2024 Session Draws to a Close with Historically Low Bill Passage

On Friday, the 2024 Missouri Legislative Session closed with little fanfare, a fitting end to a session where little work was accomplished. The legislation passed a grand total of 28 bills (excluding the 18 appropriation bills), a total significantly lower than last year’s previous record low of 41 bills and even lower than the shutdown-plagued 2020 session, where legislators managed to pass 31 bills despite multiple weeks of the Capitol being closed. This marks the fifth straight year that the legislature failed to pass 50 or more bills in a session. 

It is easy to attribute this historic low to the climate in a major election year, but it is important to remember that it wasn’t always like this. There was a major election in 2016, and the Missouri legislature managed to pass 129 bills. There was a major election in 2004, and the legislature passed a whopping 197 bills. This used to be the norm. Now, we spend all session wasting taxpayer money while a handful of politicians grandstand for media attention, key leaders are investigated on multiple ethics investigations, and the work of the people goes largely undone.  It’s no surprise that advocates from across the state have banded together to fight the legislature’s attacks on the Initiative Petition (IP) process– it is seemingly the only way that the people can get legislation that they care about passed. 

And that brings us to our (used very much in the collective sense) first major victory of the legislative session– SJR 74, the primary vehicle for changes to the IP process died last week following a 50+ hour filibuster from Senate Dems who demanded that the ballot candy (language designed to confuse voters at the ballot box and obscure the true purpose of legislation) added by the House be stripped off of the bill before the vote. No compromise was reached between the chambers, so the bill died in the process. Given that the primary driver of this legislation was to prevent a vote enshrining abortion rights in Missouri’s constitution, and the fact that a vote on that issue is likely to be scheduled for this fall, it will be interesting to see if the legislature takes this issue up again next session with the same vigor that it has brought to the issue in previous sessions. 

Despite historically low bill passage this session, Empower Missouri did see victories across all three of our priority areas: 

• Food Security: Funds were secured to run the Summer EBT program in Missouri in both 2024 and 2025. This means that over $50M new federal funds will flow into Missouri every year, starting this summer, to provide key nutritional supports to children receiving free and reduced-cost lunches during the school year. 
• Affordable Housing: The legislature finally passed a new policy that authorizes any municipality in the state with more than 1,500 inhabitants to start a land bank, a key government tool for dealing with abandoned and/or blighted properties. This has been a long-time priority of Empower Missouri’s, as we believe that this is an important first step towards turning some of these properties into new affordable housing units. 
• Criminal Justice: In its final hours, the House gave final approval to SB 754, a criminal legal omnibus bill containing many provisions championed by Empower Missouri. Victories include:
  • Banning law enforcement from issuing warrants for failure to respond, pay or appear in court for traffic infractions, creating a new process with better allowances for individuals struggling with poverty who might not have the resources to pay the assessed fines or fees. 
  • Increasing the general minimum age for juveniles to be certified as adults from 12 to 14, and defines a minimum age for certification for a specific list of serious felonies as 12. Under current law, there is no minimum age for certification for serious felonies
  • Requiring OSCA to collect and share data on juvenile certification, which we believe will help us to more effectively advocate to raise the age for certification even higher in future sessions
  • Requiring DOC to provide treatment and rehabilitation programs for juveniles who are certified as adults, including high school equivalency programs
  • Removing the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity from Missouri law
  • Increasing the lifetime limit on expungements to two felonies and three misdemeanors (currently one felony and two misdemeanors)

In addition to these bills that passed, we helped to prevent the following bills from passage: 

• Legislation that would have removed local control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and put the department under state control
• Legislation banning localities from implementing and imposing source of income discrimination bans
• Legislation preventing TANF recipients from accessing cash benefits
• Legislation criminalizing homelessness

Unfortunately, there were a couple of provisions that passed despite the opposition of Empower Missouri and other advocates: 

• SJR 71 will have voters deciding this fall if they want to allow for the levying of fines and fees on justice-involved individuals to fund sheriff and prosecutor salaries. Empower will heavily advocate against this ballot provision this summer and fall.
• SB 754 will limit powers of civilian oversight boards to what is expressly defined in state statute, limiting their effectiveness.
• The same bill will also make some individuals convicted of second degree murder committed as juveniles ineligible for parole. Second degree murders are not premeditated, and we will continue to work with legislators to build their understanding of brain development in teenagers and young adults, in hopes that they will eventually repeal this harmful law. 
• HB 2062 will prohibit municipalities from enacting eviction moratoriums, putting renters in perilous positions following natural disasters or public health emergencies. 

I’d like to thank our staff, our coalition members, and all of our incredible partners across the state for their tireless work this session. Despite the very low number of bills that passed, you all helped to secure some very important victories for the state, and I’m so grateful to all of you for standing up for and with those with the least among us this session.  Please check out this week’s episode of Under the Dome and join us on Friday for our team’s legislative wrap-up call on Zoom for more analysis on this session and to hear about our plans for the year ahead.