MO unlikely to respond to Kansas plan to lure Chiefs before August, top lawmaker says

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As Kansas lawmakers consider an ambitious plan to lure the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals with more than a billion dollars in bonds, Missouri lawmakers are not likely to pass a counteroffer until after the August primary elections, a top Republican said Tuesday.

Missouri House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, said in an interview that it was “very unlikely” for lawmakers to respond to the Kansas proposal in a special session before the primaries, in which many state lawmakers are running for higher office.

“I think after the primary we will be able to look at possibly having a special session to address this issue,” said Patterson, the presumptive next House speaker. “Before the primary, there would be a lot of politics involved in this and I think once that’s out of the way, it’ll make it easier for us to come up with a plan.”

Patterson’s comments come as Kansas lawmakers are poised to pass a plan to attract the Chiefs and Royals across state lines using Sales Tax and Revenue, or STAR, bonds that are backed by future anticipated tax revenues from the stadiums and surrounding development.

The plan could turn a Civil War-era border war into a financial bidding war between the two states.

The latest proposal passed by the Kansas House on Tuesday would allow Kansas – or a city or county – to issue bonds to finance up to 70% of the cost of stadiums for one or both teams. A Chiefs stadium would cost at least $2 billion while a Royals stadium would be another $1.5 billion or more.

The Missouri General Assembly ended its annual legislative session last month and lawmakers won’t meet again to pass legislation until January unless Republican Gov. Mike Parson calls a special session. The Missouri Constitution also allows lawmakers to call their own special session by petition if three-fourths of the General Assembly sign off.

A spokesperson for Parson, an ardent Chiefs fan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. But his office has previously vowed to fight to keep the teams in Missouri.

Patterson didn’t have specifics about what kind of proposal Missouri lawmakers would be open to (bonding or tax incentives) and acknowledged that Missouri does not have the authority to issue STAR bonds like Kansas. But he was clear that “we aren’t going to do nothing.”

“We’ll just have to gather and get together and see what we can do,” he said. “We’ll get together and come up with a plan to keep the Chiefs and Royals in Missouri.”

‘Politics out of the way’

The hesitancy to rush into a special session before the August primaries comes after a legislative session that was embroiled in infighting among Republicans in the state Senate. Lawmakers ended the session after passing just 28 non-budget bills, a modern record-low.

Political observers on both sides of the aisle have argued that the upcoming elections played a major role in the dysfunction, with lawmakers able to use floor time to boost their campaigns.

Patterson alluded to this, saying “we have to get the politics out of the way first.” Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, a Shelbina Republican, also referenced concerns about a special session held during an election season, saying earlier this month that it “could result more in grandstanding than in serious work.”

Lawmakers running for higher office may also be less willing to take votes on any economic incentives out of fear of being attacked by their opponents before the primary election.

Any Missouri proposal that uses state funds to keep either team is almost certain to run into resistance from a group of hard-right senators in the state Senate. One of the leaders of that group, Republican Sen. Bill Eigel from Weldon Spring, is running for governor in the August primaries.

In April, Eigel pushed back on the suggestion of Missouri using public money to keep either team in the state.

“I know of no path in the Missouri Senate where we’re going to do any public funding of sports stadiums,” Eigel said at the time. “I think that would be resisted vociferously and extensively.”

The Kansas plan

While Missouri lawmakers attempt to navigate the state’s political landscape, Kansas lawmakers argue they want to seize what they view as a major opportunity.

The Kansas House passed the proposal during a special session on Tuesday, sending the legislation to the Senate.

During a hearing over the plan on Monday, an attorney representing the Chiefs did not promise that the team would relocate if the plan passed but framed the legislation as an opportunity for Kansas after Jackson County voters rejected a stadium sales tax in April.

“Missouri spoke, Jackson County spoke. They had their opportunity,” the attorney, Korb Maxwell, said at the hearing. “But now there’s a moment for Kansas to step up and an option for us all here.”

Under the plan, Kansas would also use sports betting and some Lottery revenues to repay the bonds, which would have a 30-year term.

Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. on Tuesday lamented Kansas’ effort to lure the teams, pointing to the 2019 border war “truce” between the two states to end the use of tax incentives to lure companies across state lines without creating new jobs for the region.

“This competition does not serve our residents or our communities. Instead of working together to grow all our neighborhoods, we risk hurting the very people we are supposed to serve,” he said. “In order to subsidize the renovation or construction of any stadium for privately owned sports teams, my stance remains clear: there must be a complete and transparent plan that offers tangible benefits to our taxpayers.”

White said that his office is open with conversations with the teams, lawmakers and other stakeholders but cautioned that any proposal must be responsible and “make sense for our community.”

Economists who have studied sports stadiums have been skeptical of the financial viability of the bonding plan, according to previous reporting.

Previous academic reviews have found that nearly all empirical studies found “little to no tangible impacts of sports teams and facilities on local economic activity” and that the level of subsidies typically provided for stadiums “far exceeds any observed economic benefits.”