Judge hears arguments over legality of gerrymandered Missouri congressional map

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
November 12, 2025

The old cliche that “silence is golden” became “silence is confusing” on Wednesday in Cole County Circuit Court as attorneys argued over the power of Missouri lawmakers to gerrymander congressional maps in the middle of a decade. 

Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh must decide if language missing from the state Constitution’s directive on when and how to draw congressional district maps means lawmakers were allowed to redraw districts like they did in a September special session. 

For those challenging the new map, the omission means lawmakers overstepped their authority. 

Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing the challengers, said drafters of the constitution adopted in 1945 knew what they were doing when they left out the power to revise districts at will.

“We think that language is pretty clear on its face,” Hatfield said.

If the constitutional convention had intended to prevent mid-decade redistricting, the delegates would have included a prohibition, Louis Capozzi, solicitor general in Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office, told the judge Wednesday. 

Instead, he noted, they didn’t even discuss it.

“The General Assembly has the power to act unless the Missouri Constitution expressly takes a particular power away,” he said.

Gov. Mike Kehoe called lawmakers into special session in September at the insistence of President Donald Trump to give Republicans seven instead of six of Missouri’s eight congressional seats.

The new Missouri map targets the Kansas-City based 5th District, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, to flip to the Republican Party.

Trump wants to preserve and expand the GOP’s slim majority in Congress, where they have a 219-213 edge in the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats have countered with gerrymandering plans in states they control, with California on Nov. 5  approving a plan to deliver up to five seats to Democrats.

The Missouri Republican Party, which intervened in the case, argued that Limbaugh didn’t have the power to consider the challenge. The federal Constitution grants state legislatures exclusive power over the time, place and manner of congressional elections, Washington, D.C., attorney John Gore said, subject only to federal law.

“That means courts, including this court, do not have free reign to review and invalidate state legislative enactments on federal elections, including congressional redistricting plans,” Gore said.

At the end of Wednesday’s 45-minute trial, Limbaugh gave attorneys on both sides 10 days to file proposed judgments. No decision will be delivered until after those filings.

The case is one of six pending in various courts concerning the new map. 

One case, filed by the Missouri NAACP, challenged the authority of Kehoe to call lawmakers into a special session for redistricting. Limbaugh ruled against the NAACP but an appeal is certain.

The next case to be heard will be a Thursday trial before Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green over an effort to force a referendum on the map. The trial, postponed from Nov. 3, will be over whether a referendum petitioning effort can begin before legislation has been signed by the governor.

A federal trail scheduled for Nov. 25 will test whether a state referendum on a redistricting plan violates the U.S. Constitution.

Two other cases, filed in Jackson County, contest various aspects of the gerrymandered map, including whether a Kansas City voting district was inadvertently placed into two separate districts. 

The constitutional directive on redistricting mandates that Missouri lawmakers revise district lines after census results are delivered to the state. The provision mandates that the districts be as equal in population as possible and made up of compact, continuous territory.

The current district boundaries were set in 2022 after the 2020 census.

The provision creates an obligation to redistrict after a census and no obligation to do it at any other time, Capozzi said. But without an express prohibition, lawmakers are free to do so.

And, he added, the boundaries of congressional districts are a political question the courts should avoid.

“This court cannot wade into that political fight without an express warrant,” he said.

The case is more ordinary than Capozzi portrayed it, Hatfield said. He likened it to every other challenge to new legislation.

That means the courts must measure it against the prohibitions on legislative power, both expressly stated and interpreted. In the case of the silence on mid-decade congressional redistricting, he said, Limbaugh should look at the provisions governing how legislative districts are determined.

That provision allows districts to be “altered from time to time as public convenience may require. The omission of that language is a conscious choice made by the drafters of the constitution, he said.

“The state’s view seems to say that you need a ‘thou shalt not’ sentence in here,” Hatfield said. “That’s never been the law in Missouri.”

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Referendum backers reject ballot title for vote on gerrymandered Missouri congressional map

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
November 6, 2025

If Missouri’s newly gerrymandered congressional map makes it to the ballot next year, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins wants to tell voters it “better reflects statewide voting patterns” and replaces a “gerrymandered” version that “protects incumbent politicians.”

Hoskins on Friday sent the proposed ballot language for a referendum petition to Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who must issue an opinion on the wording within 10 days. Unless it is changed, it will be challenged in court, said Richard von Glahn, director of People Not Politicians, which is seeking to put the new map on the statewide ballot next year.

“I don’t think this is going to pass the smell test on whether or not it’s accurate or unbiased or likely to create prejudice,” von Glahn said.

People Not Politicians has until Dec. 11 to submit petitions seeking a vote on the map approved in a September special legislative session. If there are enough signatures distributed among six of the state’s eight congressional districts, the map would not become effective until a statewide vote.

The language Hoskins proposed would read:

“Do the people of the state of Missouri approve the act of the General Assembly entitled ‘House Bill No. 1 (2025 Second Extraordinary Session),’ which repeals Missouri’s existing gerrymandered congressional plan that protects incumbent politicians, and replaces it with new congressional boundaries that keep more cities and counties intact, are more compact, and better reflects statewide voting patterns?”

Chiefs in, Royals out: Missouri secretary of state once again catches flak over ballot summary

If a court finds the language is insufficient or unfair, a new state law will give Hoskins three chances to revise it. If Hoskins strikes out on his three attempts, the courts can prepare a new ballot title. Earlier this year, Hoskins wrote two revisions for a constitutional amendment reinstating Missouri’s abortion ban before it was accepted by the courts. He’s also been accused of exploiting the new law to delay initiative petition campaigns.  

Statewide voting patterns in recent elections give Republicans about 60% of the vote and Democrats about 40%, von Glahn said. The new map would give Democrats 12.5% of the state delegation instead of one-quarter, he added.

“Maybe the secretary of state doesn’t understand the definition of the term gerrymandered,” he said.

Hoskins will not respond to von Glahn’s criticism due to the likely litigation, spokeswoman Rachael Dunn wrote in an email to The Independent. Hanaway’s job reviewing ballot language is “to ensure it is neither argumentative nor likely to create prejudice for or against the measure.”

At the insistence of President Donald Trump, Missouri lawmakers met over two weeks in September to redraw congressional districts so Republicans would have an advantage in elections for seven, instead of their current six, seats. The plan targeted the 5th District, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City since 2005.

Lawsuits over the special session began before legislators started meeting and a case over the ballot title would add a new layer of litigation to the pending cases. 

There are three lawsuits — two in Jackson County and one in Cole County — asking the courts to declare lawmakers had no authority to revise district boundaries without new census data. The Cole County case is set for trial next week. 

In another case, also originating in Cole County, the Missouri NAACP asked the courts to declare that Gov. Mike Kehoe had no authority under the Missouri Constitution to call lawmakers into session for congressional redistricting and altering the majority needed to pass constitutional amendments proposed by initiative. 

Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh denied the request and the NAACP says it intends to appeal the ruling.

The referendum effort itself is the subject of two lawsuits, one in Cole County and another in federal court in St. Louis.

Arguments in the Cole County case, where People Not Politicians is suing over petitions rejected before Kehoe signed the bill, were postponed Monday due to a judge’s illness.

