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The legislative session in Jefferson City runs January through mid-May each year. We contract with a lobbyist, Dawn Nicklas, who keeps our staff up-to-date on our priorities so we can share that information with you.  Proposed legislation can be found for the House of Representatives here and the Senate here.

Coalitions: MCE often engages on legislative priorities through coalitions, giving us the ability to increase our impact on shared values with other organizations. We work closely with traditional allies like the Sierra Club, Missouri Parks Association, Missouri Rural Crisis Center and Great Rivers Habitat Alliance. More recently we’ve worked with Operation Food Search, Missouri Farmers Union, American Heart Association, Empower Missouri, Missouri State Alliance of YMCA’s and many more to support healthy food access for all Missourians and protections for small scale, traditional family farmers and rural communities.

Committee Hearings: Bills introduced must receive a public hearing before advancing to the House or Senate floor. Anyone from the public, including lobbyists, are given time to testify for or against the merit of a bill before lawmakers during a committee hearing. Hearings can be found for the House of Representatives here and the Senate here. The committee chairperson is in charge of which bills receive a hearing and when. Hearings must be publicly posted a minimum of 24 hours before the hearing is held, which is often what happens, providing little time for members of the public to testify. Committees and members of those committees can be found for the House of Representatives here and the Senate here. MCE regularly testifies in person on priority bills, when possible, and otherwise submits testimony through our lobbyist.

Lobby Days: In coordination with our coalition allies, MCE supports lobby days where our members and supporters travel to Jefferson City to meet with lawmakers to discuss our top priorities.

MCE’s former policy director Ed Smith and Rep. Doug Beck are pictured on the right with citizen lobbyists at the Missouri Rural Crisis Center Lobby Day that MCE supported on February 26, 2019.

 

How You Can Help

  1. Join our Rapid Response Team! Get up-to-date alerts on how you can help influence legislation, including phone calls to committee chairs, join lobby days, submit testimony on important bills, write letters to the editor, and more!
  2. Schedule an in-district meeting with your State Representative and/or Senator to share your environmental priorities for the 2021 session. MCE can help prepare you for the meeting or participate if a staff person is available.
  3. View MCE’s priority bills & take action.
  4. Use MCE’s Advocacy Guide to Environmental Action and CAFO Action Toolkit.

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