Fans cheer after the performance of the Star-Spangled Banner during the AFC Championship Game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Emily Curiel ecuriel@kcstar.com
The Missouri Senate early Thursday morning narrowly approved a sweeping incentives plan intended to keep the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals inside state lines, clearing the largest hurdle facing the legislation.
The vote came just before 2:30 a.m. after hours of chaotic dealmaking among senators as Gov. Mike Kehoe and his office tried to move the package forward amid a bevy of disagreements. The legislation now heads to the Missouri House, where lawmakers are likely to send it to Kehoe’s desk.
The Senate passed the bill on a vote of 19 to 13, which happened more than 16 hours after the chamber was scheduled to debate it. The vote marked the most pivotal moment yet in Missouri’s push to keep the Chiefs and Royals amid an attempt by Kansas to lure the teams across state lines.
The legislation, if signed into law, would allow Missouri to offer incentives to pay for up to 50% of new or improved stadiums for the teams. Kansas is offering the teams a supercharged bonds program that could pay for up to 70% of new stadiums.
The future look of the Kansas City metro could hang in the balance. Approval of Missouri’s plan could decide which state, on either side of State Line Road, will spend millions in tax incentives to secure the teams for years to come. For the moment, though, neither team has committed to staying in Missouri.
“Kansas is kind of an arch rival,” said bill sponsor Sen. Kurtis Gregory, a Marshall Republican and former Mizzou and NFL football player. “What business are they going to try to come after next that they know provides an economic impact like those sports teams do to our state?”
The vote signifies, for the moment, a victory for Kehoe, who called lawmakers into a special session to pass the legislation. Disaster relief for residents affected by recent tornadoes in St. Louis and millions of dollars for construction projects, including nearly $50 million for a mental health hospital in Kansas City, are also part of Kehoe’s special session call.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe called lawmakers back to Jefferson City to pass a plan to help fund stadiums for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals. Neil Nakahodo The Kansas City Star
The stadiums bill faced an uphill battle in the Senate, with both Democrats and Republicans wanting their own priorities tacked on. Hours ticked by on Wednesday as senators negotiated behind closed doors, and then fought on the Senate floor late into the night and into Thursday, with no apparent end in sight.
A group of hard-right Republicans, called the Freedom Caucus, promised to derail the bill if they did not get tax cuts. Democrats, for their part, wanted more money to go towards the tornado recovery efforts.
After hours of closed-door negotiations, Kehoe, a former car salesman, struck a deal. The Republican governor expanded his special session call early Wednesday evening to allow lawmakers, among other additions, to approve more money to help victims of the tornadoes and pass legislation that would let counties cap homeowners’ property tax liabilities.
“We appreciate legislators working together to use this as an opportunity to show up for our communities by acting swiftly to help those in crisis, while also making smart decisions that secure opportunity for the future,” Kehoe said in a statement announcing the decision.
The addition of the property tax language kicked off hours of back-and-forth political maneuvering. Only a small portion of the debate on the Senate floor centered on the stadiums plan itself.
Kehoe’s decision to include the language came after Sen. Joe Nicola, a Grain Valley Republican, posted a video late Tuesday night suggesting a proposed deal with the Republican governor was in the works to add property tax cuts to the stadiums bill, The Star reported earlier on Wednesday.
“If we can get some property tax relief, then I will be for this bill,” Nicola said in the video, referring to his support of the stadiums plan.
Nicola’s focus on property taxes came as tax assessments have long been a source of frustration in Jackson County after assessments jumped dramatically in recent years. The first-year senator attempted to add a tax relief bill, aimed at capping tax liabilities in Jackson County and elsewhere, as an amendment to Gregory’s bill, but senators pulled the bill before it could be voted on.
“We’ve got this stadium tax bill to give (the teams) up to a billion and a half dollars while I have constituents that are suffering under these horrendous property taxes,” Nicola said on Wednesday while holding the floor late into the night to talk about property tax cuts.
Nicola’s amendment failed largely due to concerns about how it would affect local schools and governments.
Shortly after, senators approved a new version of the stadiums bill that included similar cuts. However, the new version required only certain counties represented by Republican senators, which excluded Jackson and Clay counties, to allow local residents to vote on some form of property tax-related ballot measure by 2026.
After passing through the Senate, the House is expected to take up the legislation next week and as early as Monday.
The looming deadline
During the hours-long floor debate, Sen. Tracy McCreey, a St. Louis-area Democrat, sharply criticized the stadiums plan. She framed the closed-door negotiations, which included addition of the property tax language, as “the icky stuff that voters hate about politics.”
“This discussion that we’ve had the last several hours is just an effort for the governor to try to get a couple of votes out of the Freedom Caucus for the stadium funding scheme,” McCreery said. “That’s what this is about.”
Decades of academic research have consistently found that stadiums and arenas are not major drivers of economic development. But many Missouri officials in recent weeks have embraced the idea, portraying stadiums as significant economic development projects.
In addition to the stadiums proposal, the legislation would extend for another seven years tax credits to sports organizations in Jackson County and St. Louis, which were set to expire in August. The legislation also offers tax credits to people whose homes are damaged by disasters.
While senators were able to advance the legislation in Jefferson City, the closed-door negotiations — and the focus on unrelated legislation — sparked concern among supporters of the stadiums plan back in Kansas City.
“I’m really frustrated,” Kansas City Councilman Wes Rogers said in a phone call earlier on Wednesday. “If they’re trying to make this about something that it’s not, they’re missing the big picture. And in 25 years, after we blow this, no one’s going to care about these other issues.”
Final approval is not a certainty. But the bill will face a significantly easier road once it reaches the House. Just hours after Kehoe first unveiled the plan during the regular session last month, the House overwhelmingly approved it on a vote of 108 to 40.
The bill then ran into a constellation of issues in the Senate, including fights over abortion rights that ultimately killed the legislation. Kehoe, in response, called lawmakers back to Jefferson City this week to pass it.
Missouri lawmakers face a ticking clock to get the bill through the General Assembly and onto Kehoe’s desk.
While state law allows special sessions to last up to 60 days, many lawmakers view the end of June as their true deadline to get an incentives plan done.
When Kansas lawmakers passed, and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly signed, a plan to lure the teams across the state line, the bonds program included a June 30 expiration date.
Both teams would have to decide by then, or even before that date, whether to try to use the Kansas program to move across the state line. Supporters of keeping the teams in Missouri view that deadline as a warning to get a competing offer on the table.
Before Thursday’s vote, Gregory told his colleagues on the Senate floor that it was vital to keep the teams inside state lines. He pointed to a recent Kansas real estate purchase tied to the Royals as a sign of the impending deadline.
“I’m here to tell you that deadline is a very real deadline and that deadline is June 30 of this year,” Gregory said. “That is now 25 days away.”