In the federal case, Hanaway argues that redistricting plans are not subject to referendums because the federal Constitution vests power to draw lines solely with legislatures, not the people of individual states. That case is set for trial Nov. 25 in St. Louis.

To succeed, a referendum petition must have at least 106,384 to 115,720 signatures from registered voters, depending on which six districts are used. On Wednesday, People Not Politicians said it had already exceeded 200,000 signatures.

Of that number, 92,000 are for a referendum proposal rejected by Hoskins as premature because it was submitted before Kehoe signed the redistricting bill on Sept. 28.

Gerrymandering is a word coined soon after the establishment of the U.S. Constitution to describe a district drawn to achieve a particular result. In the case of the map drawn during the special session, that result is to win a seat for the Republican Party.

Gerrymandering can also be used to prevent minority candidates from winning office or to preserve the power of political or economic interests. 

A map representative of Missouri should have five districts where Republicans are likely to win, two where Democrats have the advantage and one that is a battleground, von Glahn said.

“What you’re looking at here is dividing the largest metro area in the state into thirds and drawing them in with people 250 miles away,” he said. “It is the definition of manipulation in order to achieve an outcome.”

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Court filing raises questions about source of gerrymandered Missouri congressional map

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
October 15, 2025

A filing in one of the many lawsuits challenging Missouri’s gerrymandered redistricting plan appears to cast uncertainty on Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe’s statements that the map was prepared by staff in his office.

A lawsuit filed by the committee seeking to force a referendum on the map states: “Governor Kehoe prepared and provided to the General Assembly the new congressional districts and accompanying map.”

In an answer filed Tuesday, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office wrote: “State Defendant admits that various governmental actors participated in the State’s 2025 congressional reapportionment. To the extent further response is required, State Defendant denies the allegations…”

The lawsuit was filed by a political action committee called People not Politicians against Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins after he rejected three proposed referendum petitions because they were filed before Kehoe signed the bill.  The answer also denies that Hoskins made any error and asserts that People not Politicians filed suit in the wrong court and against the wrong defendant.

Missouri Democrats have publicly questioned the governor’s public statements that his office crafted the new map, arguing instead that it most likely came from President Donald Trump’s White House. 

State Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, D-Kansas City, speaks during the September special session on redistricting. (Photo by Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The phrasing used by the state’s attorneys is revealing, state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Democrat from Kansas City, said in an interview with The Independent.

“I am not surprised at all to see the attorney general use this language,” she said. “Obviously now we are entering the court of law and facts matter.”

All along, Nurrenbern said, she has been convinced “this map was just a copy and paste from Washington, D.C.” 

Discovering the map’s author has been frustrating, she said, and it was never adequately answered during the special session. Lawmakers were not fully trained on mapping software, she said, and no map was produced by legislative staff.

“The day that the governor called the extraordinary session, the map was already done,” Nurrenbern said, “and so that’s why I could say with absolute certainty that this map was not drawn in the state.”

Throughout the special session and after, Kehoe’s office has been adamant that it was done by the governor’s staff without assistance from Washington.

Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing People Not Politicians in its lawsuit, said he was surprised by the state’s response. It could mean, he said, that Kehoe didn’t personally make the map. But he said “various governmental actors” is certainly broad enough to include federal employees at the White House.

 “Why are people embarrassed about taking credit for this bill?” Hatfield said. 

Hanaway’s office did not respond immediately to requests for clarification. A spokeswoman for the governor’s office said Tuesday that the original filing “does not specifically say ‘Governor Kehoe’s office’” prepared and provided the map.

On Wednesday morning, Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green set the case for a trial on Nov. 4. Green is being asked to decide whether a referendum can be launched as soon as lawmakers take the final vote on a bill or if petitioners must wait until a bill is signed.

In a news release Wednesday, Hoskins said he had approved a new version of the referendum petition and that signature gathering could begin. Any signatures already gathered, Hoskins said, are not valid and gathering them before his approval of the petition form is a misdemeanor.

People Not Politicians said last week that it had collected more than 50,000 signatures from registered voters. The campaign needs at least 106,384 signatures spread over six of the state’s eight congressional districts to put it on a ballot.

The referendum campaign has until Dec. 11 to turn in signatures.

Nurrenbern said she has personally been collecting signatures to put the new map on the ballot next year. She sees Hoskins’ warning about signatures gathered before his approval as a personal threat that she may be prosecuted.

“It is incredibly frustrating that we have a secretary of state using the office to intimidate voters and threaten democracy,” Nurrenbern said.

The new Missouri map targets the Kansas-City based 5th District, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, with the goal of winning seven of Missouri’s congressional seats for the GOP.

Lawmakers approved the new map after Trump started pressuring Misouri Republicans in July to redraw the districts. A special session in Texas was preparing to revise that state’s 34 districts to provide as many as five new safe GOP districts. In retaliation, California lawmakers put a new district map on that state’s ballot with the aim to shift five seats to Democrats. 

Court battle looms over KC precinct listed twice in Missouri’s new congressional map

In a lawsuit currently underway in Texas, Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, testified Oct. 7 that he prepared the map passed by the Texas legislature.

According to records obtained by The Independent, Kincaid produced a memo used by the map’s legislative sponsor in Missouri explaining the details of the new districts. In a September interview with The Independent, he insisted that is not evidence that he had a hand in creating the map.

In an interview Tuesday, Kincaid said he would not discuss whether he had a role in the Missouri map.

“I am going to defer to the governor’s office and the AG’s office on that,” he said.

Along with the lawsuit over referendum rules, there are four other lawsuits in various stages where opponents of the new map seek to have it declared unconstitutional. One, filed by the NAACP of Missouri, argues Kehoe had no authority to call lawmakers into special session and have all actions of the special session declared void.

The case was argued Sept. 15 before Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh, who has yet to make a ruling.

There is one other case in Cole County that directly challenges the redistricting plan and two more filed in Jackson County.

The Cole County case is set for a trial on Nov. 12, also before Limbaugh. In the lawsuit, which also has Hatfield as the lead attorney, the plaintiffs argue the Missouri Constitution only allows redistricting to occur immediately after the state receives a new census report.

“All we’ve got to do is look at the Constitution, take a look and see whether they can do redistricting,” Hatfield said. “The answer to that is no, they can’t do it at all.”

The Jackson County cases are not scheduled for trial. One includes accusations that the map approved by lawmakers is flawed and therefore not valid because it uses the same precinct in two different districts.

The other, filed the day Kehoe signed the bill, includes the argument that no authority exists in the Constitution allowing lawmakers to revise congressional districts in the absence of new census data. It also argues that the districts are not legal because they are not compact and stretch for hundreds of miles across the state.

Hatfield said he would like clarification on the statement denying Kehoe prepared the map as well as other statements in the answer that deny statements of fact, such as that the legislature passed the redistricting bill.

“It’s them being difficult,” Hatfield said, “but it’s just lawyer games.”

This article was updated at 2 p.m. Oct. 15 to correct the first reference to the committee that is seeking a referendum.

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Missouri autism specialists say White House assertions on cause, treatment need more research

by Steph Quinn, Missouri Independent
October 1, 2025

David Tomber-Young, 9, of St. Louis, has always been musical and expressive. 

