Missouri Senate approves budget, rejecting GOP-led push to ban diversity initiatives

Missouri state Sen. Karla May, a Black St. Louis Democrat, watched late Tuesday evening as her white Republican colleagues debated for hours whether to ban diversity initiatives from the state budget.

May, frustrated, stood to speak on the Senate floor.

“I’m here. Do you see me? I’m African-American. Do you see me?” she asked. “Inquire of me. Why are you inquiring of all Caucasian members? You want to get your Republican colleagues on the record? Get me on the record about diversity, equity and inclusion. Let’s have that conversation.”

After about 11 hours of debate, the GOP-controlled Missouri Senate just after 3:30 a.m. Wednesday approved a roughly $50 billion budget, beating back the push by a group of hard-right senators to ban state spending on diversity initiatives.

The vote sets up a potential fight with the House over diversity initiatives as lawmakers finalize the state’s spending plan.

The budget passed by the House last month included amendments prohibiting state money from paying for staff, vendors, consultants and programs “associated with” diversity initiatives, sparking anger and confusion among state agency department heads who feared the loss of funding. Before the budget reached the floor on Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee had stripped out the House proposal to ban diversity initiatives.

The Senate’s spending plan will now head back to the House. The chambers are expected to negotiate a final version of the budget in a joint committee next week ahead of a May 5 constitutional deadline.

State Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Warrensburg Republican, Tuesday evening tried to add back into the budget an amendment to ban diversity programs and initiatives in the state’s K-12 budget. The proposal was more limited than the House version and focused only on state departments, instead of businesses that contract with the state.

“This wokeness should not be in state government,” Hoskins said on the floor.

Nine Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the amendment, which failed on a vote of 14 to 18. The lengthy and chaotic debate illustrated an ongoing push by Republican-controlled states to target initiatives designed to attract minority hires and exposed long-simmering factions among Republicans in the Missouri Senate.

The state budget approved by the Senate comes as the state is flush with cash, propped up with a historic $5 billion surplus. The Senate’s version includes a massive $2.8 billion plan to widen I-70 across the state, increases to public colleges and universities, expansion of pre-kindergarten programs and one-time plans such as $50 million to the Jackson County Sports Authority to help Kansas City prepare for the World Cup in 2026.

The Senate plan also restores $4.5 million in state aid for libraries that the House had cut in retaliation for a lawsuit on behalf of two library groups challenging a new state law that bans certain materials in school libraries.

But, instead of focusing on those proposals, the Senate spent nearly eight hours arguing over the push to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, commonly referred to as DEI, within state departments.

Hoskins and state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican and possible candidate for governor in 2024, chewed up the majority of floor time criticizing other Republicans who did not support the plan.

“The flip flopping of politicians has created an environment where politicians are no longer trusted in this state,” Eigel said. “How often do we talk about pushing back on the woke, divisive DEI culture when we’re not in this building?”

Senate Democrats castigated Hoskins and Eigel for trying to ban the initiatives, saying they were ignoring greater issues affecting the state such as increasing teacher pay and school funding. Some pointed to recent criticism from the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, which included the diversity ban passed by the House on its list of “top job-killing business mandates.”

“It’s become so predictable it’s almost exhausting,” said Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat. “While we’re trying to do the actual business of the state…we’re talking about some new acronym that was made up in a boardroom in Washington, D.C. to keep people scared so they vote a certain way.”

Republicans aligned with Senate leadership also pushed back on the effort, even some who are sympathetic to the push to ban DEI. They argued that banning diversity initiatives should happen in statute, not in the state budget.

State Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican who chairs the budget committee, said he feared that the amendment could jeopardize federal funding or affect funding for nursing homes and people with disabilities.

“Uncertainty causes me concern,” he said.

State Sen. Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican, agreed.

“This will make people on Facebook happy, but I’m not sure it’s a good way to run state government,” he said.