Holly Thompson 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.