Jun 02, 2023

St. Joseph Rep. Falkner is running for House Speaker

Posted Jun 02, 2023 6:00 PM
Rep. Bill Falkner/File photo
Rep. Bill Falkner/File photo

By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

State Rep. Bill Falkner is running for Speaker of the Missouri House.

Falkner, a Republican from St. Joseph, says he decided to run for Speaker, because he believes the House can be run differently.

“The only way to change some of these things is to be in that position,” Falkner tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “It’s a longshot that I will get this, but a lot of people have asked me aren’t you afraid to lose? And I’ve said no one likes to lose, but I would feel worse about myself if I thought I could change things and didn’t try.”

The Speaker is elected by the entire Missouri House of Representatives at the beginning of the legislative session.

Due to term limits, no one representative serves as Speaker for very long.

While the Speaker is the top position in the Missouri House of Representatives, the position has evolved into a powerful one during campaigns. Falkner says the Speaker now is expected to do more than run the House during the legislative session.

“Sometimes the Speaker’s role is who can raise a lot of money, which I don’t really think that should be a requisite, but it is.”

The Missouri legislative session ended May 12th. Legislators now enter the off season in which they can attend to their non-legislative jobs and catch up on personal tasks that suffered neglect during the session.

That won’t be the case for Falkner, who will be traveling the state this summer, campaigning for Speaker.

“I’ll probably be working on that and trying to just talk to different representatives and try to give them my vision of what change would look like,” Falkner says.

Falkner won election to the Missouri House in 2018, then won re-election in 2020 and 2022. The former St. Joseph mayor, Falkner chairs the House Local Government Committee.

You can follow Brent @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.