On the surface, Sens. Mike Cierpiot and Denny Hoskins shouldn’t be bitter adversaries.
The two Republicans represent parts of the Kansas City area and served in GOP House leadership together in the 2010s. According to Hoskins, they’ve even been roommates for nearly a decade.
But the two absolutely do not get along.
In fact, Cierpiot caused quite a stir last Thursday when he put forth an amendment to the Senate Journal disapproving of Attorney General Andrew Bailey defending Hoskins and two other senators against a defamation lawsuit related to tweets that falsely accused a Kansas man of the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs parade.
This barb, in response to a similar amendment from Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, telling the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms to watch out for a thundering herd of rhinoceroses, was one of the last things the General Assembly’s upper chamber did last week before quickly adjourning on Friday. (Eigel was referring to Republicans in name only, or RINOs, when mentioning a herd, a criticism often lobbed at GOP officials who are not sufficiently conservative.)
“You just reach a point that you just want to respond in some way and other than being humorous or demeaning. I thought it was factual,” said Cierpiot, R-Lee’s Summit.
After declining to comment on the substance of Cierpiot’s move, Hoskins added, “I will just say that he decided he was not going to stay in the apartment last night.”
“So that was probably very appropriate,” said Hoskins, R-Warrensburg.
The Hoskins-Cierpiot spat was perhaps a small example of the bitter and public factionalism among Missouri legislative Republicans, something that became so pervasive this session that it helped tank one of the party’s biggest priorities — a ballot item making it harder to amend the Missouri Constitution.
And while disunity among Republicans is hardly a new phenomenon in the Missouri General Assembly, both Republicans and Democrats say this year could prompt changes in how lawmakers approach policymaking — especially if the perennially outnumbered Democrats make gains in both chambers.
In fact, outgoing Democratic Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo said the fact that Senate Republicans decided against shutting off their record-setting filibuster over the constitutional amendment boost isn’t just a show of strength for his party. Rather, the Independence Democrat said, “I think it's a beacon of hope for the country.”
“Unfortunately, in today's world, compromise is a terrible thing,” Rizzo said. “But when we work through the process together, we can get some stuff done, and we can really do some things. I wish we would have been able to do more things if we'd have done this a few years ago. But at the same time, I think they've charted a path where they can.”
Factionalism feature or bug?
The 2024 session will not only be remembered for the divides in the Senate, but also the lack of productivity.
Missouri House Democrats noted that when appropriations bills are subtracted, this past year’s session was the least productive in recent memory in terms of legislation passed. In fact, the Senate didn’t end up passing a single bill during the final week.
But House and Senate leaders disputed the idea that nothing happened during the session, pointing to passage of a wide-ranging education bill that expanded a tax credit program for public and private schools. On the last day of session, lawmakers made tweaks to a senior property tax freeze program and approved a crime bill that included a long-sought provision aimed at curtailing celebratory gunfire.
“This legislative session started off with most dire predictions, doom and gloom. But it wasn't that,” said House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres.
“I think that we had a pretty good year,” added Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina. “I like all of my colleagues. They are all very bright. Difficult to handle sometimes, but they all kind of want the same thing. It's just that some people want to take a different path to get it.”
It appeared that the GOP House, Senate and Freedom Caucus were on substantially different paths throughout the past few months.
At the start of the session, O’Laughlin remarked to reporters that she would vote to expel Eigel — something that prompted a bitter confrontation between the two. After Freedom Caucus members held up Senate business, Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden went as far to strip members of the Freedom Caucus of their committee chairmanships and their parking spots in retaliation.
While the tensions ebbed and flowed throughout the session, they arguably reached a fever pitch near the end of session when the Freedom Caucus engaged in a lengthy filibuster of legislation reauthorizing a critical tax to fund the state’s Medicaid program. That eventually passed, but uncertainty over the passage of what’s known as the Federal Reimbursement Allowance led to an unprecedented budget process that didn’t feature a conference committee.
The bid to make the Missouri Constitution harder to amend sputtered out after a record Democratic filibuster — and refusal from some Republicans, including Rowden, to use a rarely dispatched maneuver called the ‘previous question’ to cut off debate. The House refused to pass a version of the amendment threshold boost without other provisions, including a measure barring noncitizens from voting. (That’s already illegal in Missouri, but the provision was placed on another ballot item that Missourians will decide later this year to ban ranked choice voting.)
“I think the idea of how this place is supposed to function should be kept intact for as long as it can,” said Rowden, noting how the GOP majority passed legislation to prohibit most abortions and curtail federal gun laws in prior years. “But every once in a while you lose. And that's the way it is.”
A more moderate course?
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, said the lack of productivity was something of a mixed bag for her Democratic colleagues. She said GOP infighting brought about the demise of bills that her party didn’t like, most notably the measure to boost the constitutional amendment threshold.
But she added the dysfunction also meant that bipartisan priorities fell by the wayside, including efforts to provide tax credits for child care facilities and to raise the age a person can get married from 16 to 18.
“The experiment of putting people who hate government in charge of government has predictably failed,” said Quade, a candidate for governor. “The time for change is now.”
While there is little hope of Democrats taking over either chamber of the General Assembly, the last redistricting cycle created a House map that features a number of competitive districts — especially in suburban parts of the state. And it’s possible that Democrats could make more pronounced gains than usual if a ballot item legalizing abortion is on the November ballot.
“We've seen Republicans run the state for 20 years,” said Rep. Richard Brown, D-Kansas City. “People complain about how the state has been managed and how the state's been run. But again, as I tell them: Democrats are not in the leadership positions to make those changes that people want. So let's go to the polls, elect some Democrats, and let's see what the future brings for Missouri.”
Democrats like Quade are bullish that they can win enough seats to break the GOP supermajority — something that, with some other good election results, could radically change how a Republican-led General Assembly operates.
Senate Democrats could also potentially break the GOP supermajority, though their ability to gain seats is more limited because many of the districts up for grabs are heavily Republican. But Rizzo said that with lots of people leaving the Senate this year, it’s possible that a new group of lawmakers could create a less hostile environment.
“There has to be a follow-through next year,” Rizzo said. “Don't regress, keep moving forward. Don't let the bullies win. And I think they took the first step to do that. I've been waiting for it for four or five years. And I think they finally did.”
It’s unclear how many members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus will return next year, especially with Brattin facing a competitive GOP primary, and it’s unknown who will prevail in races to represent Republican-dominated Senate districts.
But Hoskins noted in his remarks to reporters that the concept of Republican factionalism that chafes against legislative leadership is not a new phenomenon. In fact, that’s been fairly constant since the mid-2000s — and especially during times when Republicans control the governorship.
“It's much bigger than us five right here,” Hoskins said. “It's a movement to stick to the Missouri Republican Party platform in our conservative beliefs.”
