Missouri’s General Assembly and executive branch have moved into political chaos, following a pair of racially insensitive proclamations to Special Session by Governor Mike Parson. These came on the heels of signing Senate Bill 600, a “get tough on crime” package of measures that repeat mass incarceration failures of the past that had racially disparate...Read More

In 2012, Empower Missouri became part of the Missouri Medicaid Coalition. Year after year, our coalition would ask the Missouri General Assembly to close the Medicaid coverage gap so that workers with low wages could get into Medicaid if they did not meet the income guidelines for the Marketplace plans in the Affordable Care Act....Read More

TAKE ACTION NOW After more than two months of delay, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Caucus have finally released their proposal for the next round of COVID-19 relief. On Monday, congressional leaders unveiled a roughly $1 trillion stimulus proposal called the HEALS Act, which includes a $400 cut in unemployment benefits. The federal eviction...Read More

We were extremely disappointed when Gov. Parson announced on July 6 that he would be signing Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 600 (SB 600), legislation that enacts mandatory minimums and stacking of sentences and creates new classes of crimes.  We said so in a statewide press release, in a guest column in the St. Louis...Read More

We at Empower Missouri are extremely disappointed to learn that Gov. Parson plans to sign Senate Bill 600. This reverses the positive direction that his administration appeared to be heading in his 2019 State of the State Address. At that time Gov. Parson said: “As a former sheriff and law enforcement officer for over 22...Read More

Today’s report from Missouri’s State Auditor shows that Missouri is continuing to decline in the revenue strength needed to withstand stresses like the current COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn. It is time that legislators take a serious look at Missouri’s unfair, outdated and inadequate personal income tax system. When “the common good” is inadequately funded, our state is...Read More

As social justice advocates, our relationship with “Independence Day” is “complicated” to say the least. Clearly the liberty and justice promised in founding documents of the U.S. have never been realized, and those same documents contain structural inequality. So much has been written about this. This year some of us will be revisiting Langston Hughes’...Read More

On June 18th, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) launched their national HIV is Not a Crime initiative, focused on modernizing HIV-specific laws across the country. This initiative is in partnership with The Counter Narrative Project, Positive Women’s Network, The Sero Project, Transgender Law Center, the US People Living with HIV Caucus, and Gilead Sciences,...Read More

The 2020 Legislative Session came to an end on May 15th, amidst the special challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite having floor debate time reduced by about six weeks due to the public health emergency, 51 bills became “Truly Agreed and Finally Passed” (TAFP) during the abbreviated session. We were disappointed to see many of...Read More

Registered voters in Missouri have an opportunity on Election Day August 4 to vote Yes on Amendment 2 to expand Medicaid in our state and improve Missouri’s health and economy. Most importantly, Empower Missouri believes it is a moral and human right for all to have access to healthcare coverage. This was true even before...Read More