“I’ve been doing advocacy work in the state legislature for 40 years and this was probably the weirdest session I’ve ever experienced,” says Doug Crews, lobbyist and former executive director of the Missouri Press Association (MPA), where he worked for 36 years.

Two related factors made the 2022 session in Jefferson City unusual, according to Crews, who now contracts with Lathrop GPM Consulting, the firm that represents MPA. About half the session was dominated by Senate debate over a redistricting map for Missouri’s eight U.S. Congressional districts. And with the Senate Republican majority split into two caucuses — one ultra-conservative and the other more moderate — functionally speaking there are now three ideologically distinct parties in the state Senate.

Together those factors resulted in far fewer bills than usual getting past the finish line by the time the General Assembly adjourned on Friday, May 13. In total, only 43 non-budget bills were passed in 2022, significantly fewer than the average of 155 bills per session approved by the Missouri legislature in a normal year.

For MPA, which has grown accustomed to having to fend off public notice legislation posing an existential threat, 2022 was relatively benign. For the first time since at least 2017, no bills were introduced that would move most newspaper notices to government websites. The state treasurer didn’t pursue legislation to pull unclaimed property notices out of newspapers, as he had in the previous session. And a bill introduced in 2017, 2018 and 2019 that would have moved foreclosure notices to mortgage-trustee websites was nowhere to be seen.

Only one of the 43 non-budget bills that passed this year will have an impact on public notice. HB-1606 merely codified a compromise MPA had already agreed to three years ago, says Crews (pictured on right). It will condense annual financial statements less populous counties must publish in newspapers, bringing them in line with the more-concise reports already permitted in larger counties. The financial statements currently published each year in smaller counties often run for three or four pages.

One of the public notice bills that failed to pass in 2022 was backed by MPA. HB-2289 would have liberalized eligibility requirements, reducing the “consecutively published” standard to qualify as an official newspaper from three years to one year. HB-2289 would also have increased the period during which a “successor” newspaper must begin publishing to qualify as an official newspaper, from 30 days to 90 days after the previous official newspaper closes. It passed the House by a vote of 142-0 but never got out of committee in the Senate.

Another public notice measure that stalled was the handiwork of the self-storage industry. HB-1689 was one of the bills filed in at least eight states this year designed in part to eliminate newspaper notice of self storage-unit property auctions. It passed the House only after it was amended onto HB-2289, MPA’s public notice eligibility bill, but it died in the Senate along with that measure.

Several other bills that would have had a minor impact on newspaper notice never made it out of committee. The only legislation in that batch of bills that was somewhat concerning was HB-2403, which would have eliminated several newspaper notices required under the state’s estate and probate statutes. HB-2403 would also have authorized the secretary of state to build a public notice website and charge posting fees that would be deposited in a Legal Publication Fund, the purpose of which wasn’t clear.