Lawmakers pass state worker raise, consider sports betting proposals: Statehouse updates
JEFFERSON CITY — Follow our live updates from the Missouri State Capitol this week as lawmakers hold hearings on major proposals and other priorities come up for debate in both the House and Senate.
Welcome to the News-Leader's statehouse live blog, where we'll bring you newsworthy tidbits and updates throughout the week from the Missouri State Capitol. Check back on this page throughout the week to see the latest, or visit news-leader.com to see stories on major developments, which will continue regularly.
Questions, tips or other feedback? Email or message politics reporter Galen Bacharier at gbacharier@news-leader.com or on Twitter @galenbacharier.
Pay raise for workers heads to governor's desk
The Senate passed an emergency spending request Wednesday, sending a bill that includes an 8.7% cost of living increase for all state government workers to the governor's desk ahead of his self-imposed March 1 deadline. It passed 29-4.
In total, the supplemental budget spends $627 million, the majority of which uses federal money. It also includes $20 million for schools to use to fund safety improvements and $286.5 million for disaster relief to be distributed across the state. It also includes $628,000 for mitigating black vultures that have been harmful to cattle ranches throughout southern Missouri — a personal priority for Springfield Republican Sen. Lincoln Hough.
Elected officials, including both statewide offices and lawmakers, are not set to receive the pay boost. They were initially included before being carved out of it during the House negotiations.
The "no" votes in the Senate came from several hardline conservatives, who expressed reservations about the continued spending by the state government, as agencies beg for more money to raise wages across the board amid struggles to recruit and retain workers.
Sports betting gets its day in Senate committee, but video lottery issue lingers
A pair of bills that would legalize sports gambling in Missouri were heard by a Senate committee Tuesday morning — but the familiar tensions that have previously halted progress on the issue remained.
The House held a similar hearing ahead of the Super Bowl, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisles and pro sports teams alike exasperated at the lack of legal betting in Missouri. But one of the Senate sponsors — Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Warrensburg Republican — appears to still be insistent on tying the issue to the legalization of video lottery terminals, many of which are already stationed illegally in gas stations across the state.
Other senators' previous and strong opposition to those terminals, commonly called VLTs or "gray machines" by critics, has meant sports betting has failed to make it through the Senate. It remains to be seen whether that sentiment remains — but one influential sports owner expressed a preference for keeping the issue separate. Bill DeWitt III, the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals who has supported the legalization of sports betting, said the team took no stance on VLTs but preferred the issues stay separate.
Neither chamber has had floor debate thus far on sports betting.
House takes Presidents' Day off as Senate debates into evening
The House was out of the Capitol on Monday for the federal holiday, but the Senate remained at work, holding hearings in the afternoons and conducting a few hours of floor debate in the evening.
Debate on the floor centered around two bills: one to cut down the application process through the Department of Social Services for SNAP, TANF and other low-income assistance programs, and another changing how physicians and pharmacists can coordinate on filling prescriptions and vaccinations. The latter encountered some resistance from two conservative senators who have been opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, but both were granted initial approval before the chamber adjourned Monday evening.
Ban on transgender health care for minors advances to full Senate
A Senate committee on Monday advanced Senate Bill 49, which bans gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, to the full chamber.
The committee has held hearings on multiple bills on the topic of transgender health care, but this marks the first of them to make it through to the full Senate. Last week, similar legislation on the House side, which also restricts accessibility to the health care for incarcerated adults, was approved by a committee.
Read more about those bills advancing amid a renewed push by Republican lawmakers here.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Lawmakers pass pay raise, consider sports betting: Statehouse updates
