MoInd 📰

Eight months into his term as Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey withdrew his office from defending a state agency being sued by a legislator’s son for disability discrimination. A few months earlier, his campaign and an affiliated political action committee accepted more than $150,000 in donations connected to a witness in the case. Incensed by […]

A small Missouri city must deplete its bank accounts — except for enough money to keep the police force intact — to pay a judgment that found it violated a resident’s First Amendment rights and the Missouri Sunshine Law, a court ruled last week. Phelps County Circuit Judge John Beger directed Edgar Springs to pay […]

Julita Harris has worked in child care for 47 years and has refused to shut down her business, Peter Rabbit Learning and Development Center in St. Joseph, despite mounting financial concerns. The preschool has become a family affair, with her son Edwin helping with administrative tasks. Lately, that’s meant watching for payments from the state’s […]

Missourians will have the opportunity to vote to enshrine abortion in the state constitution this November, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. In a decision published less than three hours before the constitutional deadline to remove a question from the ballot, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling that recommended the measure be stripped […]

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is asking for over $174 million in supplemental funding for this school year after receiving $1 billion less in appropriations compared to the previous year. When the State Board of Education reviewed the budget bill approved by lawmakers in May, Board Chair Charlie Shields predicted that “the […]

The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday morning over whether to allow an abortion-rights amendment to remain on the Nov. 5 ballot.  The court will decide whether the campaign behind Amendment 3, which would legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability and protect other reproductive rights, failed to comply with state law when […]

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is creating a new specialized unit to assist the state’s alcohol and tobacco regulators in cracking down on intoxicating hemp products, Bailey announced at a Capitol press conference Tuesday afternoon.  The announcement comes after Gov. Mike Parson’s ban on these products hit a delay of up to six months. The […]

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has vowed to run intoxicating hemp products out of Missouri, banning their sale and threatening penalties to any business that makes or sells them. In many ways, it’s the latest showdown between the marijuana industry — which has operated legally in Missouri since 2018 but is outlawed federally — and the […]

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s early Monday statement that he would vote to legalize recreational marijuana use in Florida sent a strong signal that both major parties are moving to adopt popular marijuana reform efforts, unexpectedly elevating the issue in the presidential battle. But the campaign for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, expressed […]

A common complaint about presidential debates is that they change few minds. This year, with anywhere between 3% and 6% of likely voters undecided in early September and the closeness of the race, especially in the battleground states, that is more than enough to swing an election if a sizable portion favor one candidate over the other as […]

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft decertified a ballot measure that would legalize abortion, a move aimed at blocking it from appearing on the November ballot, according to a brief filed Monday with the state Supreme Court. Last month, Ashcroft announced the reproductive-rights proposal would appear on the ballot as Amendment 3. But a Cole […]

WASHINGTON — As Congress returns from a five-week recess Monday, House Republicans have attached a provision to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections — which is already unlawful — to a stopgap funding bill that is already teeing up a battle with the Senate and White House. The GOP drive in Congress echoes state […]

The top three finishers combined to spend $27.5 million in the Republican primary for governor, with the winner, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, accounting for almost two-thirds of the total, newly filed campaign disclosure reports show. Overall, Republicans in statewide contests spent almost $65 million, compared to just $4.8 million in the Democratic Party, where the […]

WASHINGTON — From the beige-trimmed kitchen window of her home in Missouri’s Monroe County, Marilyn O’Bannon can look out across more than a half-mile field of crops. But in the future, that view may include electrical transmission towers and lines, which could be along the route of a proposed massive federal power transmission corridor that […]

The Missouri Supreme Court will decide whether abortion-rights will end up on the Nov. 5 ballot after a Cole County judge ruled the proposed amendment violated state law.  The case bypassed the court of appeals over the weekend and headed straight to the state’s highest court, which scheduled oral arguments for 8:30 a.m. Tuesday — […]

Missouri lawmakers will return to Jefferson City this week to consider whether to override any of Gov. Mike Parson’s vetoes.  And while they are in town, many will also engage in another veto session tradition — raising campaign cash at a parade of parties and fundraisers all over the Capitol City. Less than two months […]

A Missouri judge ruled Friday evening that a reproductive-rights amendment did not comply with state initiative petition requirements, leaving the door open to potentially withhold it from the November ballot.  Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled that the coalition behind the citizen-led ballot measure failed to meet the sufficiency requirement through a “failure to […]

A Cole County Circuit Court judge rejected an attempt to invalidate an initiative petition on sports betting Friday, allowing voters to decide whether to enshrine sports wagering in Missouri’s Constitution on the November ballot. “Lawsuits seeking to remove an initiative petition from the ballot after it has been certified as sufficient by the secretary (of […]

A lawsuit attempting to knock a reproductive-rights amendment off the November ballot could hinge on whether it would immediately repeal Missouri’s current near-total ban on abortion, an issue disputed during a two-hour-long hearing Friday. Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh said at the completion of Friday’s hearing that he intends to rule quickly because the […]

A U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative to feed hungry kids during the long summer months is mostly winding down, with advocates calling it a success despite some hiccups — and the federal government and many states are already working to bring the permanent program back in 2025. The Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program — or Summer EBT — has popped […]