1. Michael Lynn Parson was born on September 17,1955 and is an American politician and former law enforcement officer who served as the 57th governor of Missouri, from 2018 to 2025.
69 Facts About Mike Parson
1. 2.
Mike Parson served the remainder of Greitens's term and was elected governor in his own right in 2020.
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Mike Parson served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 2005 to 2011 and the Missouri Senate from 2011 to 2017.
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Mike Parson assumed the governorship on June 1,2018, upon Greitens's resignation.
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Mike Parson oversaw the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing a temporary stay-at-home order in April 2020 but allowing school districts to decide whether to close.
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Mike Parson placed restrictions on mail-in voting during the 2020 US elections, and oversaw Missouri's reaction to the George Floyd protests, which included pardoning a couple who pointed guns at unarmed protesters on their private street.
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Mike Parson shortened the sentence of the son of Kansas City Chiefs Coach Andy Reid, who seriously injured a child while drunk driving.
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Michael Lynn Mike Parson was born on September 17,1955, in Wheatland, Missouri, and raised on a farm in Hickory County.
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Mike Parson enlisted in the United States Army in 1975, and served six years in the Military Police Corps, discharged in 1981 with the rank of sergeant.
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Mike Parson returned to Hickory County in 1981 to serve as a sheriff's deputy, and transferred to the Polk County Sheriff's Office to become its first criminal investigator in 1983.
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Mike Parson served as Polk County sheriff from 1993 to 2004.
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In 1984, Parson purchased a gas station and named it Mike's.
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Mike Parson eventually owned and operated three gas stations in the area.
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Mike Parson was first elected to the 133rd District in the Missouri House of Representatives in 2004, and reelected in 2006 and 2008.
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In 2007, Mike Parson co-sponsored a bill to expand castle doctrine rights.
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Mike Parson had signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to raise any taxes.
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Mike Parson served as the Senate majority whip during the 96th General Assembly.
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Mike Parson was reelected in 2014, running unopposed in both the primary and general election.
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Mike Parson initially announced he would run for governor in 2016, but opted to run for lieutenant governor instead.
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Mike Parson claimed his former staffer was a "disgruntled former employee".
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Mike Parson was sworn in on January 9,2017, along with Governor Eric Greitens.
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In 2017, Mike Parson sought a $125,000 increase to his $463,000 budget, which included $35,000 to reimburse him for travel mileage during state business.
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Mike Parson was the only statewide elected official to accept gifts from a lobbyist in his first six months in office, reporting $2,752 in meals and gifts.
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The indictment came a month after Greitens disclosed an extramarital affair, which only increased speculation that Mike Parson could succeed Greitens should he step aside or be removed.
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On December 19,2017, Mike Parson voted to keep a $140 million state tax credit intended for developers of low-income housing.
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Mike Parson was sworn in as governor half an hour later.
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Mike Parson endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election and Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
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Mike Parson was the Missouri Honorary Chairman of Trump's 2020 reelection campaign, filing his state's reelection paperwork for Trump in 2019.
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The chairman of the pro-Mike Parson PAC, Uniting Missouri, said he did not expect Greitens to run.
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Mike Parson defeated state representative Jim Neely and Air Force veteran Saundra McDowell in the Republican primary on August 4,2020, and Democratic nominee State Auditor Nicole Galloway in the November 3 general election.
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On May 24,2019, Mike Parson signed bill HB 126, known as the Missouri Stands for the Unborn Act, criminalizing abortions in Missouri after eight weeks of pregnancy.
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In October 2021, the Mike Parson administration added a new rule that would allow state agencies to share health inspection reports about abortion providers with one another, which could make it easier for the state to withhold Medicaid funding from those providers.
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In December 2018, Mike Parson proposed repealing a voter-approved constitutional amendment to establish nonpartisan redistricting of state House and Senate districts.
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Mike Parson appointed Robin Ransom to the Supreme Court of Missouri, the first African-American woman to serve on the Court.
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In 2021, Mike Parson demanded that David Steelman resign from the University of Missouri System Board of Curators after Steelman raised concerns of a conflict of interest on the part of university lobbyist and Mike Parson adviser Steven Tilley.
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Mike Parson broke a filibuster on Graves's appointment by making a deal with the Democrats, and replaced Steelman with real estate investor Keith Holloway.
