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May 6, 2024 |  By: Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

Friday budget deadline tests Republican factional fractures in Missouri Senate

senator eigel

By Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

The end of a 41-hour filibuster early Thursday was a cease-fire in the Missouri Senate’s Republican civil war, not a peace settlement.

But the only place it applies is in the chamber itself.

Outside, on social media and conservative talk radio, the barrage continues.

The Missouri Freedom Caucus surrendered the floor under threat of being forced to do so with a motion to shut off debate, Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin wrote Friday in a social media post.

The motion, known as the previous question, requires the signatures of 10 members of the 34-member Senate and its use to end a filibuster is seen as a last-resort option by Senate leadership. 

Using it to close down members of the minority party is rare. Using it on members of the majority party is considered beyond the pale.

But that is where they were at 3 a.m. Thursday, O’Laughlin wrote. The motion not only had the signatures of the necessary 10, but “every member” of the Senate had signed, she wrote.

“The filibustering Freedom Caucus members were told we had it and if they didn’t sit down we’d use it,” O’Laughlin wrote. “They sat down.”

State Sen. Bill Eigel told a different story Thursday morning on a Kansas City radio station. Eigel is seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

In his version, the end came when there were 18 other Republicans willing to vote in favor of changing the majority requirements to pass constitutional amendments.

At that point, the bill renewing medical provider taxes necessary to finance the state Medicaid program received first-round approval. 

“We allowed as a measure of goodwill for that to take a step forward towards completion,” Eigel said on the Pete Mundo show on KCMO Radio.

The bill needs a final roll call vote to send it to the House and Freedom Caucus members are ready to renew their filibuster, Eigel said.

“The commitments better be kept as we go into next week or we’re going to end up right back where we were this week,” Eigel said.

State Sen. Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican, followed Eigel on the Mundo program and said he was lying. The Freedom Caucus caved under threat of being shut down, he said.

It took 41 hours, he said, because so many Republicans were reluctant to use the previous question motion. Finally, he said, 18 Republicans of the 24 in the chamber had put their names on the motion.

Cierpiot and Eigel have a bitter enmity, and at one point in the 2022 session had to be physically separated as they made selections from buffet-style meal being served during a Senate break.

“I would sign that against Bill Eigel any time, any day, because he does this silliness all the time,” Cierpiot told Mundo.

 

Crunch time

 

The next two weeks as the legislative session comes to a close are the busiest of the year. The budget – 17 separate spending bills including one to provide money for programs short of funds to finish the year – must be finished by Friday. 

All legislative work must cease on May 17.

As majority leader, O’Laughlin is essentially the Senate traffic cop, giving members the green light to bring their bill up for debate. Her plan when the chamber convened last Tuesday was to give Republican state Sen. Lincoln Hough of Springfield, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the floor to first get the provider tax bill through, then lead debate on the budget bills.

The Freedom Caucus came to the floor demanding that the Senate debate a proposal changing the majority requirements for passing constitutional amendments. 

An agenda change seemed designed to trigger a filibuster by Democrats. The measure has already been through the Senate once and Democrats held the floor for 21 hours to force removal of provisions that the House reinserted before returning it.

In her Friday post, O’Laughlin said she wanted the budget finished before beginning an extended debate on initiative petition legislation.

“If you take away the political theater you understand the budget has to go first,” O’Laughlin wrote. “This week, the ‘Freedom Caucus’ burned up virtually the entire week with a filibuster. They denounced other senators (myself included), read from the Bible and basically lectured anyone who would listen on the ‘emergency’ we have and how they should be the ones determining the schedule.”

The spur behind changing the majority requirements for constitutional amendments is the prospect of an abortion rights proposal on the November ballot.

Supporters of abortion rights on Friday delivered 380,000 signatures on an initiative petition to enshrine reproductive rights in the Missouri Constitution. If there are enough valid signatures in six of the state’s eight congressional districts, it will go on a ballot later this year.

Republicans want to put the changes to majority requirements – raising the threshold to require a majority vote in five congressional districts in addition to a statewide majority – on the August ballot. That could put the higher bar in place for the November election.

Every Republican in the Senate supports the changes to majority requirements, O’Laughlin wrote. 

“Basically it gave more weight to rural votes,” O’Laughlin wrote, “and requires not only a 50 + 1 % vote to win an issue but also a majority in five of eight congressional districts.”

The week that includes the budget deadline is a time of maximum leverage. Passing a budget is the only work that lawmakers must complete in any given year and only once, in 1997, have lawmakers missed the deadline on any spending bills and returned to complete appropriations work in a special session.

In an interview early Thursday, Hough said he has been working to reduce the steps necessary to pass a budget this year to help meet the deadline. He’s preparing Senate substitutes for the committee-passed bills, written after consultations with House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, leadership in both chambers and Democrats.

Last week, Smith said agreement on final budget provisions was needed by Wednesday to provide enough time for staff work and the workings of House rules. Sending the House revisions that are acceptable would eliminate days of work.

“It is not the norm, but nothing in this environment is the norm,” Hough said.

 

Cracked caucus

 

When the Missouri Freedom Caucus formed late last year, it counted six Republican Senators among its members – Eigel and Sens. Rick Brattin, Jill Carter, Denny Hoskins, Andrew Koenig and Nick Schroer.

But last week, Carter refused to participate in the filibuster, refused to speak to Eigel on the Senate floor and renounced her membership soon after the filibuster ended.

“While I remain loyal to the same conservative principles and the advancement of legislation that benefits our state and my constituents, I can no longer, in good conscience, be part of behaviors, and actions behind the scenes that defames grassroots, and violates the needs of my constituents,” Carter wrote on social media.

Carter did not return calls seeking comment on her decision.

In a response to a Facebook comment, Carter said she would not discuss why she acted. 

“I did what I did because it was best for me and my conscience, and how I represent my district, that’s what I want people to know,” Carter said. “If I need to say more in time I will, but I am not in the habit of bashing on social media platforms just to keep up with the vitriol.”

Eigel and the Freedom Caucus, however, engaged in no such restraint.

After her refusal to speak to Eigel on the floor, he accused her of betraying the group, failing to keep a promise and selling out.

“It seems like so often, when, when individuals get down to this chamber, something happens,” Eigel said. “They lose that desire to fight for the things that they said they were gonna fight for in campaign season. You don’t often get to see the moment when it happens for a legislator.”

A statement posted to the Missouri Freedom Caucus social media accounts said Carter’s loyalty to the group was under suspicion before the public break because she had voted against caucus priorities previously.

“It is easy to lose your way and be overwhelmed by the Jefferson City swamp and the Missouri Uniparty,” the statement reads.

And Eigel on Friday said on social media that Carter would “remain in his prayers” to regain her bearings.

“Nobody wins when commitments are broken so publicly on (the) Senate floor, and many of the folks celebrating this fracture don’t share Jill’s belief set to begin with,” Eigel wrote.

Carter’s break is akin to O’Laughlin’s withdrawal from a group, with several of the same senators, that called itself the conservative caucus. Like Carter, she was the only female member.

And then, as now, the most aggressive member of the caucus was Eigel.

In January, speaking to editors and publishers visiting the Capitol with the Missouri Press Association, O’Laughlin said she was ready to vote to expel Eigel from the Senate.

She also told them why she quit the conservative caucus.

“I felt like the conservative caucus was really all about Sen. Eigel,” she said. “He wanted to make all the decisions and I didn’t agree with the decisions and after being in there awhile, we start filibustering our own bill and I thought ‘something is not working here.’”