ST. LOUIS–The 2023 regular session for the Missouri General Assembly is down to ten working days.

While there is always a somewhat frenetic final few weeks with lawmakers trying to get their bills attached to something that could get over the finish line, the pace in recent weeks has slowed in both chambers, as House leaders including Speaker Dean Plocher openly admit his chamber has already passed many key priorities for the GOP caucus as long as six weeks ago. Public safety bills impacting St. Louis Police and the Circuit Attorney’s Office have passed the House, as have bills banning transgender health care for minors and restricting transgender athletes. The body also passed a $1 billion income tax cut and initiative petition reform that would raise the bar for voter approval needed on statewide ballot questions. 

But many of those bills have yet to make it to the floor of the Senate, just as similar pieces of Senate-passed legislation have yet to make it to the floor of the House.

Here’s a look at five major issues still left on the table, including a potential late wild card.

Budget

It’s the only thing lawmakers are really constitutionally obligated to get done, but they only have until May 5 to do it. The Senate passed a roughly $50 billion budget early Thursday morning that added more than $4 billion to what passed the House, so work to reconcile the two versions will take on added importance over the next week. 

A large chunk of the difference is in the Senate’s move to spend $2.8 billion on highways, including a plan to put three lanes on I-70 statewide, instead of Gov. Parson’s plan to do it in St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City. 

The House passed roughly $1 billion in highway funds.

House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith told reporters Thursday he was still trying to “fully understand” the Senate’s version of the highway spending but said he was “always interested in investing in roads and bridges in Missouri.”

A set of conference committees will start the work of reaching an agreement Monday. 

While Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers, expect Democrats to play an important role in the budget once the conference committee versions come back to the bodies, particularly in the Senate, where GOP leadership will need votes to overcome opposition from a conservative faction that could put up a fight.

Initiative Petition Reform

House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson R-Bonne Terre told reporters last week that early this week a decision could come on whether to use a conference committee to finish work on initiative petition reform. The House has already passed legislation that would require a 60% threshold for voter-approved statewide ballot questions. The Senate last week passed its own version that would require a 57% threshold or any majority statewide and in five of the state’s eight congressional districts. 

Republicans who have seen voters in a reliably red state approve Medicaid expansion and recreational marijuana in recent years, are likely wary of the potential for ballot measures targeting the state’s strict anti-abortion policy for a statewide vote in 2024.

Transgender issues

Gov. Parson put the House and Senate on notice late last week, going public with plans to call lawmakers into a special session if they let May 12 come and go without passing a ban on transgender medical interventions for minors and a ban on transgender athletes.

Each chamber has passed separate bills on the issues, with key differences. A Senate bill awaiting House action would only ban hormone treatments for four years and would allow children currently receiving care to continue with it. 

A House bill waiting on the Senate has no grandfather clause or a sunset provision.

The competing bills on transgender athletes are similar in that they limit athletic participation to teams conforming with an athlete’s gender listed on a birth certificate, although they differ on when schools would put state funding in jeopardy for violating the law.

Missouri’s current public high school sports rules already prohibit transgender girls from competing on girls teams unless they have undergone at least a year of hormone therapy and continue taking medication to maintain their hormone levels.

The Missouri State High School Activities Association requires transgender athletes to apply and submit documentation of medical care in order to compete as the gender they identify with.

A spokesman for the association told the Associated Press in January that 13 students have been approved since the organization adopted the rules in 2012, including only four transgender girls.

While Speaker Plocher said the House version of the medical bill was more conservative because it didn’t include the grandfather clause or a sunset, he signaled late last week that the Senate version would get moved in the House. The Missouri Independent reports that Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden said his colleagues were done with the bill and that the House would pass it. 

St. Louis Special Prosecutor

Two versions of a bill that would allow the Governor to appoint a special prosecutor for violent crime in St. Louis are now in the Senate. One is in a House bill that made it to the Senate but hasn’t hit the floor yet, while the other is an amended Senate bill that the House sent back last week. Both versions have an emergency clause, meaning they’d take effect immediately after being signed into law or if the Governor chose to let it become law without signing. Parson has called for St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s resignation, and has supported Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s decision to seek her removal but has not said he would sign the special prosecutor bill. 

A trial over Gardner’s removal is tentatively set for September.

There has been a belief floating around the Capitol that a version of this bill will ultimately pass, at the expense of another bill that would return control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to a state-appointed board.

Sports Gambling

More than a month ago, the House passed a bill to legalize sports wagering in Missouri, with winnings taxed at 10% under legislation supported by the state’s major pro teams. It’s estimated the bill could produce as much as $29.2 million annually for public education by 2027. It did not address the question of what to do about regulating video lottery games which have popped up in gas stations, bars and elsewhere around the state. That question has dogged Senate efforts to legalize sports betting, and did so again this year, as a bill authored by Sen. Denny Hoskins died in committee in February.

Any more movement this session would seem to carry long odds, but it’s worth keeping an eye out the next few days. Kansas City played host the NFL Draft this weekend, drawing a national crowd to the city, as well as a handful of state lawmakers, and Governor Parson. Fans who might otherwise have wanted to bet on draft outcomes weren’t able to do it without crossing the border into Kansas

GeoComply, a cybersecurity firm that processes log-ins for sports betting, said Monday that it had logged more than 500,000 check-ins and 29,000 legal sportsbook accounts in Kansas between Thursday and Saturday. The firm said it detected 65,000 check-ins from roughly 7,000 accounts in Missouri which were rejected because sports gambling is illegal in the state. 

Will the result of what was missed, and the fact that some state lawmakers may have witnessed it firsthand be enough to fuel a Hail Mary pass in Jefferson City?