If you feel passionate about the boys in girl's sports issue, PLEASE use your voice and participate in working toward a solution. And I'll go ahead and say this, if you aren't going to participate and use your voice when you can, then stop complaining.
This government was created BY the People, FOR the People. That means THE PEOPLE ...YOU...NEED to participate!
what to do
The senate hearing is TOMORROW, 1/31/23, at 10:00 am. There are a couple of ways you can express your thoughts on these issues.
My personal recommendation is to SUPPORT Senator Jill Carter's SB 165 and SUPPORT Senator Mike Moon's SB 48. OPPOSE Holly Rehder's bill, SB 39. You can read overviews or the full text of those bills if you look at my previous blog article.
1. Call and email the committee members.
Leave a voice mail if no one answers. Let them know which bills you support and oppose.
Emerging Issues Committee Members
Justin Brown, Chair 573-751-5713. justin.brown@senate.mo.gov
Mike Moon, Vice Chair. 573-751-1480. mike.moon@senate.mo.gov
Elaine Gannon. 573-751-4008. elaine.gannon@senate.mo.gov
Andrew Koenig. 573-751-5568. andrew.koenig@senate.mo.gov
Nick Schroer. 573-751-1282. nick.schroer@senate.mo.gov
Tracy McCreery. 573-751-9762. tracy.mccreery@senate.mo.gov
Greg Razer. 573-751-6607. greg.razer@senate.mo.gov
2. Submit Online Testimony For SB 165 & SB 48
Click on the link here if you'd like to support one of these bills. These two are the only ones I have links for. If you choose to support the others, you'll need to call and email the committee.
If you've been paying attending to Missouri politics this week, you know that girl's and women's sports is on the agenda.
the house
Last week, I attended the House hearing which covered several bills related to Missouri's kids as they relate to transgender issues. It was a long ordeal and I didn't make it to the end, but it was definitely quite an evening. I did go back and watch the rest of what I missed - I total of about 9 hours worth of bill presentations, testimonies and inquiries.
I highly suggest you take a few minutes of your time to watch. It was divided into three sections, for your reference. I've noted the approximate times to help you find the section you'd like to view.
1. Women's sports bills. (4:30 pm to 8:00pm)
2. Transition surgeries & hormone therapy/puberty blockers for children. (8:00pm to 12:00am)
3. Drag shows (12:00am to the end)
Scroll to the hearings on 1/24/23 and find General Laws. Click to open video window.
The House General Laws Committee will vote on those bills this week in their executive meeting, I expect.
The senate
The Senate is handling these issues a little bit differently. They are hearing the girl's sports bills only this week. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, 1/31/23 at 10:00am in Senate Committee Room 1.
They are hearing a total of six bills having to do with girl's sports. Below you'll find a list, linked to the bill text along with a bulleted overview for comparison.
- SB 2 by Senator Denny Hoskins
- Prohibits males from playing in female sports based on genetics
- No adverse action against compliant schools
- Middle school through college
- Allows intramural games regardless of gender
- Withholds state funds if school is in violation
- SB 29 by Senator Tony Luetkemeyer
- Prohibits males from playing in female sports based on birth certificate or other government document
- Girls can compete with boys if a girl's team is not available to her
- Girls not allowed to play due to violation of policy may bring suit against school in violation.
- Implied to be K-12 as it mentions public school and charters, but not postsecondary
- SB 39 by Senator Holly Thompson-Rehder
- Includes "Where As" section referring to Title IX and past issues of discrimination
- Prohibits males from playing girl's sports based on genome and reproductive biology at birth. Also included is sex stated on birth certificate or other government documents
- References the Federal Title IX policy AS AMENDED. This is a red flag.
- Schools in violation will not receive state funding
- DESE shall promulgate all rules and regs. This is a red flad in regard to expanding DESE's authority. The legislation needs to be complete without allowance for DESE to create more rules. DESE, unelected bureaucrats, need to be removed from this policy making process.
