Missouri Senate Republicans invoked a rarely used rule Wednesday to shut down a Democratic filibuster blocking a vote on a measure overturning the abortion rights amendment passed by voters in November.
That action was immediately followed by another use of the rule, this time to get a bill passed repealing the paid sick leave law that was also approved by voters.
The use of the rule — a procedural maneuver known as “calling the previous question,” or PQ — requires a signed motion from 10 members and forces an immediate vote on the bill under debate.
Sen. Adam Schnelting, a Republican from St. Charles, made the motion for a PQ on the abortion amendment shortly after 5 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., that bill, which must be approved by voters on a statewide ballot, had passed.
The sick leave repeal followed, and by 6 p.m. both bills were finished.
In the hour leading up to the vote, Democrats warned that Republicans were destroying months of good will and could expect no more cooperation this year and well into the future.
“Nothing will happen, nothing,” said Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck. “The banner year that everybody had in this place? That is over with.”
Wednesday’s use of the previous question rule is the first time since 2020 when it was invoked and the first time since 2017 when it was used during a regular session. Used regularly in the Missouri House, it is used rarely in the Senate because the chamber has a tradition of unlimited debate and negotiations over difficult issues.
“What we’re doing today is a failure of the Senate,” said state Sen. Stephen Webber, a Democrat from Columbia. “And when there’s a failure in the Senate, there needs to be a response, and that response can’t last forever, but that response has to happen, and it has to be painful, and has to make us all understand that when the Senate doesn’t function as a body, we all lose.”
Just as Republicans were moving to put an abortion ban on the ballot, protests erupted in the Senate gallery, with abortion-rights activists shouting down lawmakers. The gallery was briefly cleared, including the press, and the Senate continued with its work until it adjourned for the year a few hours later.
State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Defiance Republican, said using the PQ is always a last resort. But it was his understanding that “goal posts were being moved” in negotiations by Democrats.
“I don’t know what transpired, but I do know that we hit a log jam,” he said, leaving the PQ as the only way forward to pass the sick leave repeal and abortion ban.
The proposed ban seeks to repeal the constitutional right to an abortion but allow exceptions for medical emergencies, fatal fetal anomalies and for survivors of rape and incest in the first 12 weeks of gestation.
Missourians could see the question on the November 2026 ballot, or as soon as this year if the governor chose to call a special election on the issue.
The proposed ban, if approved by a simple majority of voters, would reinstate several targeted regulations on abortion providers, or TRAP laws, that were recently struck down as unconstitutional by a Missouri judge.
It would also ban gender transition surgeries and prescribing medications for gender transition, including puberty blockers, for children younger than 18.
The amendment also includes a severability clause. This could allow the rape and incest exceptions in the amendment to be challenged in federal court as being discriminatory and in violation of the 14th Amendment.
If approved, the amendment would also require any legal challenges to the state law around reproductive health care be heard in Cole County. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office was recently unsuccessful in convincing the courts to move an ongoing legal battle between the state and Planned Parenthood from Jackson County to Cole County.
The language that could appear on each ballot does not mention the amendment would ban abortions, a detail that’s been highly-criticized by Democrats as deceiving.
Democrats have also accused Republicans of including the ban on gender-affirming care for minors, which is already illegal in Missouri, as a form of “ballot candy” — a ruse aimed at tricking voters to support a measure they might otherwise vote against.
Schroer said removal of the transgender health care provisions was a deal breaker for conservative senators.
“We talked to a lot of our members,” he said, “and they said that issue needs to be included.”
Amendment 3 narrowly passed in November following a multi-million dollar campaign by abortion-rights advocates. A day later, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri sued the state, challenging several of Missouri’s laws focused on abortion facilities and providers.
An amendment to alter the language so it directly states that it is repealing Amendment 3 was defeated just before the motion to cut off debate.
While many sitting Republicans have previously opposed abortion exceptions outside of those to save the mother’s life, many said the November election showed Missourians’ desire for a less stringent law.
Missourians overwhelmingly support abortion exceptions for survivors, an August 2022 SLU/YouGov poll found. The polling was done several weeks after Missouri became the first state to enact a full abortion ban following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Since Amendment 3 took effect, surgical abortions are being performed but medication abortions have not.
Three of the state’s several Planned Parenthood clinics have restarted surgical abortions for those up to 12 weeks gestation at clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis.
The clinics were authorized to begin the procedure again for the first time in nearly three years after a judge struck down many of the state’s abortion regulations, citing them as discriminatory.
