HB199 classifies Downtown Saint Louis as an “entertainment district” to promote tourism.
The House passed HB199 on May 15, 2025, by a vote of 134 to 16. We have assigned pluses to the noes because this bill exempted the “entertainment district” in Downtown St. Louis from the statutory requirement that proposed community improvement districts obtain signatures from more than 50% of resident real property owners. Moreover, the General Assembly has no business spending state funds to promote “entertainment tourism.” It’s nothing other than a cliché used by corporatist cronies to steal proliferate amounts of taxpayer money and finance their corrupt “pork-barrel” projects, in violation of the principles of free-market enterprise. The U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment were written to secure “private property” rights and “promote the general Welfare” of all Americans, not to pick economic “winners” and “losers.”
