Holly Thompson Rehder reflects on decade of service as Missouri legislator

For the first time in more than a decade, Holly Thompson Rehder will not serve as an elected official in the State of Missouri.

Thompson Rehder vacated her District 27 Senate seat in 2024 to run for lieutenant governor, where she finished third behind Lincoln Hough and eventual winner David Wasinger in the Aug. 6 Republican primary. Not having to prepare for the upcoming legislative session is a “strange” feeling for Thompson Rehder, who began her career as a legislator 12 years ago.

“Endings are always bittersweet and beginnings are always a little scary, and I'm experiencing all of that,” Thompson Rehder said. “My goal has always been to help others. God's done so much for me in my life. When I was able, financially, to get to a point to run for office and my kids were old enough for me to be away from home so much, it was really the first time I had had a job that was very fulfilling, because it was so meaningful to be able to help others.”

Thompson Rehder isn’t completely sure what her next step is now that she’s out of the Legislature, but said she plans to continue to serve others despite no longer being an officeholder.

“I'm waiting to make sure that my next step is meaningful and the right one,” Thompson Rehder said. “I've loved and enjoyed and have been so honored to be able to help others. For them to let me in, it shows the grace of God and how good he is, so I want that to continue in some manner.”

Currently, Thompson Rehder is accepting speaking engagements. She travels around the country, delivering what her website calls a “unique perspective to the poverty cycle in America, motivating us to reconsider our understanding of others’ struggles and take an active role in seeking solutions.”

The former legislator's story is well-known: She grew up in poverty, dropped out of school at 15 to help take care of her family, married soon after and had her first child as a teenager. Despite a tumultuous childhood, Thompson Rehder persevered and has been publicly transparent about her past, which, at times, helps her resonate with her constituents.

During her eight-year tenure in the House of Representatives and four years in the Senate, Thompson Rehder took pride in her efforts to combat sexual abuse, domestic violence and the opioid epidemic, as well as her approach to helping Missouri residents with mental health issues.

Before she could make these accomplishments, however, Thompson Rehder had to get used to life as a legislator. She compared her first day as a state representative to “drinking from a fire hydrant.”

“It was overwhelming because I felt the weight of the responsibility, because it is a huge responsibility,” Thompson Rehder said. “You are literally helping some people with things that matter, like having food or medicine. It's important stuff.”

Thompson Rehder said her biggest accomplishment during her time in the Legislature was helping pass a bill that enacted the state’s prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP). The PDMP created a database accessible by medical professionals that shows the medications a patient is taking. This helps when prescribing new drugs, and for preparation ahead of surgery, to ensure there are no negative interactions between medications.

“We worked on that for nine years and it passed in the ninth year,” Thompson Rehder said. “Missouri was the only state that didn't have it. Puerto Rico and Guam had it before us.”

Other accomplishments Thompson Rehder touted were enacting lifetime protection orders that allow victims of domestic abuse the ability to shield themselves from their abuser, and separating the line items in the state budget to go toward addiction treatment and recovery, rather than a single amount budgeted to both.

Not all of Thompson Rehder’s legislation has been popular, though. She championed Missouri’s right-to-work campaign. Right-to-work states bar employers from forcing employees to join a labor union or pay union dues in order to keep their jobs, however, critics say the laws limit and undermine unions, decrease wages and benefits and compromise workplace safety. While she was promoting that legislation, Thompson Rehder said she had some interesting interactions with her constituents in public.

“I carried right-to-work, which is very controversial,” Thompson Rehder said. “There were a few encounters at the gas station when I was pumping my gas, and somebody was yelling at me or whatever. Other than that, people have always been pretty respectful.”

Of course, there was also legislation Thompson Rehder proposed that didn’t cross the finish line. Some of the proposed legislation she felt passionate about but wasn’t able to pass included testing psilocybin treatment for veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in a clinical setting, a bipartisan bill increasing the minimum marriage age in the state to 18 instead of 16 and implementing a syringe access program meant to help combat the spread of HIV and hepatitis C.

“Syringe access programs are the No. 1 harm reduction for outbreaks of HIV and hep C,” Thompson Rehder said. “Missouri currently has 13 counties, and the majority of them are rural, on the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s) top 5% list of outbreaks of hep C and/or HIV. People don't know that. It's kept under wraps well.”

A special moment for Thompson Rehder during her political career came when a bipartisan bill that would give victims of sexual assault certain rights during a criminal investigation, co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jill Schupp in 2022, was killed. Thompson Rehder said two senators blocked the bill on the Senate floor, which required her to lay it over when it was clear a compromise couldn’t be made. This prompted Thompson Rehder to call a news conference the next morning, where she invited senators from both parties to stand with her in support of the bill.

“I was not going to put up with their showmanship killing such an important bill,” Thompson Rehder said.

As she approached the podium to begin the conference, she was joined by a majority of her colleagues in the Senate who backed the bill. Thompson Rehder was overwhelmed by the support she had received.

“When I got back to my office, my chief of staff said, ‘Holly, I've got all these messages. I've had all these people stop in, women around this Capitol that have never met you, that said, thank you for being their voice. Thank you for standing up for them and not allowing people to get by in the shadows,’” Thompson Rehder said.

While her most recent run for office, for lieutenant governor, didn’t work out in her favor, Thompson Rehder said she was proud of her campaign, especially so when it comes to her performance in Southeast Missouri. Thompson Rehder explained that she wasn’t able to run advertisements for her campaign in the region because of a lack of funds, but was moved by the amount of support she received.

“They didn't even see ads. I didn't even put money into Southeast Missouri because we didn't have it,” Thompson Rehder said. “I was just praying that my work would speak for itself.

“When I got to see the vote count of our counties, it was like, ‘My people care.’ … That was them telling me that they believed in me and they knew that I took care of them.”

Former District 148 Rep. Jamie Burger won the November election to replace Thompson Rehder as District 27 senator. While they have different priorities as legislators — Thompson Rehder was highly focused on mental health, domestic violence and sexual abuse while Burger tends to focus heavily on infrastructure — Thompson Rehder said she believes he will do a good job of representing the district.

“This office is about serving the people of the district, the entire district and all the people, whether they’re Democrat, Republican or people who don't vote. It's to serve everyone, and I know Jamie will do that well,” Thompson Rehder said.

While currently unsure of her future, Thompson Rehder said she plans to lean on her Christian faith to guide her into the next chapter, but didn’t rule out a possible run for office in the future.

“I never say never, because when God opens the door I always check it out. He knows best,” Thompson Rehder said. “But right now, it is kind of cool. I've made it to every one of my grandson's basketball games. He's super special to me. It’s been such a treat to be able to be in the district for the last few months straight and not campaigning, but getting to do my mama stuff.”