This Senate Journal for Monday, May 13, 2024 also is the journal for Tuesday and Wednesday because of a record filibuster, led by Democrats demanding so-called “ballot candy” be removed from a resolution saying no constitutional amendment could be adopted unless it carried in a majority of the state’s eight congressional districts, even if the overall vote was favorable. Democrats, already opposed to the resolution, objected to language added by the House duplicating existing law but making the proposal more appealing to the public—the “ballot candy” opponents wanted removed.
This might be dry reading to those who are not as immersed in state government as your obedient servant has been for most of his life. We are doing this to place these events in a better record than the Senate Journal provides.
The journal for the “day” that turned into the “fifty-hour filibuster” led by the ten Democrats in the 34-member Senate is covered on pages 1059-1061 of the daily journal (the daily journals are compiled at the end of the session into one large volume, thus these page numbers pick up with the journal page number of the preceding day). The rest of “Monday’s” journal is made up of messages from the House telling the Senate it has approved its own bills, has changed Senate bills and needs Senate approval of the changes, requests for conference committees to work out differences between the two chambers on various bills, and other routine legislative business.
Because the House of Representatives’ rules limit debate time, filibusters do not occur there. But the Senate has no such restrictions and a parliamentary procedure called “moving the previous question,” which—if approved—immediately ends debate and calls for a vote, is seldom used.
Because the journal is a record of actions, not a by-word recording of the debates, the only indication that a filibuster occurred is the listings of the names of those who presided over the chamber at various times. The number of names is an indication of the extensive length of the filibuster. The fact that there are no journals for Tuesday and Wednesday is another indication.
Legislative “days” are not calendar or clock-determined. A legislative day ends with adjournment. In this case, a “Monday” lasted until Wednesday on the calendar while, for journal purposes, the legislative day was still Monday. Adjournment in this case did not occur until some Republicans crossed party lines to join the Democrats in sending the bill back to the House with a request for a conference. The House on Thursday rejected the Senate’s request, telling the Senate to pass the House Committee Substitute. Senate leadership knew that the minority Democrats would resume their filibuster if the bill was returned to the floor unchanged and would run out the clock at 6 p.m. on calendar Friday. Because there was no use spending the last day of the session in a filibuster, the Senate adjourned after a ten-minute session Friday.
We have consulted the Senate archived recording of this long “Monday” to ascertain the exact amount of time the filibuster consumed. We have done this because this event was unprecedented in Missouri legislative history and smashed a previous unprecedented 41-hour filibuster a few days earlier by the right-wing Senate Freedom Caucus.
Monday, May 13, 2024: Sponsor Mary Elizabeth Coleman moved that the Senate adopt House Committee Substitute for Senate Substitute Number 4 for Senate Committee Substitute for Senate Joint Resolutions 74, 48, 59, 61, and 83. That sounds complicated but it represents the path the bill had taken to that point.
There were five similar resolutions on this issue filed in the Senate. A Senate Committee combined those resolutions into one but not before the entire Senate had debated the bill and three substitute versions were voted down, leaving the fourth that gained enough voter for passage.
The amended and combined Senate resolution went to the House where a House Committee substituted its version. The House passed the revised bill. The changes had to be approved by the Senate before the proposition could be put on a statewide ballot.
Monday, May 13 was the first day of the last week of the 2024 legislative session. Democrats, outnumbered more than 2-1, knew the clock was their greatest friend when it came to getting this proposition changed or killed. They launched a filibuster that blocked a vote that surely would have sent the issue to the November ballot.
Our legislature records its debates and archives them. We went to the May 10 audio journal and tracked how much time was spent on this bill in each day. The Senate archive recording resets to 0:00 at the end of each 24 hours.
Day One, Monday, May 13.
0:00:00—The Senate begins its “day” with a prayer from Reverend Stephen George.
0:04:52—Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman moves Senate approval of HCS/SS4/SCS/SJR 74, 48, 59, 61 and 83.
0:06:15—Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo makes substitute motion to send the bill back to the House and to ask for a conference committee to work out the differences between the House version, which had “ballot candy” added to it, and the Sente version. This is the beginning of the filibuster.
“Monday” part one (Monday-Tuesday on the traditional calendar): 24 hours, of which 23 hours, 53 minutes and 45 seconds were spent filibustering the resolution. Running filibuster time: 23:53:45.
“Monday” part two (Tuesday-Wednesday on the traditional calendar): all 24 hours were involved in the filibuster. Running filibuster time: 47:53:45
“Monday” part three (Wednesday on the traditional calendar); 02:15:36 Roll call vote begins. Roll call results announced: 02:18:06. The motion to send bill back to the House passed 18-13, with eight Republicans crossing party lines. The filibuster is official ended.
02:24:41: The Senate adjourns until Thursday morning. “Monday,” the longest known “day” in Missouri Senate history, has finally come to an end.
Total filibuster time: 50:11:51
Total time of “Monday, May 10, 2024” in the Missouri Senate: 50:24:41.