Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway has her eyes on serving in the Missouri Senate.
Buchheit-Courtway, 47, of the Festus area is in the last year of her second term representing the 115th District in the Missouri House of Representatives.
Instead of running for a new two-year term, she has announced that she instead will seek the District 3 seat in the state Senate.
Elaine Freeman Gannon currently holds the seat, but she announced late last year she would not run for a second four-year term in the state’s upper chamber.
According to the Missouri Secretary of State Office on March 4, at Leader deadline, Buchheit-Courtway will face Mike Henderson of Desloge for the Republican nomination in the August primary.
No Democrats had filed for that party’s primary as of Tuesday.
“I was surprised when I learned that Sen. Gannon was not going to run for another term,” Buchheit-Courtway said. “I respect that decision, but I figured that now is the time to make the move to the Senate.”
Regardless of where her office is in Jefferson City, Buchheit-Courtway said she has a singular goal.
“I love serving people,” she said. “I enjoy helping people get their concerns addressed at the state level, and sometimes, working with (U.S. Reps.) Blaine Luekemeyer and Jason Smith’s staffs, I can help point them to the right places to go with questions about the federal government. And I enjoy working on legislation that helps people.”
Buchheit-Courtway said she’s well aware of the ongoing dysfunction among factions of the majority Republican Party in the Senate, which has been a detriment to passing legislation.
“We have our own problems in the House as well, but we tend to work through them more off the floor than they do in the Senate,” she said. “But the only way to improve the situation is to get people with some common sense in the Senate, people who want to help their constituents rather than advance their own agendas. That’s why I want to go on to the Senate, to try to get work done.”
She said she tells people not to consider her a politician.
“Being a state representative is a sacrifice. I’m spending time away from my family. Yes, we get paid for it; it’s a job, but the point is I choose to make those sacrifices because I want to help my constituents. And I like to listen to people on both sides of an issue. How are you going to make an informed vote unless you know both sides? I can learn things talking with people from the other side, and I enjoy doing that. I feel like my constituents know what they’re going to get with me.”
Buchheit-Courtway said she’s looks back at her tenure in the state House with pride.
“I’m so proud of some of the things I’ve been a part of – helping to get $25 million put in the state budget for port projects in the county. Helping to get $12 million for infrastructure improvements that is bringing the James Hardie project here,” she said. “Hopefully, this year, we’re going to get money put in the budget to bring an Amtrak depot to De Soto. I’m happy to see the project to widen I-55 to three lanes from Pevely to (south of) Festus (and associated improvements to Hwy. 67). That will be a pain while it’s going on, but it’s really needed and will benefit more than just Jefferson Countians.”
She said she has proposed some legislation that hasn’t gotten across the finish line, but she would continue to work on them in the Senate, if they don’t pass this year.
“The first is a bill that would mandate mental health education should be taught in schools beginning in the fifth grade. It would teach children where to go, what to look for in themselves and their friends, and where to go for help,” she said. “The schools would use what’s called the Columbia Method, where they ask six questions of a child that can assess whether they are at a high risk, moderate risk or low risk of suicide.”
Buchheit-Courtway said the legislation is a personal quest because a friend’s 13-year-old grandson died by suicide.
“There is such a stigma surrounding mental health and there shouldn’t be,” she said. “Suicide is also a problem with our veterans. These are pillars of our community; they volunteer to go overseas, and they get back and they have all sorts of problems. They need help, too.”
Another bill would reduce the personal property assessment on vehicles seven years old or older from 33 1/3 percent to 5 percent.
“A lot of constituents, including seniors, have come to me and said they’re overwhelmed by paying taxes, that they’re getting higher and higher every year,” she said. “The state Legislature can’t do away with personal property taxes – it’s in the Missouri Constitution and eliminating them would take a public vote – but reducing the assessment would help quite a bit.
“It may hurt our local taxing districts somewhat, but they will have had the benefit of a full assessment on vehicles for seven years.
“Someone in Jefferson City asked me, ‘What lobbyist is behind this bill?’ I told him, ‘No lobbyists are involved. I’m trying to do this for constituents. They matter, too.’ He looked at me as if he wasn’t sure what I was talking about.
“But that’s why I’m where I’m at in the House, and why I want to go to the Senate,” she said.
Buchheit-Courtway, a 1994 graduate of St. Vincent de Paul High School in Perryville and a 2018 Jefferson College graduate, works in the medical records department at Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Crystal City and as a teller at Enterprise Bank in De Soto.
She and her husband, David Courtway, the director of administration for Jefferson County, have five adult children and 17 grandchildren.
Candidate filing for the August primary election ends March 26.
State representatives are paid $36,813 per year, plus a $121 allowance each day the chamber is in session.