According to his mom, Lizzy Tomber, he can sing the theme song to his current favorite movie, “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” from memory, including the parts in Korean. And when he watches movies, he has a knack for imitating the actors’ facial expressions.

But David, who along with his three younger brothers has been diagnosed with autism, struggles with some aspects of verbal communication, like answering open-ended questions and talking about the past.

Tomber said David has had “really huge progress” since he began taking a medication prescribed by his doctor in May: leucovorin.

“Before, you would really have to be like, number one or number two, and kind of give him a couple of choices,” Tomber said. “Right now, he’s talking more at school and, I think, talking about what he did last weekend or what he wants to do tomorrow.”

Leucovorin was at the center of statements by President Donald Trump and top federal health officials on Sept. 22 about the causes and treatment of autism spectrum disorder. Officials endorsed the use of leucovorin, which is used to treat side effects of chemotherapy, as an autism therapy. They also asserted a link between autism and pregnant mothers’ use of acetaminophen – the active ingredient in the pain and fever reducer Tylenol.

Specialists across Missouri urged caution around the claims from the White House last week, advising parents to consult their doctors and underlining the complexity of factors that influence autism.

Doctors said that scientific research on Tylenol and autism is inconclusive, while noting the importance of treating maternal fevers and pain.

“Your specific health care needs are best addressed with your physician,” said Dr. Benjamin Black, medical director at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment at the University of Missouri. “You want to appropriately treat illnesses and fevers during pregnancy, and whatever that needs to look like in your pregnancy is a discussion to have with your care provider.”

Leucovorin is a form of vitamin B9 that limited studies have suggested can boost verbal communication in individuals with autism. The “hypothesis,” said Dr. Gregory Cejas, co-director of the Washington University Autism Clinical Center, is that some people with autism have an autoimmune reaction that prevents the uptake of folate in the brain – and that leucovorin can help.

“I think what we don’t know,” Cejas said, “is that a true hypothesis? So we have to test that more. We have to, I think, do bigger studies on those things.”

Tomber said that while she thinks leucovorin, along with speech therapy and his teachers’ support, has helped David, it isn’t a “miracle drug.” Two of Tomber’s younger sons, who are mostly nonverbal, tried leucovorin and stopped due to possible side effects.

“They’re obviously frustrated that they can’t communicate, that they can’t get their point across,” Tomber said. “If I can give them a tool to do that better, of course I’m going to do it.”

‘We don’t want to put blame on our families’

Jenny Shank, of St. Louis, said Trump’s assertions pulled her back to her self-doubt in the early days of her now 17-year-old daughter’s diagnosis with autism.

Trump urged pregnant women to endure pain and “fight like hell not to take” Tylenol, except in cases of high fever.

“As a woman, I think you go back so many times,” Shank said. “Even though you’re so grateful for your child and you wouldn’t change them, you still go back and you think, ‘Was it this? Was it that?’”

Cejas said that as researchers work to learn more about autism, it’s important not to “put blame on our families.”

“I think a lot of parents ask me, ‘Is it something that I did?’” Cejas said. “And my usual answer is no, there’s nothing that you did specifically. There is no way to predict anything that you did in your pregnancy or otherwise that led to this point.”

Michelle Trupiano, executive director of Beacon Reproductive Health Network, formerly the Missouri Family Health Council, said misinformation, including around Tylenol, sows uncertainty and distrust.

“It just causes confusion for folks that is going to trickle down into continued confusion for patients over who they can trust, who they can go to for accurate information,” Trupiano said.”

Zachary Moser, administrator at the Dent County Health Center in rural southwest Missouri, said his office doesn’t plan to make any changes following the president’s remarks on Tylenol.

Moser, who is also a pharmacist, said a letter published Monday by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs offered a “reasonable” and “substantially different” message from Trump.

“It just uses the common sense principles that we use in medicine all the time,” Moser said. “Use the lowest dose for the shortest amount of time as possible. That applies to everything we do.”

The letter ended by describing acetaminophen as “the safest over-the-counter alternative in pregnancy” to aspirin or ibuprofen, which “have well-documented adverse impacts on the fetus.”

As of Friday, Moser saw some chatter about Tylenol online but had not yet been approached by many in his community for guidance on taking the medication. 

‘No single medical treatment’

Black, the medical director from the Thompson Center, said that because autism can’t be traced to any single cause or pathway in the brain, “no single medical treatment will be the answer for all patients and families.”

Though leucovorin appears to present minimal risk, Black said, there are no safety studies specific to patients with autism, and tests for the type of folate deficiency the drug may treat can be expensive or rely on scant data.

For now, Black said he is taking “a relatively cautious approach” to leucovorin.

Shank said that she will likely ask her daughter’s doctor about leucovorin. She wishes she could take away some of her daughter’s struggles, but she isn’t looking for a cure. 

“I don’t think that autism is something that needs to be cured,” she said.

Looking back on her family’s journey, Shank said she wants parents of children with autism to feel empowered to reach out to other families, because “most other families, they get it, they understand.”

“Go out of your comfort zone to fight for your child and advocate for them and create opportunities for them,” Shank said, “and give them the tools they need to succeed.”

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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Missouri House property tax committee weighs options for tax relief

by Cameron Smith and Jack Schouten, Missouri Independent
September 24, 2025

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Missouri workers can bet on paying more for health insurance next year

by Suzanne King, Missouri Independent
September 17, 2025

Tania Hewett-Mader, who owns Alma Mader Brewing with her husband, believes providing health benefits to her employees is the right thing to do.

“That’s part of our values — taking good care of our people,” she said. “Not only for their sake, but to be competitive in the market.”

But two years ago, after the company had offered traditional insurance coverage for a couple of years, premiums were going to become unaffordable. The Kansas City small business, which only has five employees — including Hewett-Mader and her husband — had to find a different option.

“We had to make a decision at that point,” Hewett-Mader said.

It’s a familiar story for business owners. Large and small businesses alike have been scrambling to absorb rising insurance costs for years, and the 2026 increases are promising to be even worse.

According to Mercer, the global consulting firm, benefit costs per employee for large firms are expected to increase an average 6.5% in 2026, the largest jump in 15 years. And that’s only if businesses take “cost-reduction measures.” If they don’t, Mercer said, plan costs would go up almost 9% on average.

For small groups — businesses with fewer than 50 employees — the increases could be far steeper.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City has requested an average increase next year of 19% for its small-group plans that are regulated by the state of Missouri. Other insurers in the state’s small-group market have requested rate increases of 10% to 13%.

Rick Welsch, an insurance broker in Fairway, said he has already broken the news to clients that rates will be going up “dramatically.” And other insurance brokers in the area said they’re seeing a similar trend.

“I was a little blown away,” Welsch said.

Business owners ‘hope it’s not awful’

Now business owners may be left deciding how to absorb significant cost increases.

For Alma Mader Brewing, the answer to continuing health benefits was to switch from a traditional insurance plan to a self-funded plan. That means the business pays into a pool of money that covers claims.

The change came with more paperwork and bigger copays for employees. The business also takes on more risk. If claims are higher one year, premiums will increase the next to compensate, which makes Hewett-Mader nervous.

