Latest news with #MissouriFreedomCaucus
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Deal to pay for Chiefs, Royals stadiums fractures Missouri Freedom Caucus
State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, listens to reporters' questions following adjournment of the 2024 legislative session (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). A group of renegade GOP state lawmakers whose quarrels with party leaders defined years of Missouri legislative inaction appears to be ripping apart over a plan to fund stadiums for the Chiefs and Royals. On Friday, state Sen. Rick Brattin stepped down as chairman of the Missouri Freedom Caucus just days after voting in favor of $1.5 billion in tax incentives to finance new or renovated stadiums. He noted the stadium vote in the statement announcing his resignation. The group had vowed to oppose the funding scheme, which it decried as a 'handout to billionaire sports team owners.' But Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, and state Sen. Brad Hudson, a Cape Fair Republican who is also a Freedom Caucus member, voted in support of the plan after a provision was added making changes to local property tax bills. The response from conservative activists was swift. Some accused Brattin of betrayal, while others argued he was duped by the inclusion of language allowing the stadium funding to survive even if a court tosses out the property tax provisions. 'For several years, discussion in (Jefferson City) revolved around conservatives exposing moderate and liberal Republicans by getting them on bad votes that showed who they were,' Bill Eigel, a former Missouri Senate Freedom Caucus leader who is running for St. Charles County executive, posted on social media. 'Gov. Mike Kehoe changed this dynamic. He is getting conservatives to vote as badly as the moderates.' Jim Lembke, a former GOP state senator and adviser to the Freedom Caucus, said the group is 'void of any leadership and has lost all credibility. They should disband and join the uniparty that runs Jefferson City.' Missouri governor allows more spending, property tax cap as he pursues stadium deal Tim Jones, state director for the Missouri Freedom Caucus, said during a radio appearance on Friday that he advised senators to vote against the stadium bill and was surprised when two members of the caucus ended up supporting it. 'In the light of day, there's some buyer's remorse. There's some regret,' Jones said, though he later added: 'To his defense, (Sen. Brattin) thought he was doing the right thing to protect the interest of his constituents.' Brattin defended his vote on social media, posting a video saying that while the deal wasn't perfect, he was determined that 'if we're going to be giving handouts to millionaires and billionaires, we need broad-based tax relief for people.' 'To me,' he said, 'this was a massive win. On the stadium, they were going to get the votes, whatever it took. So I tried to weigh this out and make lemonade from the lemons we were given.' Brattin's chief of staff was less diplomatic, accusing Eigel of treating politics like a game. 'He'd rather chase likes on social media than deliver real wins,' Tom Estes, Brattin's top legislative staffer, wrote in a now-deleted social media post. 'It's pathetic, and just one more reason he's never been an effective leader.' The war between the Freedom Caucus and Missouri Senate leadership raged for years, creating so much gridlock that fewer bills passed last year than any session in living memory — despite Republicans holding a legislative super majority. Tensions cooled this year, with term limits pushing key figures on both sides of the fight out of the Senate. The detente led to a much more productive session, marked more by partisan squabbling than GOP infighting. But the Freedom Caucus' history of using procedural hijinks to upend legislative business made its opposition to the stadium bill an existential threat to its success, forcing Republican leaders to take demands for some form of tax cut seriously. If approved by the House and signed by Kehoe, the legislation passed by the Senate would allocate state taxes collected from economic activity at Arrowhead and Kauffman to bond payments for renovations at Arrowhead and a new stadium for the Royals in Jackson or Clay counties. The cost is estimated at close to $1.5 billion over 30 years. Both teams have expressed interest in leaving Missouri when the lease on their current stadiums expire in 2030, and Kansas lawmakers have put a deal on the table that would use state incentives to pay for up to 70% of the costs of new stadiums. The Kansas deal expires on June 30. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In order to win over Democrats, who were skeptical of the plan and still upset with how the regular legislative session ended last month, Kehoe agreed to increase the size of a disaster relief package for St. Louis from $25 billion to $100 billion. To quell any possible Freedom Caucus uprising, Kehoe allowed the inclusion of a provision in the stadium funding bill requiring most counties to put a hard cap on increases in property tax bills. In 75 counties, tax bills would not increase more than 5% per year from a base amount, or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. In 22 others, including Brattin's home county of Cass and Hudson's entire seven-county district of southwest Missouri, no increase in the basic bill would be allowed. The bill includes exceptions for newly voted levies and the additional value from improvements. Many of the larger counties of the state, including Boone, Greene, Jackson, St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis, were excluded from the cap provisions. Franklin, Jefferson and St. Charles counties were put under the zero percent cap. With the concessions, Kehoe stitched together a bipartisan coalition to get the stadium bill out of the Senate. There were 12 Republicans and seven Democrats voting to send it to the House on the 19-13 vote. Three of the chamber's 10 Democrats joined 10 Republicans in opposition. Eigel, who fell short to Kehoe in last year's GOP primary for governor, poured cold water on the deal, arguing residents will never see any tax relief. He points to language added to the bill after it cleared committee stating it is the 'intent of the General Assembly' that if any piece of the legislation is eventually ruled invalid, 'that provision shall be severed from the act and all remaining provisions shall be valid.' 'Kehoe's guys snuck in a clause that will allow the property tax provisions of the bill to be stripped out by courts while the billionaire stadium bailout remains whole,' Eigel said. 'When conservatives missed it in the final reading after being assured by the sponsor it wasn't in there, the disaster was complete.' A spokeswoman for the governor's office didn't respond to a question about the severability clause. Brattin keeps hearing from people who say he 'sold out,' he said, but he still believes the bill that passed the Senate was a win for Missourians. 'I just wanted to give some clarity to this,' Brattin said in his social media video. 'Whether you agree or disagree, this is where my heart is on this.'
