With two weeks left to go, the pressure is on for the Missouri Legislature to pass transgender restrictions. If lawmakers don’t, Gov. Mike Parson said he will call a special session.
“We have to realize that we have to make sure that we’re one, protecting women and two, we’re protecting our kids,” he explained. “There’s no reason this can’t be defined of how we’re moving forward, and I think both of those bills, we just need to get across the finish line.
Several Republican bills offered this session would ban transgender athletes from playing female sports and charge medical providers for ‘coercing’ anyone under 18-years-old to undergo a gender transition.
Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said his chamber has already passed its versions of those bills and will not even consider the House’s versions. That means House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, has some decisions to make.
“We still have two weeks to go,” said Plocher. “We do have the Senate bills. I believe we are going to move them.”
Will the House pass the Senate bill as is or make changes?
“I think everything’s on the table,” said Plocher. “We have two weeks to go. We always try to work with the other side of the building. They seem to find drama in everything. You know, whether we pass them up and just truly them and send them to the governor’s desk or whether we amend them is completely wide open.”
Any changes would send the bills back to the Senate and put them at risk of not passing this session.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, said Democrats in the lower chamber are committee to stopping these bills from passing.
“We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that these bills do not become law and that Missouri is a place that folks want to be in, that they feel safe here, that people want to move here and thrive in the state of Missouri. These bills do the exact opposite of that,” she said.
State Sen. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, calls the bills “horrible, hateful, and says they put Missouri on the wrong side of history.”
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