By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri lawmakers gather in Jefferson City this afternoon for the start of the 2025 legislative session.
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Parkville who represents Buchanan and Platte Counties, will serve as Senate Majority Floor Leader during this session.
Luetkemeyer says the Senate Republican Caucus wants to reform the state income tax system, perhaps even eliminating the personal income tax.
“This is something the governor-elect (Mike Kehoe) also has talked about on the campaign trail, either reducing or entirely eliminating the state income tax,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “We have other states in the Midwest, like Tennessee, who have done this and it is a great way to boost Missouri’s economy and put more money back in the pockets of hardworking Missouri citizens.”
Luetkemeyer says public safety is the top issue of Senate Republicans this year, including the consideration of placing the St. Louis Police Department under state control, similar to how police are managed in Kansas City.
Luetkemeyer says Republicans will make an effort to moderate Amendment Three approved by voters in November.
“Amendment Three is a very radical measure and what I anticipate we will see is efforts by the General Assembly to bring that measure more in line with where we think the majority of Missourians actually are when it comes to the issue of life,” Luetkemeyer says.
Luetkemeyer sees the November vote as less a vote for abortion rights as a vote against the highly restrictive abortion law in Missouri.
Amendment Three barely received a majority of the votes cast in November, which Luetkemeyer insists discloses a flaw in the state’s process of amending the constitution.
“It is not intended to be a never-ending special interest statute, which is really what the Missouri Constitution has turned into and we need to fix it through the initiative petition process,” Luetkemeyer says.
The senator favors increasing the vote threshold to change the state constitution from the current simple majority. Efforts to do that last year fell to Republican in-fighting in the Missouri Senate, which Luetkemeyer hopes to avoid this session.
Luetkemeyer hopes to succeed in changing the state initiative process this year, stating that the state constitution is supposed to be a fundamental governing document, laying out the basic framework for government. He says it now has turned into a special interest document.
“What you will see happen is, oftentimes very progressive groups, mostly from outside of the state of Missouri, will come in and spend millions of dollars collecting signatures, putting something on the ballot, running very misleading ads to convince the public to vote for something and then they just circumvent the legislature and put it in the constitution,” according to Luetkemeyer.
As Senate Majority Floor Leader this session, Luetkemeyer will be in charge of the Missouri Senate calendar, controlling what legislation makes it to the floor for debate and how much time the Senate will consider each measure.
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