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Nov. 11, 2024 |  By: Anna Spoerre - Missouri Independent

GOP lawmaker cites abortion comments in push to replace incoming Missouri House speaker

abortion protestors

By Anna Spoerre - Missouri Independent

In the days before Missourians voted to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, incoming House Speaker Jon Patterson declared lawmakers should respect the people’s choice, whatever the outcome. 

Now, with abortion set to become legal in Missouri, Republican Rep. Justin Sparks of Wildwood is mounting a long-shot challenge seeking to block Patterson from the top leadership position in the Missouri House, arguing he is not up for the job of defending anti-abortion values.

“On day one, your speaker must address and tackle Amendment 3,” Sparks said Sunday on a Facebook live video, foreshadowing future legislative battles over abortion.

Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, declined comment. Sparks couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Monday.

Amendment 3, which won with 51.7% of the nearly 3 million votes cast, goes into effect on Dec. 5. At that point lawmakers won’t be allowed to restrict abortion prior to fetal viability, generally seen as the time toward the end of the second trimester when a fetus can survive outside the womb without extraordinary medical interventions. 

During a Lee’s Summit Chamber candidate forum in late October, Patterson said while he didn’t support Amendment 3, the legislature should respect the voters’ will if it passed. 

“It will be the law of the land,” he said at the time. “And we have to go forward as the people decide.”

Patterson added that the abortion ban wasn’t working for Missouri. In an interview with The Independent the following day, Paterson clarified that he was referring to the state’s “total ban” on abortion, which didn’t include exceptions for survivors of rape or incest.

“Missourians are telling us they want compromise,” he said. 

On Sunday, Sparks repeated Patterson’s words. 

“That’s not what the leader of the Republican caucus should be saying, guys,” Sparks said in the video.

The speaker of the House is in charge of appointing committee members and chairs, assigning legislation to committees and ruling on points of order raised during debate in the House Chamber, among other legislative duties. 

It is considered the most powerful leadership position in the General Assembly.

Patterson, who currently serves as House majority leader, was tapped last year to be the next speaker by the 111-member House GOP caucus. But he will not officially become speaker until January, when his promotion is ratified by the full House at the start of the legislative session. 

Sparks complained Sunday that, as majority leader, Patterson refused to allow one of his bills seeking to counter Amendment 3 to come up for debate in the House.

Sparks has filed a handful of other anti-abortion bills during his short tenure in the House, including one that would’ve prevented Missouri medical students from learning or traveling to other states for “abortion-specific training,” and another that would have prohibited fetal tissue or organs from elective abortions from being used for research. He also proposed a second constitutional amendment that would have asked Missourians if they wanted to grant fetal personhood to embryos and fetuses. 

Neither bill progressed far. 

“I desire neither power nor position,” Sparks said in the video challenging Patterson. 

Sparks was just elected to his second term in the Missouri House. He represents a district in St. Louis County — a county where more than 67% of voters were in favor of Amendment 3 and more than 60% voted in support of both Democrats Kamala Harris for president and Lucas Kunce for U.S. Senate.

Patterson was just elected to his fourth term. His House district sits in Jackson County, which voted in support of Amendment 3. 

A number of Republican lawmakers and elected officials have said they are exploring ways to overturn Amendment 3, including by proposing another amendment asking Missourians if they want to again place more restrictions on abortion. 

In 2019, Patterson voted in favor of the trigger law that was later enacted in June 2022, making Missouri the first state to ban abortion minutes after Roe v. Wade fell. 

While Sparks did not mention Patterson’s voting record on abortion, he did bring up that Patterson was among three Republicans to vote against the SAFE Act, which banned transgender youth from starting gender-affirming care.