Republican leaders of the Missouri state Senate announced major changes to committee assignments on Tuesday after several hours of recent intraparty fighting.
Only three weeks into the legislative session, GOP state Senate President Pro Tempore Caleb Rowden removed members of the newly formed Freedom Caucus from their committees.
“The beginning of the 2024 legislative session in the Senate has been nothing short of an embarrassment,” Rowden said, calling the coalition the “Chaos Caucus.” He went on to say, “A chamber designed to be occupied with civil, principled statesmen and women has been overtaken by a small group of self-interested career politicians, who all too often remind me more of my children than my colleagues.”
Republican state Sen. Bill Eigel, who was removed as chairman of the Committee on Veterans Military Affairs and Pensions and replaced by GOP state Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, blasted the chamber’s leadership.
“It’s disappointing to me certainly that this action today by the Senate leadership, which is clearly punitive and retaliatory in action, has occurred,” Eigel said, speaking shortly after Rowden.
Some members, including Eigel, had their parking spots removed from the basement garage and moved further away from the Missouri Capitol.
Members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus filibustered for several hours on Thursday, withholding confirmation for dozens of Gov. Mike Parson’s (R-MO) appointees unless legislation passed to make it harder to amend the state’s constitution.
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Democratic senators stayed out of the spotlight while their Republican colleagues plunged into chaos. State Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo told the Missouri Independent, “The Republicans’ fighting is masking their failures, as they are failing to address the issues Missourians truly care about.”
Rizzo said action is needed to fund education, healthcare, and child care or Republicans “can keep stumbling down the dead-end-road of personal attacks and partisan pandering.”