- Applies to all grade levels and post secondary
- Does not prohibit adverse actions against schools OR allow schools to sue for being penalized for compliance
- SB 48 by Senator Mike Moon
- Prohibits males from participating in girl's sports based on genome and reproductive biology at birth
- Prohibits adverse action against schools in compliance
- Allows for action to be taken against organizations penalizing the school for complying
- Middle school through college.
- Public and private schools
- SB 87 by Senator Ben Brown
- Public K through 12th grade
- Private middle school and high school
- Every sponsor, organizing entity or facilitator of youth sports shall comply
- Intramural games open to all genders
- Gender determined by assignment at birth per birth certificate UNLESS it was changed due to specific physical disorders
- State funds withheld for schools in violation
- Schools may bring suit against any entity penalizing them for complying
- SB 165 by Senator Jill Carter
- Middle school through college
- Public or private schools
- Gender based on sex at birth as see on birth certificate
- Student who miss the opportunity to participate or suffer retaliation due to violation of policy may bring suit against the school
- Schools penalized by associations or agencies for complying may bring suit for damages
- Locker rooms and areas of "undress" shall be designated and separated for biological girls and boys. Students who choose not to use those facilities based on biological sex will be provided with alternative accommodations.
My personal favorite is Senator Carter's SB 165 because she included bathrooms and locker rooms as well as provision for students to be able to bring suit against the school if the school is in violation.
Senator Mike Moon has actually carried this bill for the past few years. I applaud him for that. I like his bill, also.
Senator Denny Hoskins is a good conservative voter and we can usually count on him to be standing on the right side of things. He's great on the floor and a stand up guy we can trust, which is hard to say about most of these politicians. Props to Senator Hoskins for including specific language for intramural sports. I like this language and I feel that it allows for the opportunity to play recreational sports, experience the fun and teamwork in an environment that everyone is agreement with.
Senator Tony Luetkemeyer's bill is ok. What he has included is fine but it doesn't cover the necessary bases in my opinion.
Senator Ben Brown's bill is the only one to include ALL youth sports. Although it would include community organized sports and he does have specific provisions for intramural sports.
Senator Holly Rehder's bill is just BAD. I do not support it and I don't recommend that you support it. DESE should not be mentioned as they need to promulgate NOTHING. And there's no reason to refer to the amended version of the federal Title IX in the "Where As" section. This section shouldn't be considered enforceable law, but it does not need to be codified in this manner. Here's an excerpt of the proposed amendments to Title IX:
my opinion
For those of you coming to testify in the Senate Hearing, you are able to support/oppose multiple bills. Be specific in stating that information in your testimony. Personally, I would support Senator Carter's SB 165, Senator Moon's SB 48 and Senator Hoskin's SB 2. I would opposed Senator Rehder's SB 39.
Missouri's county central committees are being attacked by a bitter senator, Mike Cierpiot, who happens to be pretty angry that he had a primary opponent and ended up not being endorsed by his own committee. Frankly, I'm not at all sure what his problem is, because he won the race. But Joe Nicola sure did a great job and those constituents learned a lot of truth.
That, I think, might be Cierpiot's problem. Truth.
Cierpiot snuck in a 3rd candidate to split the opposing votes, which isn't really surprising. That strategy is used often and it definitely worked. Maybe Cierpiot didn't know, I guess. But considering the 3rd candidate (Rachl Aguirre) was talking, even sort of bragging about being good friends with Cierpiot and his wife, they've been seen out to dinner together and such...I'm pretty certain that it was a strategic move. But I digress.
The Bill, SB 16
Senator Cierpiot filed SB 16 which creates a weighted voting system for our central committees. It's a horrible system and in order to understand the implications you first need to know two things.
1. What's a central committee?
2. How does weighted voting work?
what's a central committee?
The Republican Party (GOP) is divided into several different committees. The Democrat Party has them, too. These committees actually ARE what make up the Republican and Democrat Party. These committees that make up each party are codified in Missouri statute. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have the same list of committees.