Medication abortion — the most common means of ending a pregnancy — remains inaccessible in Missouri after the state health department rejected complication plans submitted by the clinics outlining continued care for patients in the case they had any adverse effects from the medication.
If the bill is signed by the governor, the paid-sick leave benefits approved by voters that went into effect on May 1 will be stripped away on Aug. 28.
The bill also removes the requirement that the minimum wage be indexed to inflation, which has been in place since 2007
The paid sick leave and minimum wage provisions passed with 58% of the vote in November as Proposition A, garnering support from unions, workers’ advocacy groups, social justice and civil rights groups, as well as over 500 business owners.
“Workers are earning paid sick leave right now,” said state Sen. Patty Lewis, a Democrat from Kansas City, “and then it’s going to get taken away and they’re going to be fired up about it.”
GOP critics have portrayed paid sick leave as a “job killer” that would hurt small businesses. The bill was sponsored by state Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, a Republican from Jefferson City, and Republican state Rep. Sherri Gallick of Belton.
Senate Democrats have been in negotiations with Republicans over the last month to modify the bill, in what they’ve said is an effort to maintain the will of the voters in expanding paid sick leave rather than gut it entirely, as well as make it easier for businesses to comply.
State Sen. Tracy McCreery, an Olivette Democrat, said senators have “worked tirelessly to figure out some kind of compromise.”
The Democrats spent two nights blocking a vote on the paid sick leave repeal earlier in the session.
Under Proposition A, employers with business receipts greater than $500,000 a year must provide at least one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers with fewer than 15 workers must allow workers to earn at least 40 hours per year, with larger employers mandated to allow at least 56 hours.
The measure made sick leave guaranteed for 728,000 workers who lacked it statewide, or over 1 in 3 Missouri workers, according to an analysis from the progressive nonprofit the Missouri Budget Project.
Richard Von Glahn, policy director for Missouri Jobs with Justice, the organization that helped lead the campaign for Proposition A, said it’s a slap in the face to voters that will create “disgruntled employees” and cause “chaos” for businesses.
“Proposition A was passed so overwhelmingly, with so much support from Republican voters, it seemed that it would be so controversial in the legislature that Republican politicians would be more hesitant than they apparently are,” he said, “to overturn the will of their own voters, and cause them economic pain.”
The message lawmakers are sending is: “They don’t believe that you deserve economic security,” he added.
It could also cause backlash for the lawmakers from districts who supported the measure, he said.
“We’re going to make sure that workers don’t experience this as something that just happens to us without understanding these are decisions made by people, and workers have the ability to hold people accountable for those decisions,” he said.
Von Glahn said it’s not the end of the fight for paid sick leave, and advocates will consider putting it on the ballot again as a constitutional amendment, a move that would make it much harder for lawmakers to repeal.
“I’m confident,” he said, “this is a policy that Missourians want and we’re going to continue to fight for that through every means necessary.”
Sen. Mike Cierpiot, R-Lee’s Summit, speaks on the Senate floor on Feb. 10, 2021 (screenshot courtesy of Senate Communications).
The debate Wednesday afternoon began about 12:30 p.m. and Democrats held the floor for much of the time. But near the start of the debate, state Sen. Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican, aired his grievances with the leadership of Missouri Right to LIfe.
Cierpiot accused the organization, one of the most visible anti-abortion groups in the state, of focusing more on enforcing purity of thought and maintaining its influence within the GOP than writing laws acceptable to most Missourians.
Amendment 3 reinstated abortion rights lost in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. If Missouri Right to Life’s leaders had not demanded a ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, he said, Amendment 3 might have been defeated.
“Their leadership, Ms. (Susan) Klein, and Mr. (Dave) Plemmons and Mr. (Steve) Rupp have been much more interested in causing Republican brush fires over issues with much smaller or no impact on the huge effort for life,” Cierpiot said.
The problems with Missouri Right to Life was evident in the 2024 elections when it made single-candidate endorsements, freezing out candidates who had been ardent anti-abortion legislators. The organization endorsed then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft in the Republican primary for governor, then refused to endorse Republican nominee Mike Kehoe for the general election.
Other Republicans who won without the endorsement of Missouri Right to Life joined in the criticism. State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, said the law triggered by the 2022 abortion decision was negotiated in spite of Missouri Right to Life, not with its help.
“I don’t know that I really care, frankly, that they didn’t endorse me,” Coleman said. “What I do care about is that they didn’t endorse Gov. Kehoe in the primary, and they didn’t endorse him in the general.”