After sending a final 11 bills to the governor's desk, the Missouri House adjourned Thursday, bringing an end to the 2025 legislative session.
What had been an unusually productive and cooperative session fell into disarray in its final week. The failure of the House to pass the part of the state annual budget covering capital improvement projects led to House bills being roadblocked and filibustered in the Senate.
And on Wednesday, Senate Republicans used a rare parliamentary maneuver to force an end to a Democratic filibuster.
After using the maneuver twice, once to place a near-total abortion ban on the 2026 ballot and again to remove the earned paid sick leave provisions voters approved last November, the Senate adjourned for the year.
Once the Senate adjourned, the House was limited to only passing Senate bills, or House bills that had already been approved by the Senate, in the final days of the session. The House could no longer amend any pending legislation.
Ultimately, the legislature passed a total of 67 bills this year, 16 of which were budget bills. Last year's total was 46.
"I think if you look at this session as opposed to the previous sessions that we've had in the last two or three years, I think this was much more productive, things ran much more smoothly," said House Speaker Jon Patterson, R-Lee's Summit, at a press conference after adjournment Thursday.
The session had been scheduled to end at 6 p.m. Friday. It's the first year since 1952 that the House has adjourned early.
The last week
Patterson said Republicans had achieved their biggest goal for the session by putting a near-total abortion ban back on the ballot.
"The Missouri voters will have a chance to vote on that measure again, and as our top priority, we were very happy to see that get done," Patterson said.
Patterson also praised the legislature for repealing the paid sick leave provisions from Proposition A.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, said that she believed that the abortion ban would be "destroyed" at the ballot box, and that the state hasn't seen the last of paid sick leave.
"As to the voter-approved earned sick leave law that Republicans just repealed, they probably just guaranteed that in a couple of years, voters will add sick leave requirements to the state constitution so lawmakers can't so easily get rid of them," Aune said.
The paid sick leave requirements were initially passed as a change to state statute, meaning lawmakers were able to repeal them without returning the issue to the voters. Undoing a constitutional amendment, on the other hand, requires a vote of the people.
Aune said some achievements she's proud of this session include prohibiting child marriage and exempting period products and diapers from sales tax.
Final bills of the session
One of the bills passed Thursday was Senate Bill 82, which creates regulations around the export of Missouri's water.
While Missouri is not suffering from water shortages, proponents of the legislation fear that the state currently has no tools to stop drier states from buying too much of Missouri's water.
"Currently, Missouri has no law that specifies the quantity of water that can be exported from the state of Missouri," said Rep. Cameron Parker, R-Campbell, who handled the bill in the House. "I believe that this legislation would further protect Missouri water resources from arid Western states and other actors trying to deplete our water resources."
After the bill goes into effect, people can only export Missouri water if they have a water exportation permit from the state Department of Natural Resources.
Senate Bill 79 approves a Farm Bureau plan to provide health insurance to its members.
"So many of our rural folks just, they fall in between the ACA where they don't qualify for any subsidies, and then they can't afford to buy regular insurance," said Rep. Brad Pollitt, R-Sedalia, the bill's House handler.
SB 79 also contains several other health-related provisions, such as increasing prenatal testing for sexually transmitted diseases and expanding insurance coverage for birth control.
Senate Bill 145 allows people 18 and younger to run businesses without having to acquire a business license or pay a license tax.
Supporters say that the measure will promote entrepreneurship among young people, giving the examples that teenagers shouldn't have to get licenses to run a lemonade stand or sell homemade bracelets.
"What really seemed to be important to me is that we not quell the minds and the spirits of young folks that are trying to be entrepreneurs," said Rep. Scott Miller, R-St. Charles.
Senate Bill 271 exempts farm buildings from county-level fire protection codes and ordinances. Senate Bill 105 bars plant nurseries from selling certain invasive plants.
The final bill sent to the governor for the session was Senate Bill 152, which bans foreign spending in ballot issue campaigns.
"This bill simply outlines that we should not have outside funding coming in to try to influence our government or our elections, and it sets forth a process to investigate and to prevent that from happening in this state," said Rep. Jim Murphy, R-St. Louis, who handled the bill in the House.
Critics say the bill's new reporting requirements are unnecessary since election contributions by foreign nationals are already illegal nationwide.
"I think we can all agree we don't want foreign interference in our elections, and there are federal laws and a lot of judicial precedent to make that not a thing," said Rep. Eric Woods, D-Kansas City.
Dead bills
One bill that had appeared likely to pass the House but instead died with the close of the session was Senate Bill 10, which would have removed expiration dates from a wide range of existing laws.
The laws that would have been affected included bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and participation of transgender students in school sports. Both bans are currently set to expire in 2027. Had SB 10 passed, they would have become permanent.
The measure now set to appear before voters in 2026, reinstituting a statewide abortion ban, would also put a permanent ban on gender-affirming care for youth in the state constitution.
"They have introduced this legislation every year for six years at least, all of this anti-trans legislation, specifically so they can get other things that they want," said Rep. Wick Thomas, D-Kansas City. "They're going to bring it up every year because it's the only way that they can get their bad policies passed."
Another piece of legislation that failed to cross the finish line was a proposal for the state to help fund new stadiums for the Chiefs and Royals to keep the teams in Missouri.
There is a possibility that the governor will call a special legislative session later this year so lawmakers can revisit the stadium legislation.
"If we're called to do it, the House Republicans will meet our obligations and try to get something done," Patterson said. "I think all the options are in play."
Aune said Democrats would be more open to working with Republicans on the project if reviving the cut capital improvements projects was also on the table.
The cut funds would have gone to infrastructure projects across the state, including support for rural hospitals and the construction of a new mental hospital.
The River City Journalism Fund supports St. Louis Public Radio's Statehouse internship. Evy Lewis is the 2025 reporting intern. See rcjf.org for more information about the fund, which seeks to advance journalism in St. Louis.
See more photographs from the last day of the legislative session from St. Louis Public Radio Visuals Editor Brian Munoz:
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