- State Committee
- Congressional Committee
- Judiciary Committee
- Senatorial Committee
- Legislative Committee
- County Central Committee
Each committee has different functions and contributions to our political system. For example, the county committees can write resolutions about specific issues which indicates their stance or opinion. The county committee generally endorses and financially supports the party candidate in the general election. They are supposed to remain neutral in the primaries, but they do have influence and can actually keep candidates from running on their party ticket. Frankly, I wish they'd do more of that with a pledge to the Republican Platform as the filter.
The county committees in question are actually elected positions. There's a good chance you didn't know that. If you haven't seen that on your primary ballot lately, it's because no one is filing to fill it or it's been filled and the seat holder continues to hold it until they are challenged on the ballot, which rarely happens. We'll talk more about that another day.
The county committees are made up of 1 man and 1 woman from each voting precinct or township. I.e., If your county has 10 voting precincts/townships then you have 20 central committee seats. That means YOU have a committee man and a committee woman on your county committee that is supposed to be representing you. If you don't know your committee people, please take time to reach out to your County Clerk and find out who they are.
Each county committee has its own set of bylaws. And it's interesting to note that the party itself via these bylaws can choose ANY process they want as far as how their committee functions, how they control their party ballot, etc. as long as nothing they do conflicts with Missouri statute.
Issues the county committee votes on:
- Candidates for special elections
- How they accept candidates onto their ballot (via bylaws)
- Amending the bylaws
- Resolutions
- Endorsements
- Fundraising events
- County seat replacements
- Other things that arise as necessary
The Chair & Vice-Chair of each county committee are automatically members of the higher level committees where they have a voice in higher level issues, including Presidential delegates and filling vacant seats in higher offices.
what's weighted voting?
Currently, the county committee votes are NOT weighted. Every committee person gets one vote. This means that every township/precinct has the same amount of representation - just like the senate. We like this system. It assures us that everyone is represented in an equal way regardless of the population of their voting precinct.
Cierpiot wants to weight the votes and worse than weighting the votes, he's created a ridiculous way to do it.
This means that every committee member would have a different number of votes and that amount would be determined according to the number of people who voted for the WINNER of the governor's or auditor's race in the last primary.
Here's a video that explains more about weighted voting. INTRODUCTION TO WEIGHTED VOTING.
example of cierpiot's weighting method
Numbers given are only for informational purposes and easy explanations.
This is a fictional example created based on Cierpiot's method of weighting in SB 16.
There are 6 townships in X County. 12 committee members.
Let's say Fitzpatrick got 1,000 votes total in the August 2022 primary broken down like this:
Township A - 100 = 10% of the 1,000
Township B - 300 = 30% of the 1,000
Township C - 200 = 20% of the 1,000
Township D - 50 = 5% of the 1,000
Township E - 100 = 10% of the 1,000
Township F - 250 = 25% of the 1,000
Weight Calculations. Based on Cierpiot's formula in SB 16. If I learn I'm incorrect, I will publish corrections but this is what we believe to be true. It's more than confusing so give me some grace if I'm wrong here. I've talked to several people and this is the best we can come up with following his language in the bill.
Township A 10 x 2 = 20 votes each member. (40 total votes for A)
Township B 30 x 2 = 60 votes each member. (120 total votes for B)
Township C 20 x 2 = 40 votes each member. (80 total votes for C)
Township D 5 x 2 = 10 votes each member. (20 total votes for D)
Township E 10 x 2 = 20 votes each member. (40 total votes for E)
Township F 25 x 2 = 50 votes each member. (100 total votes for F)
40 + 120 + 80 + 20 + 40 + 100 = 400 total votes
There would be 400 total committee votes every time the committee of 12 people vote on any issue other than county seat replacements.
In this example, both members from Township B & Township F are all that is needed for a majority of the 400 votes. That's a total of 4 individuals instead of 7, which would be required for majority if everyone got one vote each.
PLEASE NOTE: It is OFTEN the case that a husband and wife are the committee man & woman for their township!!
In this case, we end up with 4 dictators from 2 townships that control everything that happens on the committee. And it's based on votes for the winner of ONE executive level primary race. It's INSANITY.
Oh...but is it??
insanity or strategy?