She found out that next year the business will see a 13% jump because claims this year ran higher. But even that rate is doable, unlike the traditional coverage, so employees will keep their health insurance.

“‘It would be really hard to offer it and take it away,” she said.

Karen Crnkovich, owner of DMC Service Inc., a commercial heating and cooling company in Olathe, said she spends hours every year trying to find a plan her company can afford that still provides good coverage for the 23 employees who are insured.

“We hold our breath and cross our fingers and hope it’s not awful,” she said.

Last year she saved $20,000 by moving to an individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement, known as an ICHRA plan. That gave employees a tax-free allowance to buy an individual plan on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. But the model proved to be “too burdensome.” That and expected increases in the cost of marketplace plans next year made Crnkovich rethink that switch. She’s moving back to a self-funded plan.

“Every year we’ve got to look at it,” she said.

Employers face a lot of pressure trying to maintain benefits when costs continue to rise, business owners said.

“It’s kind of like, ‘How can you provide all the benefits and still be above water?’” said Ariel Johnston, who owns The Tasty Balance, a dietitian practice with offices in Prairie Village and St. Louis.

Johnston said the rates for her nine-person company will stay flat next year, but many employers won’t be so lucky.

Businesses confronting surging premiums may look for cost-saving options like adopting a self-funded model, like Alma Mader did. They may offer plans with narrower networks of doctors and hospitals in an effort to steer people to less-expensive providers, or force employees to pay more for going to a doctor not on a plan’s preferred list. Employers might also choose plans that limit what drugs are covered.

In addition, there is growing recognition that health plans that emphasize preventive care and behavioral health care will pay off in a healthier workforce and, eventually, lower premium costs. Johnston said many people don’t realize that dietitian services, like the ones her business offers, are fully covered by most insurance plans.

But to cover bigger premiums next year, many employers will also likely ask employees to pay more for their insurance.

Almost 60% of large employers Mercer surveyed said they would make cost-cutting changes, which generally means choosing plans with higher deductibles and bigger copays next year, adding to employees’ out-of-pocket costs.

Who will pay?

KFF research found that nearly half of adults are already struggling to afford health care, more than one in three report skipping or postponing care and almost one in four said they have medical or dental bills that are past due that they can’t pay.

One in five people surveyed by KFF said they are paying off debt to a provider, 17% owe a bank or collection agency, 17% have put medical bills on a credit card and 10% said they owe family members.

Additional health insurance increases would compound the problem, consumer advocates said, and add strain when people are already dealing with increased prices for other basic needs.

“We see rising utility rates and rent going up and now health care,” said Mary Shannon of the Consumers Council of Missouri. “It reflects a broader trend of consumer costs increasing.”

Frank Lenk, an economist with the Mid-America Regional Council, said that there will be economic consequences of rising medical costs. When people have to spend more on health care, already a sizable chunk of most household budgets, they’ll have less money to spend on other things, like local stores and restaurants.

“It will be happening when belts already seem to be tightening and the economy seems to be slowing down,” Lenk said.

The changes could also have longer-term consequences, he said. When people have to pay more for the doctor or to fill a prescription, they may be less likely to seek care, which could lead to a less healthy workforce.

“Businesses may save money on the one hand,” Lenk said, “but they may see loss of productivity on the other. It comes down to — there’s no free lunch.”

Employer-sponsored health insurance is the primary source of health coverage in this country.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 92% of people had health insurance for at least part of the year during 2024. Employment-based insurance covered 53.8% of that population, down from almost 67% in 1998. Medicare covered 19.1%, Medicaid covered 17.6%, and 10.7% of people were covered by plans they purchased directly, including through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Insurance premiums on employer plans have been trending up for years. The national average annual premium per employee enrolled in an employer-based plan was $5,963 in 2015, and jumped to $8.486 in 2024. In the same period Missouri’s average rates went from $5,726 to $8,552, and Kansas’ went from $5,558 to $7,874.

During that time, employers picked up between 75% and 79% of that premium cost. But employee costs still increased, both because the overall premium went up and because out-of-pocket costs climbed.

Why is insurance going up?

Insurance companies give many reasons for increasing premiums. But the two main factors are the price of health care is going up and more people are using their health benefits, which means insurance companies have to pay more.

Medical costs are set to grow 8.5% in 2026, according to a study by the consulting firm PwC, also known as PricewaterhouseCoopers. That’s the same rate as the last two years, but substantially greater than 2022 when the growth rate was 5.5%.

That slower growth reflected lower medical use during the pandemic, which is also one of the factors driving increased costs now, analysts said.

During the COVID pandemic, people put off doctor visits and routine care. That meant fewer claims being sent to insurance companies. It also caused a backlog of medical visits and procedures and led to growth in serious conditions that are more expensive to treat.

More expensive drugs are also adding to insurers’ costs. PwC said drug spending grew by $50 billion to $487 billion in 2024. GLP-1s, drugs that regulate blood sugar and help people lose weight, were a significant driver of the increase, leading some insurance companies to look at reining in who can get coverage for the drugs and for what conditions.

Insurers are also having to pay hospitals and doctors more, another reason for increased premiums. Analysts said several factors have caused that:

• Labor shortages in the medical field have forced hospitals and physician practices to pay higher salaries.
• Artificial intelligence, which is helping providers bill for services more efficiently, has prompted providers to track, and bill for, more services.
• And hospital system mergers, along with other provider consolidation, have helped providers negotiate higher reimbursement rates from insurers.

But one of the biggest reasons insurers may see higher costs starting in 2026 involves policy decisions coming out of the Trump administration, said Sara R. Collins, a senior scholar who studies health care for the Commonwealth Fund.

“We’re on the brink of some major changes,” she said.

Congress has cut about $1 trillion from federal Medicaid spending and made changes to the Affordable Care Act marketplace, and is expected to allow enhanced tax credits to expire at the end of the year. Those tax credits help more than 90% of participants afford coverage and have helped marketplace enrollment to double since 2021.

All told, those policy changes are expected to result in 17 million people becoming uninsured, which will lead to more people needing free care. And that will drive higher costs for everyone else.

Beyond that, Collins said, President Donald Trump’s tariffs could lead to higher drug costs, which will also increase insurance costs.

All the federal policy changes “will reverberate through the rest of the insurance system,” Collins said. “Those are potential cost drivers on the hospital side and on the provider side.”

Trend toward self-funded insurance

Health industry analysts said the rising costs are driving changes in the insurance marketplace, which could also contribute to higher premiums.

Derek Skoog, a health care actuary with PwC, said businesses facing big premium spikes are increasingly moving to self-funded insurance models.

This means that rather than paying an insurance company a monthly fee to cover all employee health claims, they set aside a pool of money and pay those claims themselves. If the business has employees who are young, healthy and low-risk, it may be a good bet that paying claims outright will cost less than paying an insurance premium.

The increased number of companies shifting to this self-funded model has been quietly diluting the risk pool for traditional insurance plans, known as fully insured plans, Skoog said. That means fewer premium dollars to cover the actual cost of claims. And potentially more expensive patients to cover.

