Gov. Mike Kehoe wants a quick session to approve stadium financing, disaster relief and state spending that failed in the regular session. How he satisfies lawmakers demanding more could decide success or failure for the new governor
BY: RUDI KELLER
Missouri Independent
The opening of the legislative special session Monday put partisan and intraparty fights in the Missouri Senate on display as Democrats called for expanded storm relief and Freedom Caucus members called for tax cuts as the price for supporting stadium subsidies.
Gov. Mike Kehoe called lawmakers together just two weeks after they finished work in the regular session to consider a package of tax incentives intended to convince the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals to stay in Missouri.
Kehoe is also asking lawmakers for a $235 million spending bill with $25 million for disaster relief as well as a special tax deduction for the cost of meeting insurance deductibles after a disaster.
The brief opening session didn’t feature any sharp exchanges, but the bills filed — and the statements made about them — show where the battle lines are being drawn.
Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, a Democrat from Affton, told reporters that members of his caucus aren’t willing to talk about stadium funding until an appropriations bill and other disaster relief measures are on Kehoe’s desk.
“When that happens and it’s through the House and on the governor’s desk, then we can talk about it,” Beck said.
Members of the Freedom Caucus said they are holding out for a tax cut that benefits all Missourians before considering a stadium plan, said state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance.
Schroer filed a bill to cut the top income tax rate to 4% — it is currently 4.7% — and make the tax flat across all incomes.
“The members of the Freedom Caucus, plus the other conservative members that are not necessarily in the caucus, they’ve all expressed that whether it’s income tax, personal property tax or real property tax, for us to sit at the table, and allow tax credits for billionaires to move forward, the little guy needs to get something in return,” Schroer said.
The regular session ended in acrimony when Republicans twice invoked a rarely used procedural move to shut off debate. Democrats had blocked a proposed ballot measure to restore Missouri’s ban on most abortions and a bill repealing the paid sick leave law passed by voters in November.
Democrats vowed that the move ended their cooperation with Republicans and gave a taste of what that meant last week when they stalled the final paperwork of the regular session.
Under the Missouri Constitution, lawmakers have 60 days to complete work on items in a special session and Kehoe has said he won’t try to impose an artificial deadline. Because of the uncertainty of action in the Senate, the Missouri House won’t convene until next week and will only remain in session if the Senate has passed a bill for it to consider.
But the Chiefs and Royals have only until the end of the month to answer an offer from Kansas to fund new stadiums. Kehoe hopes to have his plan for tax incentives worth about 50% of the cost of new or renovated stadiums to be passed by then.
The plan for the Chiefs and Royals would take tax money already generated from activities at the stadiums — $28.8 million annually as estimated by the Chiefs and $15 million annually by an estimate from the Royals — and commit it to bond payments for 30 years for the new or upgraded facilities.
The economic activity associated with the Chiefs supports 4,500 jobs, Kehoe contends, and a new stadium for the Royals would generate about 8,400 jobs.
The spending bill Kehoe wants passed would use $25 million of general revenue to support a new research reactor on the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus, plus funding for a new livestock display barn at the State Fairgrounds in Sedalia and about $50 million to help with construction of a new mental hospital in Kansas City.
The funding for the reactor is $25 million less than Kehoe proposed. State Sen. Stephen Webber, a Columbia Democrat, introduced an appropriations bill with $75 million for the reactor, plus all the other general revenue projects that died when Missouri House Republicans refused to bring the construction spending bill up for a vote.
“If there is going to be a $25 million variance on agreements made in this chamber, we ought to go $25 million in the other direction,” Webber said.
Webber also introduced a bill imposing a 1% income tax surcharge on incomes greater than $1 million, which he said would bring in about $400 million over three years to support disaster relief.
“There is obviously a belief, among some, that billionaires should be given a sweetheart deal. I would disagree with that,” Webber said. “There is also some concern about whether we can fund disaster relief for some communities in our state that were desperately hit. So what I’ve tried to do is build a bridge between those two issues.”
State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican who chairs the Freedom Caucus, introduced a bill to finance the stadiums entirely from donations. He called it the “No Taxation, All Donation Act” and included incentives for giving.
“So if somebody gives over $10,000 to this stadium, then they are able to obtain free parking to be able to get into that stadium,” Brattin said.
The next step will be to send the bills to committees for hearings. That will happen tomorrow and the first hearings will occur soon afterward.
Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Parkville, seemed happy to have gotten past the first day without a filibuster.
“Today went smoothly,” Luetkemeyer said. “And then we’ll just take it day by day and see where we go from here.”