Missouri
Entries where the acting authority was Missouri (MO), whatever state or country the events took place in.
Jurisdiction is who acted, not where it happened. Federal conduct inside Missouri is filed under Federal, not here.
Institutions seated here (1)
Bodies whose own seat of authority is Missouri. They appear in entries under other jurisdictions too — an institution acts outside its own seat constantly — so this is not the same set as the entries below.
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Missouri General Assembly 6 entries
The Missouri General Assembly is the state's bicameral legislature, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
2026 Events (5)
Missouri Secretary of State Hoskins directed officials to use congressional map barred by state Supreme Court injunction
On September 8, 2026, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins emailed local election officials instructing them to use the 2025 Republican-drawn congressional map, attaching a same-day federal district court order he said "takes precedence" over the Missouri Supreme Court's standing injunction barring him from using that map. The Missouri Supreme Court responded by opening a contempt inquiry, ordering Hoskins to appear in person and explain why he should not be held in contempt at a hearing set for September 10.
Missouri Department of Mental Health left man found incompetent to stand trial in county jail for years awaiting treatment bed
A Marshall Project investigation, published August 24, 2026 and republished by the Missouri Independent, found that the Missouri Department of Mental Health left Carl Henry Louis -- a man found incompetent to stand trial -- confined in the Clay County jail in Liberty, Missouri for roughly two and a half years, from his 2021 arrest until January 2024, awaiting a state psychiatric bed for court-ordered competency-restoration treatment. The wait included months after a judge suspended Louis's criminal case in August 2023 and ordered him committed for treatment, during which the jail continued to hold him because no bed was available. Missouri's own figures show the statewide waitlist for competency evaluation or restoration grew from 27 people in 2016 to 549 by July 2026, with at least two deaths in jails on the waitlist since May 2025.
Missouri Secretary of State Hoskins rejected sufficient-signature referendum on GOP congressional map as unconstitutional
On August 4, 2026, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a referendum petition from the PAC People Not Politicians seeking a public vote on the state's new GOP-drawn congressional map, ruling that congressional redistricting is not subject to Missouri's referendum process at all -- a novel legal theory -- despite the petition having gathered signatures exceeding the required threshold. Hoskins said the signature count did not matter because "they are unconstitutional," and simultaneously rejected a second, separate ballot petition on different grounds. People Not Politicians sued within hours, and Missouri courts must resolve the dispute by September 8, 2026, the deadline for finalizing the November ballot.
Missouri officials threatened to defund Columbia library over lawful LGBTQ+ story time, alleging grooming without citing a violated law
On July 28, 2026, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and state Sen. Rick Brattin held a joint press conference threatening to block state and federal library funding after Columbia's Daniel Boone Regional Library held a $26 "rainbow story time" reading two children's books, "Rainbowsaurus" and "Big Wig," to preschoolers on July 25. Hoskins and Brattin, backed by a warning letter from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, called the event "unconscionable, if not criminal" and accused it of grooming children, but neither could identify which law the books violated, and Boone County Prosecutor Roger Johnson stated on the record that discussing LGBTQ+ issues is not a crime.
Missouri Gov. Kehoe signed law cutting off gender-affirming care for trans inmates despite binding 2018 Eighth Amendment ruling
On June 30, 2026, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed House Bill 2009, a Department of Corrections appropriations bill containing a rider barring state funds from paying for hormone therapy or gender transition surgery for incarcerated transgender people. The provision, inserted by state Rep. Dirk Deaton, took effect July 1-2 and immediately cut off ongoing hormone therapy for trans inmates with no tapering plan, despite a 2018 federal ruling, Hicklin v. Precythe, that found denying such care violates the Eighth Amendment. Deaton said on the House floor in March that he added the provision anticipating a more conservative Eighth Circuit would rule differently, even after Missouri Department of Corrections leadership warned legislators that the Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits have consistently found the care medically necessary.
2025 Events (5)
Former Florissant, Missouri police officer pleaded guilty to illegally searching women's phones, photographing nude images during traffic stops
Former Florissant, Missouri police officer Julian Alcala pleaded guilty on December 2, 2025, to 20 federal counts of deprivation of rights under color of law for using traffic stops between February and May 2024 to search women's phones without cause and photograph nude images he found, victimizing at least 20 women. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison in March 2026, and the city of Florissant agreed in July 2026 to settle a related civil suit brought by 24 plaintiffs for $4 million while denying liability.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins certified prejudicial ballot summary for congressional redistricting referendum
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins certified a ballot summary on or about November 13, 2025 for a referendum on the state's 2025 Trump-backed congressional redistricting map, describing the map it would repeal as "gerrymandered" and protective of "incumbent politicians" while praising the new map's compactness and fit with statewide voting patterns without any comparable description of its own effects. The PAC People Not Politicians sued on November 20, 2025, alleging the summary was written to bias voters toward keeping the new map, and at a January 9, 2026 hearing Hoskins's own attorney conceded the language came close to being "inherently argumentative and likely to create prejudice."
