By Jason Hancock
On Friday, state Sen. Rick Brattin stepped down as chairman of the Missouri Freedom Caucus just days after voting in favor of $1.5 billion in tax incentives to finance new or renovated stadiums. He noted the stadium vote in the statement announcing his resignation.
The group had vowed to oppose the funding scheme, which it decried as a “handout to billionaire sports team owners.” But Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, and state Sen. Brad Hudson, a Cape Fair Republican who is also a Freedom Caucus member, voted in support of the plan after a provision was added making changes to local property tax bills.
On Monday morning, state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, was announced as the new chairman.
The response from conservative activists after Brattin’s resignation was swift.
Some accused Brattin of betrayal, while others argued he was duped by the inclusion of language allowing the stadium funding to survive even if a court tosses out the property tax provisions.
“For several years, discussion in (Jefferson City) revolved around conservatives exposing moderate and liberal Republicans by getting them on bad votes that showed who they were,” Bill Eigel, a former Missouri Senate Freedom Caucus leader who is running for St. Charles County executive, posted on social media. “Gov. Mike Kehoe changed this dynamic. He is getting conservatives to vote as badly as the moderates.”
Jim Lembke, a former GOP state senator and adviser to the Freedom Caucus, said the group is “void of any leadership and has lost all credibility. They should disband and join the uniparty that runs Jefferson City.”
Tim Jones, state director for the Missouri Freedom Caucus, said during a radio appearance on Friday that he advised senators to vote against the stadium bill and was surprised when two members of the caucus ended up supporting it.
“In the light of day, there’s some buyer’s remorse. There’s some regret,” Jones said, though he later added: “To his defense, (Sen. Brattin) thought he was doing the right thing to protect the interest of his constituents.”
Brattin defended his vote on social media, posting a video saying that while the deal wasn’t perfect, he was determined that “if we’re going to be giving handouts to millionaires and billionaires, we need broad-based tax relief for people.”
“To me,” he said, “this was a massive win. On the stadium, they were going to get the votes, whatever it took. So I tried to weigh this out and make lemonade from the lemons we were given.”
Brattin’s chief of staff was less diplomatic, accusing Eigel of treating politics like a game.
“He’d rather chase likes on social media than deliver real wins,” Tom Estes, Brattin’s top legislative staffer, wrote in a now-deleted social media post. “It’s pathetic, and just one more reason he’s never been an effective leader.”
The war between the Freedom Caucus and Missouri Senate leadership raged for years, creating so much gridlock that fewer bills passed last year than any session in living memory — despite Republicans holding a legislative super majority.
Tensions cooled this year, with term limits pushing key figures on both sides of the fight out of the Senate. The detente led to a much more productive session, marked more by partisan squabbling than GOP infighting.
But the Freedom Caucus’ history of using procedural hijinks to upend legislative business made its opposition to the stadium bill an existential threat to its success, forcing Republican leaders to take demands for some form of tax cut seriously.
In the statement announcing Schroer’s new leadership role, did not mention the rifts within the group. He vowed to push an alternative agenda.
“We will not bend,” Schroer said. “We will not back down. The Missouri Freedom Caucus is here to fight — and we are just getting started.”
If approved by the House and signed by Kehoe, the legislation passed by the Senate would allocate state taxes collected from economic activity at Arrowhead and Kauffman to bond payments for renovations at Arrowhead and a new stadium for the Royals in Jackson or Clay counties.
The cost is estimated at close to $1.5 billion over 30 years.
Both teams have expressed interest in leaving Missouri when the lease on their current stadiums expire in 2030, and Kansas lawmakers have put a deal on the table that would use state incentives to pay for up to 70% of the costs of new stadiums.
The Kansas deal expires on June 30.
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