If you were a power seeking politician, wouldn't you LOVE to have this much control over the committee, its bylaws, its endorsements, its selection for candidates?
Cierpiot isn't insane. He's actually very strategic and this is a great way to sneak tons of dictator type control in right under the rug hoping no one notices.
Creating a dictatorship on the committees would mean ...
- All you have to do is put the people in those seats you want.
- You'd never get censured or left behind in the endorsements.
- You could have them write bylaws any way they wanted
- Control who goes on the ballot & how that happens by way of bylaws
- Control who is on the ballot in special elections
- Control Control Control
- Zero grassroots candidates would have a chance which means your reputation wouldn't be tanked when those pesky opponents told the truth.
take action
1. PLEASE PRAY this ends with the senate committee!! The public hearing is today. I'll be in attendance and I'll keep you posted. **UPDATE. They pulled the bill from the committee hearing. It will be heard in the future at an unknown time.
2. Please find out who your central committee members are (check with your county clerk) and then send them the link to this blog. They need to use their voices & power they have on their committee. The committee can pass a resolution to express their opposition to the bill. It's the most effective way to gain traction right now but we need to make sure our county committee members know what's happening.
3. Stay tuned. Your voice may be needed shortly!
why not senator justin brown?
Let's keep it simple, because there's a lot of info and it's easy to get overwhelmed. We'll keep it in list form and number the blogs so you won't miss anything.
1. he votes with democrats 85% of the time.
Check out this scorecard. We tracked 21 votes over 2 years. Out of those 21 votes, he only upheld the Republican platform 3 times. You can download the scorecard and print it out if you'd like to see the details more clearly.
In this scorecard, every senator listed is a Republican. Red circles represent a vote that upheld the Republican platform and blue circles are votes that did not. The blue circles are votes that show how the RINOS & Democrat Senators voted. Remember, though, no democrats are actually listed on the chart.
The important thing to see is how many blue votes there are overall from our Republican senators and how many blue votes Justin had. There are two red arrows pointing to Justin's line on the chart which is also highlighted in yellow.
If you have questions about specific votes, I'm happy to answer those for you. Shoot me an email at jodi@mofreedomfoundation.com and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
Download the PDF here: MOFF 21.22 Scorecard (2).pdf
2. twice in 2022, he opposed protecting our girls!
I want to highlight 2 votes in particular that were taken this year and explain them. There is a LOT of spinning going on and you deserve to know the TRUTH.
Senate Amendment 2 to Senate Bill 672. You can see this vote in the first column of the dark pink section.
SB 672 was called the Fast Track bill. It funded a higher education program related to workforce development. On February 15, 2022, Amendment 2 was offered by Senator Mike Moon. It said that any institution taking these funds would be required to protect their female athletes by BANNING boys from playing in women's sports at their institution IF they wanted to take those government funds.
How would you want them to vote? I wanted them to PASS that amendment and protect our girls. It would've only been a start, but starting is better than nothing.
Instead of passing the amendment, they chose to kill it. They voted to "lay it over" which meant that the amendment died. What the RINOS want you to believe is that they didn't vote on the amendment and it was all about procedure. They say the amendment language needed to go through committee first so they didn't want to vote on it on the floor.
RINOS say, "I didn't vote against it. I voted to lay it over so it could be vetted in a committee."
You can see how many voted to table/kill the amendment (blue votes) and how many voted for the amendment to move forward (red votes). Justin voted with the RINOS and the democrats. The Conservative Caucus wanted the amendment to pass, which would have offered protection for girls attending those specific schools.
SB 718. The Save Women's Sports Act. This vote is the 19th column of votes, 3rd from the end.
On May 11, what turned out to be the last day of session for the senate, Senator Moon again offered up The Save Women's Sports Act as an amendment to SB 718.
This was nearly 3 full months after the first vote on February 15th. They had PLENTY of time to "vet" the language. But did they? NO.
Bless Senator Moon's heart, he tried again to pass the language that would protect our girls. And AGAIN, most of the Republicans voted with the democrats to leave our girls unprotected and at risk.
