By his own admission, 43-year-old Lincoln Hough finds it curious that he may be considered “the old man” of the Missouri Senate.
But the Springfield Republican said he often found himself playing resident historian in a chamber that’s much different than it was in 2025 compared to recent history.
“A lot of the changes that have happened in the Senate, I think, are detrimental to what the institution is supposed to be,” Hough said during an episode of Politically Speaking.
Hough said his past 12 months have been “topsy turvy.” His Republican colleagues ended up cutting off Democratic filibusters over measures aimed at voter-approved abortion rights and paid sick leave initiatives. GOP senators also forcibly ended debate at a September special session over a new congressional map and proposal to make it much harder to pass some constitutional amendments.
Ultimately, Hough voted against what’s known as the previous question – which forces votes on legislation. For years, senators rarely used that maneuver. But Hough said its increased frequency is tearing down Missouri Senate tradition.
“When you start just ending debate and saying, ‘I'm done even talking about it,’ I think you've got a problem. I think it's a breakdown in democracy,” Hough said. “I don't think that's what the Senate's supposed to be.”
Here’s what else Hough discussed on the show:
- Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin stripped Hough of his chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He says he doesn’t buy the explanation that O’Laughlin did it to ensure a smoother transition for the important committee, since Hough will be leaving the Senate due to term limits after 2026. He thinks it’s because he voted against cutting off debate on several key issues.
- He also said the fact that Republicans made no changes to a congressional map aimed at ousting Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was notable. And Hough also said that President Donald Trump and his administration likely didn’t calculate that Democratic groups would try and counteract the new map with a referendum campaign. “The folks in DC, I think they're so hyper focused on doing whatever the thing is that they want to do right now that almost ramifications be damned,” he said.
- Hough also criticized Republicans for targeting initiatives that voters approved at the polls – and also chastised statewide officials for trying to derail the redistricting referendum campaign. “It's always been just wildly hypocritical to work in that environment where my colleagues say the voters are smart enough to vote for me to send me to the Senate,” he said.
- While he hopes the 2026 session is less contentious than the 2025 session, Hough said there will still be hard feelings when senators return in January. “I think the level of distrust right now among my colleagues is significant,” he said.
Hough was first elected to the Senate in 2018 and reelected in 2022. He also served three terms in the House and a partial term as a Greene County commissioner.
Last year, Hough narrowly lost a crowded GOP primary for lieutenant governor to David Wasinger. He said he’s unsure if he’ll run for something again after he’s barred from running for the Senate again due to term limits.
