By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer will enter the upcoming Missouri legislative session in a major leadership position.
Luetkemeyer, who represents Platte and Buchanan Counties in the Missouri Senate, has been elected by the Republican Caucus to be the Majority Floor Leader next year.
In the role, Luetkemeyer will decide what legislation reaches the Senate floor for debate.
“And oftentimes the Floor Leader is at the center of negotiations on legislation before it passes the Senate and gets over to the House,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “I’m looking forward to working with all my Republican colleagues to help them get their individual priorities for their districts done and then also get some of the big conservative things done that we all want to get done as Republicans.”
Luetkemeyer, A Republican from Parkville, says it’s no secret the Senate Republican Caucus had its difficulties in the last few sessions in Jefferson City.
“We’ve had a little bit of dysfunction or discord within the Republican Caucus in the Senate over the last several years,” Luetkemeyer concedes. “The commitment that I made to all of my caucus members whenever I ran for this position; my number one priority is not even necessarily legislative. My number one priority is Senate functionality.”
Returning and newly elected Republican senators voted for Luetkemeyer during a meeting held at the state Capitol in preparation for the upcoming, 2025 legislative session.
Luetkemeyer says dysfunction within the Senate Republican Caucus has cost conservatives.
“My belief is a united Republican Caucus is much more effective at passing big, bold conservative ideas than a caucus that’s divided against itself.”
Luetkemeyer says Republican in-fighting the last few sessions kept good legislation from passing.
“I think a lot of what we saw in terms of dysfunction in the Senate, I mean it can be blamed on a whole bunch of different things, but a lot of it was just a breakdown in communication,” Luetkemeyer says. “People just flat out stopped talking to each other.”
Luetkemeyer hopes the Republican Caucus can adopt the traditional practice of working out differences in private, behind closed doors.
“Not on the floor of the Senate with a microphone in front of you and a bunch of TV cameras pointed on you,” Luetkemeyer says. “We need to get back to that kind of a place.”
Luetkemeyer will serve in the number two leadership role in the Missouri Senate, behind only the President Pro Tem.
The Missouri legislative session begins January 8th.
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