But check out Justin's vote. He was ABSENT. That doesn't mean he was sick. It means he was at the Capitol that day, he was working but he CHOSE NOT TO VOTE. You'll hear people refer to this as "they took a walk" meaning they walked out when it was time to vote.
Why would he choose NOT to vote at all?? Because by May 11th, he knew he was being primaried and he didn't want to be held accountable for a NO. He understands what most of you do not - Senate rules. And the rules say they can abstain from voting if they choose even though it gets recorded as "Absent." IF you bother to look up the vote you'd assume he just wasn't there because it's listed as "Absent."
This vote is upsetting because not only did he NOT protect the girls, he purposefully tried to weasel out of any chance he'd be held accountable at the polls. The RINOS aren't happy that the Conservative Caucus required so many roll call votes this year. Roll call votes mean you can see how they voted. They'd much rather take a simple voice vote so their personal votes aren't recorded in the journal.
Let's get back on track.... the important thing is TWICE in 2022, Justin Brown FAILED to protect our Missouri daughters and granddaughters. He voted (or abstained) in a way that KEEPS boys playing in girls sports!
The bottom line is that this issue was NOT a priority to Justin or any of the other Senate RINOS. It was ONLY a priority to the Conservative Caucus.
They DID pass a giant education bill and even then they did not "vet" the women's sports language so they could add it OR any CRT ban. They played nice with the leftists to get a Christmas tree bill across that line that actually did more harm than good and included NO PROTECTION for our children!
There is no doubt that the Missouri Senate, specifically Missouri's Republican Senators, are at war. It's quite a tale to tell and the current primary campaign season has added another ring under the Senate Circus tent. We are down to 26 days to the primary and things are heating up here in the Show Me State.
There's so much campaign clowning around and illusion performances going on it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't, but make no mistake this is not fun and games.
I've been inside the Capitol for two sessions now, tracking legislation, votes and keeping tabs on conservative issues. I've gotten to know leaders of grassroots organizations around the state as well as legislators in both chambers. Although every issue has multiple sides, in most cases this really isn't rocket science. Either our Republican legislators are consistently voting according to the platform they ran on - or they aren't.
The Republican Primary on August 2nd is THE place where we let the politicians and the GOP know what we think!
From now until then, I hope to share some information on a few of these elections before you go to the polls. Be sure to follow and forward to your friends across Missouri!!
Every even numbered MO Senate District is up for re-election this year. The maps did change, so it's likely your district is a little or a lot different than it has been before. Here's the new map.
Find your county on the map then zoom in to see the district number. If you live in an even numbered district, you NEED to VOTE AUGUST 2ND!!
If you're not interested in the inside scoop but want to cut to the chase of who is a RINO and who isn't, here ya go.
My personal endorsements are in red. I believe these to be true conservative choices who have already upheld the Republican platform with their votes as an elected official or they have pledged to do so.
If I could vote in all these races, the names in red are who I would choose.
District 2 - NICK SCHROER v John Wiemann
District 4 - Mary Theresa McLean, unopposed
District 6 - SCOTT RIEDEL v Mike Bernskoetter
District 8 - JOE NICOLA v Rachel Aguirre v Mike Cierpoit
District 10 - BRYAN SPENCER v Joshua Price v Travis Fitzwater
District 12 - J EGGLESTON v Rusty Black v Delus Johnson
District 14 - No Republican on the ballot
District 16 - SUZIE POLLOCK v Justin Brown
District 18 - Cindy O'Laughlin, unopposed
District 20 - CURTIS TRENT v Brian Gelner
District 22 - MARY ELIZABETH COLEMAN v Dan Shaul v Shane Roden v Jeff Roorda
District 24 - George Hruza v Brett Schenck
District 26 - BEN BROWN v Nate Tate v Bob Jones v Mary-Noella Skaggs v Jason Franklin
District 28 - JAN ARNOLD v Sandy Crawford v Bill Yarberry
District 30 - ANGELA ROMINE v Lincoln Hough
District 32 - JILL CARTER v Bill White
District 34 - Tony Luetkemeyer, unopposed
Stay tuned to learn more about a few of these races!
