COMMENTARY: Missouri Governor Calls Special Legislative Session - For Insignificant Priorities
Governor Mike Kehoe is calling for a special session to address keeping some of Missouri's sports teams in the state as opposed to all of the State's National Guard
May 26, 2025 Update: Mike Kehoe has announced he is sending members of the 35th Engineer Brigade of the Missouri National Guard to assist with the Saint Louis tornado recovery process. However, the main point of this article is that he needs to call a special session of the legislature to pass Defend The Guard Legislation rather than legislation aimed at renovating or building new sports stadiums.
June 6, 2025 Update: Kehoe has now expanded the scope of his special session to address additional issues, including property taxes and disaster response. While these are laudable improvements, he still needs to either add Defend The Guard to the scope of the current special session or call an additional special session to address that issue.
June 28, 2025 Update: The special session ended on June 11, and Governor Kehoe signed three bills on Saturday, June 14.
==Original Post==
Immediately following the adjournment of Missouri’s Legislature last week, Governor Mike Kehoe announced a call for a special session to pass legislation regarding funding for the stadiums of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Royals. The governor has yet to set a date for the special session. Governor Kehoe has a far more serious matter to tend to. His state was just ravaged by tornadoes, leaving seven people in the Saint Louis area dead, and thousands more without homes.
Last month, the state’s Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted to allow Senate Bill 767 to advance to the Senate Floor for a full chamber vote. However, the vote never happened. SB767 would have prohibited the release of the state’s National Guard into active duty combat unless Congress has first declared war. This proposal is known as “Defend The Guard”. It enables states to hold leverage over unconstitutional and undeclared forever wars that the federal government is involved in. The motto of the National Guard is “Always Ready, Always There!” yet during the Global War on Terror, approximately 45% of the troops deployed were members of the National Guard.
The situation of the tornadoes that struck the state is an excellent example of an emergency for which the state’s National Guard needs to be ready to respond to. In the past, members of Missouri’s National Guard have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, which were countries for which Congress has never declared war. They certainly shouldn’t be deployed to Iran without a Congressional Declaration of War. Furthermore, if our nation goes to war with Russia to defend Ukraine, or China to defend Taiwan, we will all face devastating cyber and/or EMP attacks on our electrical grid. Conversely, if Congress is forced to declare war on Russia or China, they would be unlikely to declare war when weighing these risks against peaceful alternatives (one of which is represented by the last link).
If you live in Missouri, please contact Governor Kehoe’s office and tell him you want him to call a special session to pass the Defend The Guard bill! This kind of bill is MUCH more important than bills helping to decide what state the Chiefs and Royals will ultimately reside in. Enactment of this proposal into law will go a long way in not just helping Missouri recover quicker from natural disasters, but also saving the country from a crippling war against Russia, China and even Iran. Generals from the National Guard Bureau may push back, arguing that the state would lose federal funding if the bill were to become law. However, they would be wrong to make this argument - federal funds and equipment provided to the National Guard of the states are related to readiness and training matters, not with the expectation that members will be used for unconstitutional and undeclared wars.
The Governor’s office can be contacted from the webpage linked here.