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When a Republican colleague threatened to read aloud from a 2-foot stack of books — including a biblical guide to leadership and a tome by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist — to protest inaction on his bills last week, Missouri state Sen. Rick Brattin quickly took up the cause. Seizing on a chance to hijack the planned schedule, […]

The post Freedom Caucuses push for conservative state laws, but getting attention is their big success appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Helpless and without the ability to control her head, they handed her to me, and I knew my life was changed. We left the hospital two days later with our newest family member and time on our side thanks to the paid new child leave our employers gave us. In January, I returned to work […]

The post Employers can set families up for success by providing paid new child leave appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Forty-five million people live in the area managed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the organization that runs a massive portion of the North American electric grid running from Manitoba, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Inside that footprint are all or parts of 15 states, 75,000 miles of transmission lines and nearly 3,000 electric generating […]

The post In the central U.S., an electric grid bottleneck persists appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Caleb Rowden only has a few more months left as a Missouri lawmaker, and he wants to leave a legacy in his hometown of Columbia.  The Senate president pro tem will leave office this year because of term limits, and before he’s done he wants to change state law to allow charter schools in the […]

The post Caleb Rowden pushes for charter schools in his county over objections from local districts appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Proposed legislation to regulate intoxicating hemp products could potentially ban the majority of the Delta-8 drinks and edibles on the market in Missouri today, the state’s top marijuana regulator told an industry meeting late last week in St. Louis.  “This is really an unanswered question,” said Amy Moore, director of the Missouri Division of Cannabis […]

The post Proposed legislation could ban the majority of Delta-8 drinks and edibles in Missouri appeared first on Missouri Independent.

I’m heading into the grocery store and someone with a clipboard approaches.  “Hi,” the person says. “Are you a registered voter in Missouri?” The same thing happens in front of the neighborhood bakery. And at public gatherings like parades. Outside the post office. Even on random street corners.  I confirm that I am indeed registered […]

The post Voiceless in Missouri: How an attack on initiative petitions stifles democracy appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Only one word describes what voters in Missouri’s 19th Senate District can expect from this year’s campaign. Nasty. Former state Rep. Chuck Basye, a Rocheport Republican who habitually issues profane insults to opponents through email and social media, filed Tuesday to run in the central Missouri district. He filed at the urging of Senate Majority […]

The post Republican with history of vulgar, anti-gay online attacks files for Missouri Senate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Elizabeth Bauer was working out at the gym one morning last August when she got a phone call from her fertility nurse. It was a call that Bauer and her wife, Rebecca, had long been waiting for. Elizabeth dialed in Rebecca so they could listen together: They were pregnant. The Washington, D.C., couple decided before […]

The post Few states cover fertility treatment for same-sex couples, but that could be changing appeared first on Missouri Independent.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — About a year ago, veterinarian Melissa Ezell started noticing subtle changes at the midsized animal clinic in Huntsville, Alabama, where she works. She said she and other vets were feeling pressure from management to make a certain amount of money from every appointment. If a pet owner wasn’t going to spend enough, […]

The post Vets fret as private equity snaps up clinics, pet care companies appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missourians overwhelmingly support access to contraceptives, but some fear their lawmakers could pass laws limiting that availability, a new poll shows. The survey, released Thursday by The Right Time, a family planning initiative through the Missouri Family Health Council Inc., polled 1,000 Missourians between the ages of 18 and 35, split almost evenly between Democrats, […]

The post Poll finds Missourians want better access to birth control. Bipartisan bill could grant it appeared first on Missouri Independent.

During the 2022 election cycle, I decided to combine two of my favorite hobbies – poker and politics. I wrote a series of columns depicting Missouri’s U.S. Senate race as a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em, with the final installment predicting an Eric Schmitt victory.  Recently in the Capitol, I was collared by a gubernatorial […]

The post What if the Missouri GOP gubernatorial primary were a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em? appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A recent legal settlement agreed to by the National Association of Realtors leaves Missouri realtors unsure of what the future holds. The association, which represents about 1.5 million realtors nationally, announced March 15 that it will settle several antitrust lawsuits, pending court approval. The industry group denied any wrongdoing, but it will pay out $418 […]

The post ‘Wait and see’: Missouri Realtors brace for changes after settlement over commissions appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Homeschooling families and lobbyists representing public school groups renewed their opposition to a wide-ranging education bill on Thursday, outnumbering advocates who testified during a House committee hearing. The criticism echoed previous concerns with the bill, despite a litany of new provisions added by the Senate designed to win over Democrats and public school advocates. The […]

The post Opposition remains for sprawling education bill expanding Missouri private school tax credits appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri House of Representatives is made up of 163 members, the fourth most of any state. Sen. Travis Fitzwater, a Holts Summit Republican, is looking to change the institution he once served in. Fitzwater is sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment that would decrease the size of the House to 102 members. The measure also […]

The post Is the Missouri House of Representatives too big? One state lawmaker thinks so appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A fertilizer spill this month in southwest Iowa killed nearly all the fish in a 60-mile stretch of river with an estimated death toll of more than 750,000, according to Iowa and Missouri conservation officers. That is the biggest fish kill in Iowa in at least a decade and the fifth-largest on record, according to […]

The post Fertilizer killed more than 750,000 fish in Iowa and Missouri appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When Morgan Johnson walked into her annual well woman’s exam at the Little Rock Planned Parenthood in 2018, the Arkansas clinic had just gotten a call from the governor’s office. A new state law that had been working its way through the courts had just gone into effect — Planned Parenthood could no longer receive […]

The post Missouri looks to mirror Arkansas law that forced Planned Parenthood to turn away patients appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri cannabis regulators have revoked nine of the 48 social-equity cannabis licenses issued in October, after finding the companies that obtained them didn’t meet eligibility requirements.  Eight were dispensaries linked to out-of-state groups and one was a wholesale facility. Among them is Canna Zoned, a Michigan company that secured two of the 16 dispensary cannabis […]

The post Missouri revokes nine social-equity cannabis business licenses for out-of-state companies appeared first on Missouri Independent.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg outlined Wednesday the immediate and longer-term priorities the Biden administration is pursuing in the aftermath of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore that left six presumed dead. While many questions remained roughly 36 hours after a massive cargo ship struck the bridge and caused the deadly collapse, Buttigieg at […]

The post Federal rebuild of Baltimore bridge ‘will not be quick or easy or cheap,’ Buttigieg says appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI — a form of artificial intelligence that can create new content, including images, audio, and video — became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes. But, while Congress has done little to address […]

The post States across the country, including Missouri, rush to combat AI threat to elections appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This year’s elections will result in some of the biggest changes in Missouri Senate membership since term limits took effect 20 years ago, with at least nine members exiting the chamber and primary challenges that could send four incumbents home. The Senate, dominated by a Republican supermajority, is beset by GOP factional warfare that has […]

The post Open seats, primary challenges mean Missouri Senate will see most turnover in two decades appeared first on Missouri Independent.