First, I want to let you know - I am actually listed as an Independent voter at this moment, but with the situation both locally and nationally, I am going to my first meeting with the Democratic Party next week. I am not at the moment a registered Democratic Party member. I do my best to be honest and ethical. Always.
Do you remember last fall? The voters of Missouri voted as a majority to allow employees to accrue sick leave, with employees of businesses over $500,000/year accruing at least 1 hour paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, to a max of 52, and employers with fewer than 15 workers allowing workers to earn at least 40 hours per year. The measure made sick leave available for 1 in 3 workers who did not have it. It also set minimum wage at $13.75, going to $15.00/hour January 2026, and then relied on a bill from 2006 to allow minimum wage to match inflation.
First, they challenged it in state court and failed. Then, the GOP wrote a bill repealing the whole thing. His statement when he signed this new bill upending the will of voters?
“Today, we are protecting the people who make Missouri work — families, job creators and small business owners — by cutting taxes, rolling back overreach, and eliminating costly mandates.”
How is it protecting Missouri families when someone has a choice between no income and staying home when they have the flu so they don’t make customers sick? How is it protecting Missouri families when offered starting wages are now falling as GDP contracts, even though prices are rising? You realize that employees are the ones committing “overreach” and are the “costly mandates” in this situation, right?
One major argument against sick leave, by the way, is that business owners couldn’t verify whether or not employees were lying, and that they couldn’t trust their employees to use sick leave honestly. The other, of course, was that employees were getting paid when they weren’t working. As an extra middle finger for daring to advocate for paid sick leave in this state, the legislature also repealed the 2006 law pegging minimum wage to match inflation. They kept the increases, though, from what I can tell from various articles I have checked about it. There is nothing stopping them from lowering it further though.
Here is the crazy thing about it: the state legislature in Missouri has been reliably red since I moved here, even though it has forced citizens to use ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana (which they legislature then said they would have to structure better, and dragged their feet), and make abortion a right in our state constitution. Which ALSO passed this fall, and which is now in danger.
Yes. The amendment we passed to our constitution - since they couldn’t attack that directly with legislation, they have crafted a new, sneaky version to put on the ballot this fall, it says that it is clarifying the previous amendment by adding for the life of the mother, fetal anomalies, and in matters of incest and rape. The way the wording is on that ballot initiative is meant to be confusing, because it is actually limiting the right of abortion only to those contexts, and only before 12 weeks. Gestational anomalies found after that period? Gotta carry it until term, or until it dies in utero and causes sepsis so they can be sure the mother’s life is really maybe in danger.
Every time we pass anything by ballot initiative, our legislature immediately says, “Oh no. We can’t let the people have what the majority voted for. This has to be changed,” and looks for how to repeal or otherwise change/end it. Why do we keep voting these people in?
It is time for a new day in Missouri, where we vote for responsive candidates who will follow the will of the people. I am doing my best to create awareness, figure out outreach, and encourage us to be active voters who hold our legislators to account, at state and federal levels. I would appreciate if you subscribe for free or paid - the more subscribers I have, the more visible I can be on Substack.