JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri government officials could soon have some oversight of high school sports and other activities.

A bill passed out of the House Government Efficiency Committee on Thursday would create a new state-appointed appeals board for all high school activities associations in the state.

House Bill 2403, known as the Rue Wells Act, states that appeals boards for any activity association in the state would be appointed and approved by members of the Statehouse. The most obvious organization affected by this would be the Missouri State High School Activities Association, MSHSAA.

The bill establishes a “transfer board” to review appeals of decisions made by the association. The board would be comprised of seven members: three appointed by the speaker of the House, three appointed by the president pro tempore of the Senate and one appointed by the governor with approval from the Senate.

The point of the new “transfer boards” are to prevent organizations like MSHSAA from acting as their own “appellate body” for appeals from student athletes.

“Bottom line we want to make it good for the kids in the state of Missouri,” said Rep. Wendy Hausman, R-St. Peters, committee chair.

Under the bill, students will be allowed to make an appeal to the transfer board on any decision or ruling. The board would then have five days to meet about the appeal and 24 hours to make their decision.

Others committee members expressed support before the 11-7 vote passed the bill out of committee.

“(MSHSAA) hears 1,200 appeals, and 99.9% of them are settled at MSHSAA, and then there’s a small percentage that becomes controversial,” said Rep. Jim Murphy, R-St. Louis.

“Sometimes there is hardening of the back of ‘these are our rules and we’re going to keep them’ and they lose sight of the children,” Murphy said. “They’re the ones that end up in court.”

There was pushback.

“As a precedent, the government coming in and creating oversight with any nonprofit, whether that’s MSHSAA today, maybe the NAACP tomorrow, I just have a lot of pause with that,” said Rep. Ray Reed, D-St. Louis.

“We keep speaking about this independent board as if there is going to be no bias, but they are appointed by the governor,” argued Rep. Michael Burton, D-Lakeshire. “I really have a problem with this because we’ve seen, in the past, what we’re trying to do in certain situations regarding our schools in the state.”

The bill, now ready for House floor debate, is similar to Senate Bill 863.