Skoog said industry analysts had been wondering when that shift to self-funded plans would catch up to the fully insured segment of the market. And it seems to be happening. His firm’s analysis found that underwriting margins in the fully insured segment — basically an insurance company’s profits once claims have been paid — dropped to zero this year.

And that could also be a factor pushing insurance companies to raise rates in 2026, he said.

“The billion-dollar question here is,” Skoog said, “does that then further accelerate … the conversion from fully insured to self-funded?”

He called it a “pretty big concern” if healthier-than-average groups continue to leave the fully insured market.

“The long-term viability of that fully insured group segment, if it starts to run away, that can become a real challenge,” Skoog said.

Centivo, a New York-based company just entering the Kansas City market, is betting that more companies will take the leap to self-funded insurance as premiums for traditional plans climb.

The firm administers self-funded plans for businesses, which includes making deals with hospitals and doctors’ practices to get fixed rates for services. Centivo also works with “transparent pharmacy benefit managers” in an effort to lower the cost of medicine. And the company emphasizes preventive care.

Every Centivo patient is required to have a primary care physician and they pay nothing out of pocket for primary care services as long as they’re in the company’s network. The idea is that treating health problems earlier will help avoid serious issues and keep care costs down for the employers paying the bills.

“If you give them access to care,” said Ryan Moore, Centivo’s chief revenue officer, “all the data … show you’re going to have a lower cost of care in the long run.”

But that model might not hold up over time, said Collins of the Commonwealth Fund.

“Those employers that self-fund end up, as their workforce ages or they have workers who develop health problems, (needing) to come back into the fully insured market,” Collins said.

And that adds to the problem of care costing more and premiums going up, she said.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

After hearing from Trump, Missouri GOP muscle gerrymandered map forward in state Senate

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
September 10, 2025

Just hours after hearing from President Donald Trump during a caucus meeting, Republicans in the Missouri Senate showed they are ready to please him by shoving a new congressional district map to passage over opposition from Democrats.

The General Assembly is meeting in special session to revise the state’s eight congressional districts so Republicans are likely to win seven instead of the six they currently hold. The Missouri House has already approved the map sought by Trump, who on Tuesday demanded on social media that the Senate do the same.

“The Missouri Senate must pass this Map now, AS IS, to deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the ‘Show Me State,’ and across the Country,” Trump wrote.

To push the bill to final passage by Friday, Republicans had to get the two bills passed in the House into position for committee hearings on Thursday. But before that could take place, the chamber had to vote on rules for the session and Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin rolled out revisions intended to make House bills the Senate’s top priority.

And to get those revisions passed, they voted to shut off debate — using a once-rare motion known as the previous question. This year saw a major break from tradition, when Republicans used the motion to slam through partisan priorities at the end of the regular session in May.

It was the first time since 2017 when the previous question was used during a regular session.

The proposed rule changes triggered a Democratic-led debate that consumed two hours before Republicans forced a vote.

For about two hours, Democrats accused the Republicans of cheating by substituting the new rules instead of using the rules used during this year’s regular session — and for the veto session that took place just minutes before the chamber convened for the special session.

“For those of you that are going to be here for a few years, why would you give away your power just to make today a little bit easier?” said state Sen. Stephen Webber, a Democrat from Columbia. “That doesn’t make any sense, and it really saddens me, because I don’t know where it stops.”

State Sen. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, looks to the Senate dais in a disagreement over Senate rules (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The new rules were not distributed before the session convened and many Republicans were not informed in advance the changes were coming.

State Sen. Joe Nicola, a Republican from Independence, said he was given the new rules and the bill on congressional maps approved in the Missouri House with the expectation he would be an automatic vote in favor of both. But Webber’s point was valid, he said, and he’s not ready to go along.

“I’m nobody’s puppet. I will never be anybody’s puppet,” Nicola said. “I’m not going to come down here and be expected to rubber stamp anything. That is not what I was elected to do.”

Nicola voted along with all Republicans to table a motion by Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, a Democrat from Affton, to use the rules that governed the regular session in the spring. But when the chamber voted on the previous question motion, Nicola and state Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican of Ash Grove, voted with nine Democrats to continue debate.

The previous question motion is used commonly in the Missouri House, but until this year it was considered a last resort in the Senate. When the votes were held, Democrats started calling the presiding officer of the Senate “Speaker” instead of “President.”

“There are no speakers in the Missouri Senate,” said state Sen. Jason Bean of Holcomb, who was presiding at the time.

Following the vote, the House bills were read and the Senate will meet at 9 a.m. Thursday to move them to committees for hearings later in the day.

Flipping the 5th District

The Republicans’ target is the 5th Congressional District, currently held by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, a Democrat who has been in office since 2005. The map being considered would split the district into pieces, putting portions in the 4th and 6th districts and adding enough Republican votes to what remains to flip the district to the GOP.

Gov. Mike Kehoe also wants lawmakers to pass a state constitutional amendment raising the majority requirement for passing constitutional amendments proposed by initiative petition. 

Instead of a statewide majority deciding the questions, initiative proposals would have to win majorities statewide and in every congressional district. That would allow as few as 5% of voters to decide the question.

But it is Trump’s insistence on a new congressional map to shore up the GOP’s shaky majority in the U.S. House that is the main focus of the special session.

During a caucus of the Republican senators Wednesday, Trump called Kehoe and spoke to the members through the governor’s phone.

State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, insisted in an interview that the special session was not called just because Trump wanted it. The proposed new map puts all of Schroer’s county into the 3rd Congressional District — it is now split between the 3rd and the 2nd districts — and he said that will keep a community together in the same district.

But when asked whether Kansas City, which is almost entirely in the 5th District but would have its population split among three in the proposed map, deserved the same consideration, Schroer said it did not.

“Donald Trump is encouraging Republicans to grow a spine, and stop bending the knee to the Democrats to avoid filibusters like we did in 2022,” Schroer said. “It’s really helped and it’s binding the Republican Party back together.”

State Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, D-Kansas City, compares the State Senate to the House, remarking about the lack of debate allowed (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Democrats have vowed to challenge any new map in court and plans are being formed to force a statewide referendum on the bill. On Monday, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh will hold a hearing on a lawsuit filed by the NAACP challenging the legal basis for calling a special session.

At a news conference on Wednesday morning,  Beck said Republicans are rigging congressional elections because the policies they have pursued since Trump took office again are proving extremely unpopular.

And, he said, Republicans are trying to protect Trump from being shown to be a friend of deceased child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“The thing that frightens them the most, the thing that keeps them up at night, the thing that sends cold sweat down their back as they rub elbows at their elite country clubs is that if Democrats retake the House, they will release the Epstein files,” Beck said.

The Capitol was filled with opponents of the redistricting plan on Wednesday. And as the Senate adjourned for the day, Suzanne Till of Dent County said she would be back to continue the opposition on Thursday.

“If we don’t at least make a presence, then they’re going to railroad us,” Till said. “And also, I’m just gobstopped that they would just so openly, and brazenly, try to snatch away voters’ voices.”

This article was updated at 8 p.m. on Sept. 10 to correct the report on Nicola’s vote and clarify how the Senate action occurred.

