask mandate, leaving few cases from Schmitt’s legal blitz remaining. The City of St. Charles School District was one of 47 districts Schmitt sued earlier this year over mask mandates, and it was one of […]

The post Judge dismisses Missouri AG’s mask lawsuit against St. Charles school district appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The largest budget in Missouri history passed with relative ease Friday, in part because the final version was larger than the spending plans passed earlier in either the House or Senate. The total, just over $49 billion, includes big increases for school transportation, help for colleges and universities in the form of bigger budgets and […]

The post Missouri lawmakers finish record $49 billion state budget hours before deadline appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri lawmakers are poised to require schools test and, potentially, filter drinking water to prevent lead poisoning, making the state one of just a handful that require administrators to meet standards stricter than federal regulations. The state offers grants for schools to pay for water testing, but there is no requirement to test, and only […]

The post Legislature on the verge of requiring Missouri schools test, filter water for lead appeared first on Missouri Independent.

An expansive set of proposed changes to Missouri’s open records law backed by Gov. Mike Parson has transparency advocates alarmed that legislators may be poised to undermine the law. The changes touch on everything from narrowing the definitions of “public business” and “public meetings;” closing records that include draft documents or relate to proposed legislation; […]

The post Lawmakers debate changes to Missouri Sunshine Law that would conceal more records appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The path to passage for a bill spending almost $3 billion in federal COVID-19 relief was paved with money Thursday. But about 20 minutes of discussion was all it took to win a 26-5 vote from the upper chamber after 18 new projects were added along with a $500 million set-aside from general revenue for […]

The post Missouri Senate signs off on $3 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens will get to look at his ex-wife’s telephone records from the days before she filed explosive allegations of child and spousal abuse against the Republican Senate candidate. In an order dated April 28, Associate Circuit Judge Leslie Schneider overruled Sheena Greitens’ motion to quash subpoenas for her phone logs and […]

The post Judge grants Eric Greitens access to ex-wife’s phone records in custody case appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A years-long effort to halt development of a massive electrical transmission line across Missouri gave way early Thursday morning to a compromise bill endorsed by the energy company.  For years, Chicago-based Invenergy has been developing a 4,000 megawatt transmission line, called Grain Belt Express, expected to carry clean energy from southwest Kansas across Missouri and […]

The post Missouri Senate approves eminent domain reform that wouldn’t kill Grain Belt Express appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A record state operating budget that a top legislative Republican said “has a little bit of something for everyone” is heading for final votes in the Missouri General Assembly as tax revenue continues to pour into the treasury in historic amounts. Final figures weren’t available Wednesday, but the spending plan that emerged from a day […]

The post ‘Something for everyone’: Final votes coming for record-setting Missouri budget appeared first on Missouri Independent.

TOPEKA — The stakes for the August vote over a Kansas constitutional amendment on abortion access were made clear by the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion striking down federal abortion protection rights. The draft opinion rejecting the landmark Roe v. Wade decision is not final and does not necessarily set in stone the opinion of Supreme […]

The post Overturn of Roe v. Wade raises stakes for Kansas abortion rights battle in August appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by The Kansas City Beacon.  William Jewell College brands itself as “The Critical Thinking College.” Three “key questions” are central to the curriculum of the Liberty, Missouri, institution: What is real? What can we know? How should we live? But as a student- and faculty-led group called the Slavery, Memory and Justice Project applied critical […]

The post William Jewell has two groups doing slavery research. Some say that’s a problem appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday pledged a new vote codifying the right to an abortion after publication of a draft court ruling that showed the Supreme Court on track to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Democrats, who likely won’t have the votes to advance that bill, also predicted that abortion […]

The post U.S. Senate to try again on abortion rights after bombshell disclosure of draft opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri lawmakers will try one more time before they adjourn for the year to reach agreement on a new Congressional redistricting map. If they fail, the job will likely fall to the courts. But with three pending lawsuits – one in federal court and two in state court – it is uncertain where a map […]

The post Missouri lawmakers to make one more attempt at congressional redistricting map appeared first on Missouri Independent.

If a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade holds true, nearly all abortions in Missouri would become illegal. But anti-abortion advocates worry the ban would be swiftly met with lawsuits. They hope the leaked U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe will jumpstart efforts to place a proposal on the statewide ballot declaring […]

The post GOP eyes amending Missouri constitution to ensure no right to abortion exists post-Roe appeared first on Missouri Independent.