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed GOP-drawn congressional map targeting Rep. Cleaver's Kansas City seat
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a new congressional map into law on September 28, 2025, following a special legislative session called at President Trump's request. The map divides the Kansas City-area 5th District held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, aiming to shift the state's eight-seat U.S. House delegation from six Republicans and two Democrats to seven Republicans and one Democrat, and prompted at least four lawsuits challenging the new lines.
Missouri legislature referred amendment imposing district veto only on citizen ballot initiatives; Kehoe scheduled low-turnout August vote
On September 12, 2025, Missouri's Republican-controlled General Assembly gave final passage to Amendment 4, a legislature-referred constitutional amendment requiring citizen-initiated amendments to win majorities in all eight of the state's congressional districts while exempting amendments the legislature itself refers to the ballot. Eight months later, on May 22, 2026, Gov. Mike Kehoe scheduled the resulting referendum for the historically low-turnout August primary rather than the November general election. The measure followed a string of citizen-led ballot initiatives Republicans had opposed, including Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, and abortion rights.
Missouri Gov. Kehoe signed HB3 budget rider conditioning college funding on eliminating DEI programs
On June 30, 2025, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed House Bill 3, the state's Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development appropriations bill, as part of the FY2026 budget. House Budget Chair Rep. Dirk Deaton had added budget language conditioning state funding for Missouri's public colleges and universities on eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Deaton said the language meant institutions will have to comport with it in order to receive state tax dollars.
2023 Events (2)
Missouri enacted SB39 barring transgender students from K-12 and college sports by birth-certificate sex
On June 7, 2023, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed Senate Bill 39 (Senate Substitute No. 2), enacting Section 163.048 RSMo to bar any student from competing in an athletics competition designated for the biological sex opposite to the sex on their official birth certificate, at both K-12 and postsecondary institutions. Private schools, public school districts, public charter schools, and public or private colleges that violate the law lose all state aid. The provisions took effect August 28, 2023, and are set to expire August 28, 2027.
Missouri Gov. Parson signed SB 49 SAFE Act banning gender-affirming care for minors and Medicaid coverage
On June 7, 2023, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed Senate Bill 49, the "Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act," barring health care providers from performing gender-transition surgeries on minors and, until Aug. 28, 2027, from prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers to minors for gender transition. The law also bars the state's MO HealthNet (Medicaid) program from covering gender-transition care for transgender people of any age and prohibits such surgeries in state prisons and jails. Passed by the Republican-controlled Missouri General Assembly, it took effect Aug. 28, 2023, with narrow carve-outs and grandfathering for minors already in treatment.
2017 Events (1)
Missouri Gov. Greitens signed law subjecting abortion clinics alone to annual unannounced inspections that other surgical centers escape
On July 26, 2017, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens signed SB 5 into law, reclassifying the state's abortion facilities into a separate regulatory category and mandating annual, unannounced state inspections -- a schedule the roughly 120 other ambulatory surgical centers in Missouri do not face, which are instead inspected every three to four years. The law, sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Koenig, passed the Missouri General Assembly 22-9 in a summer special session and also gave the state attorney general authority to override local prosecutors on abortion cases.
2006 Events (1)
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed SB 894, barring school anti-bullying policies from naming protected student classes
On July 10, 2006, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed CCS/HCS/SS/SCS/SB 894, an education bill passed by the Missouri General Assembly requiring every school district to adopt an anti-bullying policy by September 1, 2007. The law barred those mandatory policies from containing "specific lists of protected classes of students," preventing districts from naming LGBT or other groups as specifically protected even as the underlying policy was made compulsory statewide.
2004 Events (1)
Missouri General Assembly passed SJR29, constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage
On May 14, 2004, the Missouri General Assembly gave final legislative passage to Senate Joint Resolution 29 (SJR29), sponsored by Sen. Sarah Steelman, proposing a constitutional amendment declaring that only a marriage between a man and a woman would be valid or recognized in Missouri and barring legal recognition of any status resembling marriage for unmarried persons. The Missouri Senate had passed SJR29 on March 1, 2004; the House passed it on May 14, 2004, and the measure was certified as "Truly Agreed to and Finally Passed," sending it to the ballot as Amendment 2. As a legislatively referred constitutional amendment, SJR29 bypassed the governor's signature and veto power entirely.