Leaders talk about Missouri Senate gridlock blocking many key bills from passing

The Missouri Senate’s gridlock at many times this year kept several key bills from passing, including sports betting and limits on foreign ownership of farmland. 

That gridlock often involved a super minority of further right-leaning conservative Senators blocking bills. 

Senate Democratic Leader John Rizzo, of Independence, says that small group of Republicans often takes the chamber and the party hostage.

According to Senator Rizzo:   “They will take everything that they get you give them an inch they’ll take a mile and I think Senator Laughlin stood up to him this year in certain aspects and different times I think that they tried to work through the process on a lot of different things but you know it’s it’s their way or the highway most days

Some of the items that did get accomplished include spending 2.8-billion dollars to widen I-70 to at least three lanes across most of the state, as well as limits on transgender healthcare for minors and transgender sports participation.