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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Missouri lawmakers begin work on Trump-backed congressional redistricting plan

by Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent
September 3, 2025

The push to gerrymander Missouri’s congressional districts to create another GOP-leaning seat officially kicked off Wednesday with Democrats alleging the House violated the constitution by conducting business without a quorum. 

Only around 20 lawmakers were present Wednesday afternoon when the Missouri House convened for the beginning of a special legislative session focused on changing the congressional map and making it harder for voters to amend the state constitution. 

Bills were introduced and public hearings were scheduled for Thursday. 

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver promises lawsuit if Missouri Republicans gerrymander his district

Democrats were quick to point out a quorum of 82 members is required by the constitution for the House to conduct business. And although historically the chamber has utilized “technical sessions” for routine business when a quorum is not present, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune said “that doesn’t make it legal or right.”

“The stakes are too high in this special session to allow this illegal practice to continue unchallenged,” said Aune, a Kansas City Democrat. 

Mid-decade redistricting is rare. In Missouri, it hasn’t happened since the 1960s. 

But President Donald Trump, facing a potentially difficult midterm election cycle next year, has demanded GOP-controlled states redraw maps to add more Republican seats.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe answered the call last week, ordering the legislature back into session to carve up one of the state’s two districts held by a Democrat.

The goal is to ensure seven of Missouri’s eight congressional districts are controlled by Republicans. In the crosshairs is the 5th District, based in Kansas City and currently held by 11-term U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. 

While eliminating a Democratic congressional seat has taken center stage, Republican lawmakers are also hoping to change the initiative petition process to require a statewide majority and a majority vote in all eight of the state’s congressional districts in order to approve a constitutional amendment. 

Currently, a simple majority is all that is required. 

The redistricting plan is being shepherded through the legislative process by state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Noel Republican and chairman of the House Budget Committee. A special committee created by Speaker Jon Patterson will hold a public hearing Thursday at noon in the Missouri Capitol.

Another committee will hold a public hearing Thursday at 1 p.m. for the proposed changes to the initiative petition process. State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican, is sponsoring the legislation which, if passed by both the House and Senate, would require voter approval next year. 

The House is expected to debate and vote on both bills early next week. The Senate is scheduled to convene Wednesday to begin its work.

Proposed congressional maps released Friday by the governor’s office.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Lawsuits challenge ‘deceptive’ summaries for Missouri public education ballot measures

by Annelise Hanshaw, Missouri Independent
August 29, 2025

Two initiative petition campaigns seeking constitutional protections for public education are suing Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins alleging he crafted “deceptive and prejudicial” summaries that will appear on the ballot.

One campaign, called “the Missouri Right to Education Initiative,” hopes to amend the state constitution to declare education a “fundamental right.”

The other, filed by an attorney with the public education law firm EdCounsel, would amend the constitution to prohibit public funding of nonpublic schools except for when it benefits disabled students. It also would label new charter schools as nonpublic.

Both believe Hoskins’ summaries were written to deceive voters and sink their chances on the ballot next year.

“It is so far away from what we proposed that it really seems like they went to great lengths to try to bring something into the conversation that is not part of this amendment,” Spencer Toder, treasurer of the Missouri Right to Education Initiative, told The Independent.

Hoskins’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition to declaring education a “fundamental right,” Toder’s  proposed amendment would require state lawmakers to maintain “adequate, thorough and uniform high quality free public schools.”

The summary from the Secretary of State’s Office describes the initiative as an attempt to dismantle the state’s private-school voucher program. It specifically says the initiative petition would “eliminate existing state scholarship programs that provide direct aid to students with disabilities and low-income families” and “prevent the State from supporting educational choices other than free public schools.”

Toder says the petition doesn’t touch the state’s private school scholarship program, MOScholars.

“Our intent is not to get involved in the voucher dialog. It is to ensure that no matter if vouchers exist, it doesn’t come at the expense of public school students’ quality of education,” he said. “All (the amendment) says is that the students have a guaranteed right to a quality public education.”

The second initiative petition does train its sights on MOScholars.

“We’re watching the statewide elected officials from Missouri slowly dismantle public schools, this public school system that Missourians have built,” Duane Martin, a public education attorney who filed the initiative petition, told The Independent.

Hoskins’ summary describes the proposed amendment as “eliminating existing programs that provide direct aid to students with special education needs.” 

“It did not look to me like they had carefully read the initiative petition because some of what they summarized is the exact opposite of the language of the initiative petition itself,” Martin said.

Both campaigns are hoping to get on the ballot in 2026 and are in the early stages of organizing.

“I’m optimistic that a judge will look at this and see that some of the false statements that are made by the Secretary of State’s office can be corrected pretty readily,” Martin said.

Both Martin and Toder said they have not had contact with the Secretary of State’s Office other than receiving their petitions’ certification letters and serving the office with the lawsuit.

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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Missouri GOP leader says lawmakers will start with a congressional map drawn in D.C.

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
August 21, 2025

There’s a new congressional district map for Missouri circulating that was produced in Washington, D.C. But a top Republican said Wednesday that she’s been unable to get a look at it.

Jennifer Bukowsky of Columbia, vice chair of the Republican State Committee, said she expects a special session of the Legislature to be called after there is agreement between the Trump White House and the Republican National Committee on how to revise current boundaries.

President Donald Trump and his political advisers are pushing Missouri to join Texas in redrawing districts to favor the GOP. Any proposal is likely to split the 5th District, which is mainly in Kansas City, by adding Republican voters in sufficient numbers to take it away from incumbent U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.

That would give Republicans seven of the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House instead of the current six.

“I’ve tried to get a hold of the map that I’ve heard about,” Bukowsky said. “I guess I’m not important enough to be consulted.”

Missouri Congressional districts (Missouri Secretary of State’s Office).

The push for redistricting in Republican-led states is an effort to shore up the thin Republican majority in Congress. With a 219-212 majority — four seats are vacant, including three previously held by Democrats — Republicans are worried that a small shift in voter sentiment could put them again in the minority.

Redistricting is usually done in the first legislative session after census data is released and the districts remain in place for 10 years. 

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Gov. Mike Kehoe said the biggest consideration for him is maintaining the Republican majority in Congress.

“Our goal, if we move forward — and there’s no decision to move forward — is to make sure Missouri’s values are reflected in Washington, D.C.,” Kehoe said. “And I’ve said many times that I think our current speaker does a very good job of matching the values of Missourians.”

Republican members of the Missouri House have been told there will be two caucus meetings scheduled to coincide with the annual veto session, which starts Sept. 10, state Rep. Barry Hovis, a Republican from Cape Girardeau said Wednesday in an interview with The Independent.

One meeting, he said, is presumably to discuss whether there are any vetoes the House wants to override. In the other, Hovis expects an in-depth discussion of redistricting.

For Hovis, one consideration on whether to redraw Missouri’s map will be if Democratic states  California, Illinois or New York revise their maps in response to the action in Texas. Gerrymandered districts that give one party far more representation than their share of the overall vote can be seen in every state dominated by a single party, he said. Illinois has a district that looks like a snake, he said, while Massachusetts — where Republicans get about the same share of the vote as Democrats in Missouri — has no GOP congressional seats.

