September 7, 2024

The Missouri General Assembly will convene Wednesday, Sept. 11 at noon in Jefferson City for its annual veto session. House Majority Leader Jon Patterson, (R-Lee’s Summit), does not expect any vetoes will be overridden.

“I’m expecting a pretty uneventful session. We have our budget priorities. The governor has the ability to veto lines in the budget,” said Patterson. “We’re not always going to agree but it’s part of the process and that requires compromise.”

In this past legislative session that concluded in May, Governor Michael L. Parson vetoed 173 line items that legislators wrote into the 2024-2025 operating budget. Members of the general assembly convene every September to debate overriding those vetoes against the wishes of the governor. To do so requires a two-thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The high bar to over-ride vetoes also encourages compromise. “The votes are not there to override any vetoes and therefore I don’t think you’ll see many override motions, if at all,” said Patterson.

One state appropriation that Patterson advocated for remained in the budget and was signed into law by Parson. The state will contribute $1.5 million for the Lee’s Summit Joint Operations Center starting construction in downtown. “I was happy to see that stayed in the budget. With Lee’s Summit growing the way it is, we are going to need greater capabilities in terms of police and fire services,” said Patterson.

In the history of the state, the legislature has successfully overridden 119 vetoes. Of those overrides, 49 have been on budget line-items and 70 have been on non-appropriations bills. Prior to the administration of Gov. Jay Nixon, veto overrides had been extremely rare with the legislature completing a total of only 22 overrides in its history. During Nixon’s eight years in office from 2009 – 2017, the number of veto overrides increased dramatically as the Missouri General Assembly overrode 97 of his vetoes.