Missouri lawmakers are back in Jefferson City for the start of the 2025 legislative session.
Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, R-Parkville, is the new Senate Majority Floor Leader during this session. He said the Senate Republican Caucus wants to reform the state’s income tax system, perhaps even eliminating the personal income tax.
“This is something the governor-elect also has talked about on the campaign trail – either reducing or entirely eliminating the state income tax,” he said. “We have other states in the Midwest like Tennessee who have done this and it’s a great way to boost Missouri’s economy and put more money back into pockets of hard-working Missouri citizens.”
Luetkemeyer said public safety is the top issue of Senate Republicans this year, including the consideration of placing the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department back under state control. The city regained authority over its police department in 2013 after more than 150 years of state control, which happened during the Civil War. Kansas City’s police department is under state control as well, being led by a state-appointed board that includes the mayor.
Abortion will also likely be a key issue this legislative session. Luetkemeyer said that Republicans will make an effort to moderate Amendment 3, whic was approved by voters in November.
“Amendment 3 is a very radical measure and what I anticipate we will see is efforts by the general assembly to bring that measure more in line with what we think the majority of Missourians actually are when it comes to the issue of life,” he explained.
Luetkemeyer sees the November vote as less a vote for abortion rights, and more as a vote against the highly restrictive abortion law in Missouri. Amendment 3 barely received a majority of the votes cast in November, which he insists discloses a flaw in the state’s process of amending the constitution.
“It is not intended to be a never-ending special interest statute, which is really what the Missouri Constitution has turned into and we need to fix it through the initiative petition process,” said Luetkemeyer
Luetkemeyer also expects initiative petition changes to be another hot issue during the session. He said that a simple majority attracts abuse of the process.
“What you will see happen is oftentimes very progressive groups, mostly from outside of the state of Missouri, will come in and spend millions of dollars collecting signatures, putting something on the ballot, running very misleading ads to convince the public to vote for something and then they just circumvent the legislature and put it into the constitution,” he said.
Republican in-fighting in the state Senate last year derailed attempts to change the voting threshold needed to amend the Missouri Constitution.
Brent Martin of KFEQ in St. Joseph contributed this report.
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