Democrats will complain they are being denied representation, Hovis said.

“If they’re going to bring (Texas) up, I’m going to say, well, ‘we’re just doing what you guys taught us to do’,” Hovis said.

Until Kehoe makes the call, Hovis said, the whole discussion is speculation.

“For me to tell you that I know exactly what we’re going to do here, I truly don’t,” he said.

Missouri’s current congressional map was approved by lawmakers in 2022 after a bitter GOP factional dispute that centered on efforts to draw seven Republican-controlled districts. And with Democrats promising to filibuster any redistricting bill in the Senate, getting a new map approved will also be difficult.

The biggest challenge for Republicans, Hovis said, will be to draw a map that doesn’t put districts the party currently holds at risk with large numbers of new Democratic votes. 

“If we go to the Kansas City model, the one that I saw when we did this several years ago, we’re going to have some districts that could be more purple than red, and we could end up being 5-3, real easy, or worst case scenario, 4-4.”

The people most interested in redistricting, Bukowsky said, are incumbents. They want a map that retains the voters who have come to know their name, while potential opponents want a map that includes voters who share their ideology.

“Whenever they’re doing redistricting,” Bukowsky said, “it’s like the two parties are incumbents and challengers.”

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Missouri House Republicans receive $25,000 donation from Kansas City Chiefs

by Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent
August 13, 2025

The Kansas City Chiefs donated $25,000 on Tuesday to a political action committee supporting Republican candidates for the Missouri House. 

The donation, the first major contribution the team made in Missouri this year, comes roughly two months after the legislature approved a $1.5 billion stadium funding plan aimed at convincing the Chiefs and Royals to stay in Missouri.

Last year, the team spent more than $3 million supporting a ballot measure seeking to extend a three-eights-cent sales tax to finance a renovation of Arrowhead Stadium and the construction of a new downtown ballpark for the Royals. 

The Royals donated around $2.5 million to the effort, as well as $260,000 to various local political organizations. 

However, voters resoundingly rejected the extension of the sales tax.

Tuesday’s $25,000 check went to the House Republican Campaign Committee. The same day, the PAC received $30,000 from Missouri Soybean Association; $10,000 from Mo Medical PAC; and $5,500 from state Rep. Dean Van Schoiack.

The Chiefs and Royals have played in side-by-side stadiums for five decades and share a lease at the Truman Sports Complex that runs through Jan. 31, 2031. As the expiration date nears, legislators in Missouri and Kansas have battled to present the best financial framework to attract the teams to their respective sides of the state line. 

Missouri lawmakers approved legislation to 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 either Jackson or Clay counties.

The cost is estimated at close to $1.5 billion over 30 years and could cover up to half the costs of stadium construction.

Two Republicans state legislators filed a lawsuit late last month asking a judge to declare the incentives package unconstitutional because it also includes provisions unrelated to stadium funding.

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. That deal originally expired June 30, but Chiefs President Mark Donovan successfully lobbied for the deadline to be extended in order to continue negotiations with Kansas on building a stadium, team headquarters, practice facility and related business developments. 

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Student scores on Missouri’s standardized test remain below pre-pandemic levels

by Annelise Hanshaw, Missouri Independent
August 13, 2025

Students are showing “positive momentum” on state standardized tests, state education officials said Tuesday, though the results remain below pre-pandemic levels. 

Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger told the State Board of Education Tuesday that she was glad to see an end to the “nosedive” that scores took between 2018 and 2023. But she knows the state can do better.

“Now we are seeing an uptick. It takes a lot to see even a percent of an uptick,” she told the board. “Are we where we need to be? Absolutely not.”

Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge, a board member from Pasadena Hills, said she hoped to see more improvement.

“This just feels like we need to revisit our growth targets, understand what worked and figure out where we need to turn up the dial to our growth,” she said.

The results of the Missouri Assessment Program come in four categories: advanced, proficient, basic and below basic. Grade-level equivalence, which is required to be reported in next year’s results, contains scores in the basic and proficient ranges.

In English language arts, 44% of students scored proficient or advanced, compared to 49% in 2019.

Math performance improved, with the lowest number of students scoring “below basic” in recent years. As a whole, 44% of students scored in the proficient or advanced range in math, beating 2019’s level of 41%.

But the achievement gap remains wide. 

The state education department tracks the scores of students who are Black, English learners, free-and-reduced lunch recipients, Hispanic or those with an individualized education plan as a group. The group scores in the proficient or advanced range at less than half the rate of students outside those groups.

Missouri school districts show improvement in annual performance report

The board, with a tone of disappointment, spent part of Tuesday’s meeting examining ways to improve student achievement. The discussion often veered to low attendance rates.

“We have school districts with 49% attendance and that, to me, is not acceptable. So we’ve got to do something about attendance,” Eslinger said.

Her main areas of focus, she said, are literacy and attendance as mechanisms to boost performance.

“We need to truly, truly work on attendance and literacy,” Eslinger said. “And then I do think that we need to look at how we measure progress.”

The current way of measuring performance is too slow, she said, adding that she wants more granular data.

Educators have long been expressing the same sentiment. Standardized test results are one of the factors that determine school districts’ state accreditation and are often cited by lawmakers and researchers to advocate for policy change. But educators compare the test to an “autopsy,” showing what has happened in the past but not providing real-time performance data.

School leaders have advocated for a shift to benchmark assessments, instead of the MAP’s summative format. And schools in the Success Ready Students Network, which is exempt from the state’s accreditation process, have been testing new ways to monitor student performance.

At the end of July, the department announced that the whole state will move toward benchmark tests as part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority Program. The program will allow the state to pilot a new assessment system beginning in the 2025-26 school year.

The department is planning on a “small-scale pilot of approximately five (schools) serving an estimated 100 students each in grade four English language arts and grade five Mathematics,” according to its application submitted earlier this summer.

The new test, which the department is calling the Success Ready Student Assessment, will have a minimum of three checkpoints throughout the school year and is intended to provide more timely feedback to educators and students.

“It just gives us a lot more information,” Eslinger said. “It is so much better for our kids to be able to have that opportunity to really see what it is that they’ve learned and what they need to learn next.”

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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

All Missouri metro areas saw unemployment increases in June

by Saurav Rahman, Missouri Independent
August 1, 2025

All eight of Missouri’s metropolitan areas experienced higher unemployment rates in June than a month before, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that is not seasonally adjusted.

n comparison to a year earlier, the jobless rate also increased in all of those metro areas.

St. Joseph had the highest unemployment rate among all of the state’s metro areas in June, rising to 4.5% from 4% in May. The city’s unemployment rate was 4.2% a year before.

Columbia saw the highest monthly increase in its unemployment rate, which was 4.2% in June, up 0.7 percentage points from 3.5% in May.

Jefferson City had the state’s lowest unemployment rate at 3.7% in June.

Springfield and Kansas City had the same jobless rate in June at 4.2%, increasing from 3.7% and 3.8%, respectively, in May.

The statewide unemployment rate before seasonal adjustment in June was 4.4%, rising from 3.9% in May. The unemployment rate was 3.8% in June 2024.

Missouri’s total civilian labor force in June was 3.2 million, with about 140,946 unemployed.

