MoInd 📰

A bill backed by the hemp industry that would impose age restrictions on their products was resoundingly rejected Tuesday evening by a Missouri House committee after product safety requirements were removed.  The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Ben Baker of Neosho, would place an age restriction on the purchase of intoxicating hemp products, such […]

Since late 2021, a market pay plan designed to combat high turnover in the Department of Transportation has been tied up in court over the question of whether lawmakers or the Highways and Transportation Commission has final say over how state road funds are spent. The final answer, delivered Tuesday by the Missouri Supreme Court, […]

A Republican push to bar transgender Missourians from changing the sex on their birth certificates was briefly debated Wednesday morning by a state Senate committee. The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Mike Cierpiot of Lee’s Summit, said birth certificates reflect “facts on the day you were born” and should be unchangeable except in cases of […]

Members of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus criticized the state budget and Gov. Mike Kehoe’s executive order to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs in a news conference Tuesday. State Rep. Michael Johnson, a Kansas City Democrat and the caucus chair, focused his comments on Kehoe’s elimination of DEI efforts. The caucus had released a […]

Low-income Missourians who receive food assistance would be prohibited from buying soda and candy with their benefits under a bill debated Tuesday.

Missouri legislators are once again pushing what they refer to as “Born Alive Survivors Act,” a bill that feeds off myths and miseducation about abortion in order to punish people navigating a tragic fetal diagnosis. It targets a specific circumstance in a pregnancy involving the diagnosis of a fetus as “incompatible with life” — three […]

The Missouri Senate Education Committee discussed legislation Tuesday seeking to ban materials deemed explicit from digital libraries and hold library boards responsible for the content made available to minors. State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican, filed legislation applying safety measures to “digital library catalogs” after hearing about explicit material available on a state-subsidized […]

A Missouri Senate committee heard testimony once again on Monday about raising the bar on the process for passing initiative petitions. Initiatives petitions are measures proposed by citizens that appear on the ballot after an appropriate number of signatures are collected from voters. Republican senators led last year’s unsuccessful push to change the initiative petition […]

The Senate Committee on Government Efficiency heard a bill Monday that would ban state funding for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Sponsored by state Rep. Ben Baker, a Republican from Neosho, the bill would also bar state departments from mandating a DEI program in contracts with private organizations. “The bottom line is we as a […]

COLUMBIA — The doors of the only Planned Parenthood clinic in mid-Missouri opened up on Monday morning just like they have since 1970.  But for the first time since 2018, pregnant women from central Missouri received an abortion at their local clinic instead of traveling across state lines. By 10 a.m., the first two patients […]

A bill targeting foreign-manufactured drones drew opposition Monday from Missouri law enforcement officials and public utility representatives. State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, said the crux of his legislation is to ban future purchases of Chinese drones by law enforcement. Concerns he cited in the Senate Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety […]

A Missouri House budget subcommittee slashed more than $300 million from agency budgets Monday, which the chairman said is intended to align spending authority with actual spending. Another budget subcommittee, also meeting Monday, cut $59.5 million more in general revenue from several agencies, earmarking the money instead for local projects that include several that were […]

More states are loosening vaccine mandates, scaling back vaccine promotion efforts and taking other steps likely to lower vaccination rates — even as a major measles outbreak spreads in Texas. Meanwhile, public health experts worry that the confirmation of vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human […]

German chemical giant Bayer is improperly using a court order to hide details of a “propaganda” campaign targeting Missouri lawmakers and potential jurors, an emergency motion to lift the confidentiality cloak claims. In a case pending in Cole County Circuit Court, attorney Matt Clement is arguing that 46 “public relations” documents designated as confidential by […]

Only in Missouri do state politicians think they are better suited to run city police departments than local elected leaders. There is zero evidence to support that premise. Yet the Missouri House just voted to place the St. Louis Police Department back under state control, even though a hefty 64% of voters liberated it from […]

The Missouri Supreme Court on Friday suspended an associate circuit judge for a year without pay for leaving numerous cases unresolved for years, leaving families in limbo on divorces, child support and custody and, in one case, potentially pushing a home into foreclosure. The court imposed the suspension on Associate Circuit Judge Joe Don McGaugh […]

The immigrant detainee, a client of Rekha Sharma-Crawford, would have to be moved. Chase County Detention Center was full. Located in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, it’s the largest detainee holding center in the region contracting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Sharma-Crawford, a longtime immigration attorney, saw something more foreboding when she heard the […]

A Republican lawmaker is holding up confirmation of Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s pick to lead the social services department until she gets answers from the agency about chronic problems that have plagued the foster care system for years and what she says has been the agency’s failure to implement laws designed to help. State Sen. […]

I’ve written twice about the dangerous misunderstanding that you can’t get a divorce in Missouri while pregnant.   Though I’ve yelled about the fact that Missouri’s law is not unique and there is no current law barring a judge from granting a dissolution during pregnancy, I’m in favor of the legislature making that more explicit in […]

Two of Missouri’s nine Planned Parenthood clinics are poised to start performing regularly-scheduled surgical abortions next week, though clinic leadership says access to medication abortions is in the hands of the state.  The first elective abortion in Missouri since the procedure was banned in 2022 was performed earlier this month in a Kansas City Planned […]