JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Senate voted Tuesday to advance four pieces of legislation that would provide relief for victims of recent severe weather, develop a financing plan for Kansas City Chiefs and Royals stadiums, and fund capital projects that didn’t make it to the finish line during the regular legislative session last month.
Four bills emerged from two separate Senate committees that started Tuesday morning and carried into the afternoon. All of the legislation that advanced to the Senate floor are within the scope of Governor Mike Kehoe’s call for a special session.
The next step includes debate, where hiccups could develop over one of the three main topics: taxpayer-funded financing for Kansas City Chiefs and Royals stadium projects.
Though the bill involving incentives passed out of the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee, there was plenty of debate for and against the state funding measure. Representatives from the Chiefs and Royals were among those who testified in favor of the plan. The president of the St. Louis Sports Commission also spoke in favor of the bill. The opposition came from a fiscal conservative think tank.
“The offer that Kansas put forward is not competitive at all,” remarked a representative from the Show Me Institution.
The stadium bill, Senate Bill 3, was approved by the committee in a vote of 6 to 3.
Another special session topic, state money for victims of spring tornadoes across Missouri, passed overwhelmingly. Senators, however, are likely to try to get the proposed amount of $25 million increased.
Sen. Brian Williams, a Democrat from northern St. Louis County, said he expects additional funding will be added to help people recover from an area he said a massive tornado tore through a huge swath of what now looks like “a third-world country.”
“It looks like, literally, an atomic bomb fell on the region,” Williams said. “We have to figure out how to get them some help very soon.”
Even before testimony was heard on the Kansas City stadium piece, Williams reiterated his main focus.
“I don’t want to get into the nuance of stadium discussions because I’m laser focused on the St. Louis region,” he said. “And what we’ve seen happen in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County.”
The other topic outlined in Kehoe’s call for a special session is funding for capital spending projects. The bill in association with this is Senate Bill 2.
The four measures will now head to the Senate floor for debate and amending.