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In defending Kauerauf, Mike Parson said he "would not have nominated someone who does not share the same Christian values" he holds.
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Mike Parson's statement was criticized by many, including the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, interfaith groups, and State Representative Adam Schwadron, a Jewish Republican, who pointed to the No Religious Test Clause of the US Constitution.
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In 2023, state Democrats called upon Mike Parson to withdraw his appointment of Timothy Faber as chair of Missouri's Human Rights Commission after Faber testified against a LGBT anti-discrimination bill on behalf of his employer, Missouri Baptist Convention.
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Mike Parson announced hundreds of vetoes to the state's 2024 operating budget, cutting $555.3 million.
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Mike Parson said his administration had received $13 million in federal aid to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, and that of every test taken for the virus, only those two were positive.
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Mike Parson said the virus was not spreading in Missouri.
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Mike Parson said that his declaration of a state of emergency in Missouri freed $7 million in funding to fight the virus.
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Mike Parson made this announcement after consulting the chair of the Missouri Gaming Commission.
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Mike Parson simultaneously issued a statewide order closing public schools until the beginning of the new school year in the fall.
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In July 2020, Mike Parson argued for the reopening of schools.
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In October 2020, Mike Parson announced that he and his wife had both "fully recovered".
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On June 15,2021, Mike Parson signed into law a bill banning "COVID-19 passports" and reducing local leaders' ability to make public health orders.
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In July 2021, Mike Parson announced a new statewide Vaccine Incentive Program, giving Missourians who received a COVID-19 vaccine a chance to win up to $10,000.
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In early November 2021, the Missouri Department of Health concluded a study on the effectiveness of mask mandates at the request of Mike Parson, who has a history of criticizing local mask mandates.
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Mike Parson subsequently argued that the study was wrong and his office said that the Department of Health had put "no time or research" into the analysis.
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In November 2021, as a result of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Mike Parson decided to postpone a scheduled trade mission to Israel and Greece.
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In September 2024, Mike Parson dissolved a board of inquiry that investigated whether death row inmate Marcellus Williams was innocent in the murder of Felicia Gayle in 1998.
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Mike Parson said it was "time to move forward" with the execution, saying another delay would be "deferring justice, leaving a victim's family in limbo, and solving nothing".
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On June 14,2021, Mike Parson signed a bill banning local police departments from enforcing federal gun legislation, allowing those that do to be sued and fined $50,000.
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Mike Parson signed the bill at a gun shop and shooting range.
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In May 2019, Mike Parson announced his intention to restart the low income housing tax credit program.
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Mike Parson announced that he was considering calling a legislative special session to restart the program.
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Mike Parson opposed the 2020 Missouri ballot referendum on Medicaid expansion, which would cost the state at least $130 million annually to receive $1.6 billion in federal funds.
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Mike Parson argued that the referendum's lack of funding mechanism would harm the state budget, but promised to obey the vote results.
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Regardless, on May 13,2021, Mike Parson declared denial of expansion, again blaming funding, so that the enhanced services and the 275,000 newly eligible citizens would not receive coverage.
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Mike Parson was among the 25 signatories to the Republican Governors Association's January 25,2024, joint statement of support for Greg Abbott and his Operation Lone Star.
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On February 20,2024, Mike Parson issued a press release announcing the deployment of 200 National Guard members and 22 Highway Patrol troopers to Texas's southern border.
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In June 2024, Mike Parson vetoed funds for Operation Lone Star and reduced the state budget allocation to $2 million.
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Between 2020 and 2024, Mike Parson granted clemency to more than 760 people.
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In July 2020, Mike Parson pledged to pardon Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a St Louis couple who pointed guns at unarmed George Floyd protesters walking past their home on a private street, if they were convicted of crimes and if there was no significant change in the facts as they were understood at the time.
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In June 2021, Mike Parson declined to pardon Kevin Strickland, an African-American man imprisoned for triple murder since 1978, saying it was not a "priority".
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Mike Parson had become the subject of a bipartisan clemency petition by state lawmakers, and several judges and other politicians had called for his release.
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In December 2024, Mike Parson commuted the sentence of former Kansas City police detective Eric DeValkenaere, who shot a black man to death when the victim was backing his pickup truck into his garage.