Missouri House Republicans picked state Rep. Darin Chappell, Chappell Roan’s uncle, as their next majority floor leader on Wednesday, Nov. 4, a day after the party lost 16 House seats, the Missouri Independent reported. “We’re in a total reassessment,” Chappell told the outlet.
“If we need to change course on specific issues, we will,” said Chappell, a Rogersville Republican the Independent described as a vocal advocate for state spending cuts. “We absolutely will.”
Missouri Republicans React to Reported Loss of House Supermajority
Republicans will have 95 seats and Democrats 68 when lawmakers return in January, leaving the GOP below the two-thirds mark it has held since the 2012 election, the Independent reported. “It feels really, really good to look towards the next General Assembly and not be a member of a super minority party,” Rep. Ashley Aune of Kansas City, the House Democratic floor leader, said on election night.
Rep. Alex Riley of Springfield, who’s set to become speaker next year, pointed to national forces, the Independent reported. “It was a blue tsunami that impacted the entire country,” Riley said.
Other Republicans looked closer to home. “This is a wake up call for us as Republicans,” Secretary of State Denny Hoskins said, according to the Independent.
“We need to focus on the business of the people, and quit pursuing what I would call just personal pet projects of individual legislators,” said House Speaker Pro Tem Chad Perkins of Bowling Green, the Independent reported.
Chappell represents the 137th District, in Greene County. “For me, the job of a state representative is to be a buffer against government overreach,” he said in his 2021 campaign announcement. That release described him as a Navy and Army Reserves veteran who taught at Missouri State University and later worked as a city administrator in Chillicothe, Bolivar and Seymour.
How Chappell Roan’s Uncle Voted on Trans Youth Laws
Chappell was among the ayes on May 10, 2023, when the House voted 108-50 to pass Missouri’s ban on gender transition treatment for minors, the House Journal shows. Under that law, a health care provider “shall not knowingly prescribe or administer cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs” to minors for a gender transition, the statute says.
The law also bans gender transition surgeries for anyone under 18. Its limit on the drugs doesn’t apply to minors who were prescribed or given them for a gender transition before Aug. 28, 2023. The same day, a school sports bill was “truly agreed to and finally passed” 109-49, with Chappell again voting yes. That law bars schools and colleges from letting a student compete in an athletics competition “designated for the biological sex opposite to the student’s biological sex,” according to the statute. It counts the sex listed on a birth certificate only if it was entered at or near birth or changed to fix a clerical error.
On April 17, 2025, he voted for HCS HJR 73, which passed the House 103-51, the journal shows. On this fall’s ballot as Amendment 3, it asked whether to “Prohibit gender transition procedures for minors” and to repeal the 2024 abortion-rights amendment, Greene County’s ballot listing shows.
About 55% of voters rejected it Tuesday, the Independent reported, and The Associated Press called the race at 10:18 p.m. Central time, KCTV5 reported. “Incrementalism is key, especially in this political environment,” said Rep. Brian Seitz, who handled the resolution on the House floor and now plans to pursue new abortion regulations instead of another amendment, the Independent reported.
“Trans and queer Missourians are not a political liability,” Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of the Missouri LGBTQ+ advocacy group PROMO, said in a Nov. 4 statement shared by Equality Federation.
Chappell Roan, Her Republican Family and Her Trans Youth Fund
The family tie made national news in September 2024, when Newsweek reported that the “Pink Pony Club” singer’s uncle was a Republican state lawmaker. “I have family that are very Republican, and they love me and I love them,” Roan told Rolling Stone that month, Newsweek reported.
Roan, who grew up in Willard, Missouri, founded the Midwest Princess Project in 2025 “to uplift trans youth and LGBTQ+ communities through action, care, and connection,” her website says. It “has raised over $800,000,” according to the site, which promoted her two-night Super Graphic Spectacular in Los Angeles last month as a fundraiser for the project.
When the project launched in October 2025, the groups named for its money included “The GLO Center and The Center Project in Missouri, who provide resources for trans youth,” NME reported. The GLO Center is an LGBTQ+ community center in Springfield, in the same county as her uncle’s district.
“It’s brutal right now, but trans people have always existed, and they will forever exist,” Roan said on the red carpet at the 2025 Grammys, NME reported.
Chappell’s New Job and Missouri’s Aug. 28, 2027, Sunsets
Under the House’s current rules, the majority floor leader “shall advise the entire membership of the business anticipated” for the rest of each legislative day and the next one. Another rule lets the floor leader request that a House bill be “laid over informally,” so it can be taken up again later.
Both 2023 laws Chappell backed have end dates, at least in part. “The provisions of this subsection shall expire on August 28, 2027,” the hormone and puberty-blocker subsection reads. The surgery ban doesn’t expire.
The school sports law is set to end the same day. “The provisions of this section shall expire on August 28, 2027,” it says.