This story originally appeared in Missouri Business Alert, a digital newsroom covering businessand the economy in Missouri.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Missouri ethics panel dismisses complaint involving Republican state senator

by Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent
July 29, 2025

An ethics complaint alleging a GOP state senator from Grain Valley was using his church as a political action committee has been formally dismissed. 

The Missouri Ethics Commission determined the allegations against New Covenant Ministries and state Sen. Joe Nicola were unfounded, dismissing them at a meeting earlier this month. 

Brad Ketcher, a Democrat attorney from St. Louis who filed the complaint, said he was “disappointed in the outcome, but respect the commission’s decision.”

In an email to The Independent, Nicola said he appreciated the commission’s “thorough review” which found no violation had occurred. 

“I take seriously my responsibility to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law,” Nicola said, “and I’m grateful this matter has been resolved appropriately.”

The complaint alleged the church, where Nicola serves as president and pastor, should have registered as a political action committee because it raised money to boost Nicola’s campaign for state Senate last year. 

The church donated to Truth and Light PAC, which was established to support Nicola’s candidacy. The PAC reported contributions received from New Covenant Ministries rather than from the individual contributors. 

The complaint alleged that in doing so, New Covenant Ministries attempted to conceal the source of the contributors. Finally, the complaint alleged if contributions were accepted at church in the collection plate it is likely there were also violations of cash contribution statutes.

Nicola told The Independent earlier this year that Ketcher’s complaint was “ridiculous.”

“My church made donations to a PAC,” Nicola said, but added he doesn’t believe it was a violation of campaign finance law because his church isn’t a registered nonprofit.

The commission seemed to agree. 

“The investigation found that New Covenant Ministries did not accept contributions,” the ethics commission wrote in its ruling. “Rather, it accepted donations, which became the church’s personal funds, and the church’s financial board then decided how that money would be spent.”

There was no proof, the commission determined, that donations were earmarked to support Nicola or that the donations were given after solicitations to support his campaign. 

“Because New Covenant Ministries is not a committee, it had no obligation to register with the (Missouri Ethics Commission) or disclose the source of its donations,” the ruling stated. 

Ketcher’s complaint was originally dismissed in April because the commission was unable to meet due to the lack of a quorum. Gov. Mike Kehoe had not filled open seats on the board, leaving it unable to take action on any complaints.

He refiled the complaint soon after, and this month the governor finally filled enough seats for the commission to convene. 

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].

Jurisdiction issues emerge in AG’s appeal of ruling legalizing abortion in Missouri

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
July 22, 2025

The Missouri Supreme Court isn’t as ready to hear the appeal of a ruling that allowed abortions to resume in the state as Attorney General Andrew Bailey is to argue it in front of the seven judges.

In filings for an appeal of Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang’s July 3 preliminary injunction, Bailey’s office asked for an expedited schedule and a hearing the week of Aug. 11. The two Planned Parenthood organizations suing to block enforcement of laws regulating abortion, represented by the ACLU of Missouri, agreed there should be an expedited schedule but suggested arguments the week of Aug. 18 would be better.

But instead of setting a schedule, the court has directed the attorneys to explain why it should hear arguments at all. The two sides have until Friday “to show cause as to why this court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction over this appeal” under the Missouri Constitution.

Missouri Supreme Court asked for quick hearing on decision to restart abortions in the state

“It means somebody’s questioning whether they’ve got the authority, the jurisdictional authority, to hear this case,” said Heidi Vollet, an attorney fromJefferson City who clerked for then-U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in 2001 and teaches appellate law to other practicing attorneys for continuing legal education. 

“That doesn’t mean they’ve decided one way or the other, that they do or do not,” she said. “So show cause means that they’re concerned enough about it that there’s a question and they want to hear from the parties on that subject.”

Zhang’s July 3 ruling allowed surgical abortions to resume, and Planned Parenthood clinics are providing appointments for women in St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City. The clinics cannot offer medication abortions because the ruling did not block enforcement of a law requiring clinics to have complication plans for women who experience issues after taking the drugs. The state has thus far not signed off on a complication plan submitted earlier this year.

The order blocked the regulation describing what must be in the complication plan, such as access to a physician at all hours, but not the law itself requiring the plans.

Vollet said the Supreme Court has a limited number of cases where the law bypasses the three district appellate courts, usually the first stop in the appeals process. One set of cases involve the validity “of a statute or provision of the constitution of this state…”

If the type of case isn’t listed with the categories where the Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction, an appeal must generally be filed first with the court of appeals.

The show-cause order’s reference to the court’s exclusive jurisdiction is not a question the court had to ask, said former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Wolff.

“The Supreme Court has the authority to bypass the court of appeals and take an appeal directly,” Wolff said.

It will be up to Bailey’s office to show the court it has exclusive jurisdiction, or for Planned Parenthood to admit that having a statute declared invalid is their goal, for the court to agree to hear the case, Wolff said.

Bailey’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The ACLU said the court made the right move by issuing the show-cause order.

“The Missouri Supreme Court is correct to seek the parties’ positions to the question of jurisdiction,” said spokesman Tom Bastian. “This is the first time we have seen a direct appeal on a circuit court ordered preliminary injunction to the Missouri Supreme Court, whose authority is set by the Constitution.”

In the appeal, Bailey’s office is asking the court to decide that the case should not be before Zhang at all, but in Cole County. The appeal also asks the court to declare that Zhang used the wrong legal standard when issuing the preliminary injunction.

Because the ruling from Zhang is a preliminary injunction, it is not final. That means she has not yet decided whether the state laws her orders block violate the terms of the abortion rights amendment approved by voters in November. Instead, her decision is based on the likelihood the Planned Parenthood plaintiffs will prevail at trial and which side is damaged more, the plaintiffs if the laws are enforced or the state that will see its laws go unenforced.

The show-cause order doesn’t necessarily alter the timeline either party requested for an expedited hearing, Vollet said.

“They absolutely are interested to know about jurisdiction,” she said. “And they’re looking at that presumably before they order a certain time frame.”

Missouri Supreme Court order reinstates ‘de facto abortion ban’ across the state

This is the second time the question of whether Zhang had grounds to block enforcement of state abortion laws and regulations has come before the court. In May, the court issued a writ ordering Zhang to withdraw two previous preliminary injunctions issued by Zhang.

It is the first time Bailey’s office has used a power newly granted by the legislature to appeal a preliminary injunction that blocks enforcement of any provision of the constitution, state law or regulation.

The law was an attack on abortion rights, Bastian said, because it was passed only because of the case being heard by Zhang.

“The law allows the state, and only the state, to appeal interlocutory preliminary injunctions that temporarily block the enforcement of laws that likely violate the constitution,” Bastian said.

But the new law, which took effect April 24 with Gov. Mike Kehoe’s signature, does not assign jurisdiction over those appeals to a particular court. 

“For very good reason, if this doesn’t belong in the Supreme Court, they’re much better off,” Wolff said. “This is my personal view of it, but by letting the Court of Appeals decide this in the first instance, and then they can take it, take transfer or not take transfer, depending on how badly the court of appeals screwed it up, or not at all.”

 

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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].