Kansas City Democrat: Republicans pass bill allowing concealed weapons in churches, on buses

(From Rep. Ingrid Burnett, D-Kansas City)

Folks, we have 3 more weeks to go and things are amping up, but it still feels like sizzle without the steak. The Republicans can’t resist the temptations of salacious topics. 

Last week during one of the debates, a Republican Rep took exception to a lesson offered by Rep Sarah Unsicker (D) in an earlier session. She was explaining the origin of graphic novels and their popularity among adolescents. She pointed out that one of the first books published in graphic novel format was Maus, by Art Spiegelman, one of the books that has been targeted in the attack on libraries and librarians. 

Maus tells the story of victims of the Holocaust featuring the Nazis as cats and Jewish people as mice. it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, and in 2015, it was banned in Russia for violating anti-Nazi-propaganda laws. 

Rep Unsicker suggested that some members maybe were confused about the difference between graphic novels (novels written in more of a comic book style), and pornographic material. 

Two days later, the Republican Rep got up in front of the assembly and read the definition of pornography including explicit acts of sex before being challenged by Democrat members demanding that he be gaveled for breaking decorum and not self-censoring when children were present in the upper chambers. 

That was followed by a round of mocking by Rep Perkins (R), who chided Democrats and accused them of approving librarians distributing pornographic materials to children but are too fragile to listen to a description of pornography. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Transgender legislation advanced to the Senate

April 17 was a long session – the first extraordinarily long session this year, and after debating and amending a myriad of bills, HB183 was brought to the body for a final vote out of the house. 

Under this bill, transgender athletes in grades 6 – 12, and college athletes would be prohibited from competing on school-sponsored sports teams that don’t reflect their birth gender. House Bill 183 targets sports teams from grades six through 12, as well as college athletics. Public school districts and universities would lose a portion of their state funding for allowing transgender kids to participate on a team that corresponds with their gender identity, while private universities would be subject to fines of up to $1 million. 

A similar Senate bill has already cleared that chamber and a House committee. It awaits action by the full House which means we could be taking it up yet again. In the 11 years since the Missouri High School Activities Association first adopted a policy governing participation by transgender athletes, only a dozen have been cleared to play. The bill passed on a near-party line vote of 106-46, with one lawmaker voting “present.” One Republican joined Democrats in opposing the bill.

Guns on buses and in churches

Also passed out of the House on April 17, HB 282 removes public transit and churches from the current list of prohibited places for concealed weapons permit holders, and now advances to the Senate on a vote of 102 – 45, and 4 present. 

Because this bill applies to all religions, including denominations that practice non-violence, or have foundations rooted in nonviolence it likely could violate their constitutional right to freedom of religion by forcing them to allow weapons regardless of their religious beliefs. 

This bill seems particularly callous considering the incidents of gun violence this year that affected a high school in St. Louis, and the shooting of a 16-year-old high school student who accidentally knocked on the wrong door in a Kansas City neighborhood while on an assignment from his mother to go pick up his brother from a friend’s house.

Budget follies continue to unfold

The Senate Appropriations Committee took up the budget last week and made changes to fix some of the more outlandish actions of the House. 

In the Senate version of the budget funding for Missouri, libraries is fully restored at $4.5 Million; state workers who work with Missourians with developmental and physical disabilities would receive a wage increase to bring the minimum pay to $17/hour; The I-70 lane expansion project would cover the entirety of I-70 at $2.8 billion with half paid out of general revenue and half paid from bonds; and they stripped the anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) language attached to each department’s budget. They also added a few Easter eggs of their own by funding a new psychiatric hospital in Kansas City and increasing funds that help people who have physical and developmental disabilities.

We have 2 weeks to move this budget over to the Governor’s desk. This week the entire Senate chamber will weigh in with some members vowing to restore the DEI language or bust. That will give us the rest of the time to complete the inevitable conference committees to iron out the differences and move for a final vote to truly agree. We shall see…….

In the meantime, the Governor will be hosting his annual BBQ at the Governor’s mansion, and the NFL Draft opens in Kansas City on Thursday.