JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Legislature voted to override 10 of Gov. Jay Nixon’s 33 vetoes at its veto session — making major policy changes including strengthening Missouri gun rights while enacting legislation that will make it harder for a woman to get an abortion.
Senate Republicans forced a vote on the abortion legislation to triple the state’s 24-hour waiting period for the procedure. Republican leadership, led by Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard, R-Joplin, huddled late Wednesday night to gather signatures required to invoke a rarely used procedural move to end a Democratic filibuster of the controversial bill vetoed by Nixon this summer.
“We worked six or eight times on that pro-life bill, day and night,” Richard said Thursday morning. “We had a deal (with Senate Democrats) we thought was going to stick. It didn’t, and we moved on. If someone feels they didn’t work hard enough to make their ideas known, it’s a little late to do it during veto session.”
Most Democrats in the House and Senate were critical of the measure, carried in the upper chamber by Sen. David Sater, R-Cassville, because it did not include an exemption for victims of rape and incest. With the Legislature’s vote early Thursday morning, Missouri will become the third state with a 72-hour waiting period and only the second state not to include an exemption for rape and incest victims.
Republicans, including Rep. Kevin Elmer, from Springfield, said such an exemption simply is not necessary.
“We’ve not removed any of the medical exceptions that currently exist,” he said. “The mother now gets 72 hours to consider this life-altering decision before she goes for it.”
For a Joplin woman wanting to get an abortion, the new measure could mean multiple trips to St. Louis — home of the nearest clinic that offers abortions — or two to three nights in a hotel room there between visits to a physician.
Legislators also voted to expand gun rights in the state, overriding Nixon’s veto of legislation that would allow school districts to vote to let teachers carry concealed weapons, lower the age for getting a conceal-carry weapon permit to 19, and effectively nullify local ordinances banning the open carrying of weapons.
“I think we should allow people to open-carry,” said Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee’s Summit, who sponsored the bill. “I want to protect the individual rights.”
The measure was opposed by city leaders from St. Louis and Kansas City because of its impact on local ordinances banning open-carry.
“We have an enormous gun violence rate,” said Senate Minority Leader Jolie Justus, D-Kansas City. “We don’t want to encourage the gun culture in our city.”
C.J. Huff, superintendent of schools in Joplin, said he does not expect his school board to vote to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons.
“I hunt and fish and do all those things, but I have a problem with the idea,” he said. “We have school resource officers that have guns and are highly trained and know how use them. They have ongoing training. It’s part of their job. Our teachers’ jobs are to teach. When you introduce more guns into school, the potential for accidental shootings could go up significantly.”
Lawmakers failed to override Nixon’s veto of an agriculture bill pushed heavily by the state’s dairy community. Senate Bill 506 made its way successfully through the state Senate, it but failed by one vote in the House. The measure included the Missouri Dairy Revitalization Act, which would establish an insurance premium assistance program for dairy producers. It also included a provision that could lead to more foreign ownership of agricultural land.
The agriculture bill was hung up by a provision that would remove the regulation of captive deer from the Missouri Department of Conservation and instead put it in the hands of the Missouri Department of Agriculture. The measure was proposed to shield deer breeders from new health regulations pushed by the Conservation Department.
“The dairy industry is already in dire straits. It’s going to be another year for them to try it again,” said Richard, who ultimately supported the bill. “It’d have been nice if that deer thing wasn’t on it.”
Rep. Bill Reiboldt, R-Neosho, a former dairy farmer, said he was disappointed with the outcome on what he called an otherwise “good agriculture legislation.”
“I was on board with all of it, but I would have preferred it to be separated,” he said. He said he supported the deer provisions, but it “hurt the good things we had in the ag bill.”
Other bills
LEGISLATORS OVERRODE Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of legislation that would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors. The governor opposed the bill because it included a provision that he said could shield manufacturers from regulations traditionally applied to tobacco companies. Lawmakers also passed a measure that “would authorize municipalities with 1,000 or fewer residents to cancel an election” if only one candidate files. Nixon noted that the measure would eliminate small-town write-in candidates.