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Olathe man falsely connected to Chiefs parade shooting has died, his attorneys say
An Olathe man who was falsely identified as a shooter at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade last year has died, his attorneys said. Arthur Benson and LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, attorneys for Denton Loudermill, who in recent months have filed a series of lawsuits over social media comments that erroneously connected Loudermill to the shooting, said in emails to The Star that their client died Friday. The circumstances of Loudermill's death were not known Friday evening. A photo of Loudermill with Kansas City police following the February 2024 parade shooting thrust him into the public eye, and the lawsuits came as Loudermill sought to clear his name. Posts from the Missouri Freedom Caucus, U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, and Donald Trump Jr. falsely cast Loudermill as being connected to the shooting. Most recently, his attorneys had filed lawsuits in U.S. District Court in February against former Missouri state senator and current Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and state Sen. Rick Brattin over social media posts the lawsuits claims they had made on X, formerly Twitter, amplifying a post that falsely identified Loudermill as a parade shooter and an illegal immigrant. Loudermill was at the rally and was briefly detained by police after shots rang out. Officers stopped him and told him he was moving 'too slow,' his attorneys wrote in court documents. He was eventually released, but a photo taken during the 10 minutes he had been handcuffed and seated on the curb was shared on social media, they said. Loudermill's attorneys said his family intends to continue the litigation by substituting an estate as plaintiff. 'More details will be provided in time, but for now, we ask that you honor the family's need for privacy as they come together to grieve this tremendous loss,' Lassiter Saunders wrote. 'While the family takes this time to mourn, we want to make it clear that this is not over.' The lawsuits filed in February cite a pair of allegations against Hoskins and Brattin: False light invasion of privacy and libel per se. Said Lassiter Saunders: 'Mr. Loudermill should not have spent his final days burdened with stress and chasing down a lie that went viral due to the careless and heartless actions of a Congressman, Missouri senators, and social media influencers, who couldn't be bothered to verify the truth before destroying a man's life. If you thought we were determined before, you haven't seen anything yet!'
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Missouri Republicans seek to criminalize certain drag shows witnessed by children
State Sen. Rick Brattin speaks as part of a Missouri Freedom Caucus press conference in 2024. Brattin, who sponsored a bill this year restricting drag performances, leads the Missouri Freedom Caucus (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). For the third year in a row, Missouri Republicans are trying to place restrictions on drag performances. The effort has stalled in years past, clearing a House committee last year but never coming up for debate in the Senate. That changed Wednesday, when a Senate committee held a public hearing on legislation sponsored by state Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, that he argued was 'geared towards protecting children from displays of sexual content.' The bill would make it a class-A misdemeanor to participate in an 'adult cabaret performance' in a public area or other space where children might see. A repeat violation becomes a class-E felony. State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance who chairs the Senate's judiciary committee, discussed possible fixes to the bill's definitions following opponent's testifying that community theater could be impacted. The issue is a definition of 'adult cabaret performance' that includes 'male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest or similar entertainers.' Including 'or similar entertainers,' opponents said, is too vague and may draw police to plays where women play male roles or a non-sexual performance by a transgender person. Chris Lehman, co-founder of LGBTQ-focused entertainment company Nclusion+, said there are already 'safeguards in place for all-ages drag.' Lehman checks IDs before shows with racy performances, and kid-friendly routines are scrutinized to eliminate swearing and other mature content. Even music by Taylor Swift is censored and edited for a young audience, he said. Schroer said the bill was tailored to not ban age-designated spaces and asked Lehman if parents should be allowed to take children to a 'topless strip club.' 'Of course not,' Lehman said. 'However, the rest of the bill language goes on and bundles everything together.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Lawmakers criticized an Nclusion+ performance in 2023 where drag queens lip-synched to songs like 'Hold on (for one more day)' by Wilson Phillips during a City of Columbia diversity event attended by middle-school students. Attorney General Andrew Bailey sent the city's mayor and the Columbia Public Schools superintendent letters accusing them of trying 'actively to undermine Missouri's laws by deliberately subjecting a group of middle-school students to an adult-themed drag show performance.' Those letters have since been removed from the attorney general's website. Schroer mentioned that letter when questioning Cara Carter, a theater teacher in Columbia. 'It was alleged that kids were sent to a drag show on a field trip without parental consent,' he said. Carter said the event had drag performers but was not wholly a drag show. 'I was in theater,' Schroer said. 'And I think that we need to carefully define what we believe is drag that has the prurient interest and what doesn't.' Carter uses content warnings when shows have depictions of violence or other mature matters, she said, adding that these disclosures are 'a much cleaner way of doing this than straight up banning it entirely.' No one testified in favor of the bill, and the committee took no action on Wednesday.
