By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A St. Joseph state representative has a gloomy assessment of the recently concluded Missouri legislative session.
Rep. Bill Falkner, a Republican, says Republican in-fighting delayed work and stalled legislation in Jefferson City.
“Well, it was a very difficult session to be honest with you,” Falkner tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “With the drawings of the maps and you had individuals that were trying to position themselves to benefit themselves in future races, which I don’t think they should have been part of the process at all.”
Falkner says the House continued to work, even as filibusters tied up the Senate and prevented it from debating much legislation.
Though some work got done, overall, the session left a bitter taste.
“It was just a very difficult one,” according to Falkner. “I can’t state it any better than that.”
A dispute over redrawing the Missouri Congressional map in accordance with the 2020 Census festered in the Missouri Senate, then broke out into a clash disrupting the Senate’s work. Members of the Conservative Caucus held the chamber hostage through drawn-out filibusters, pushing for a new map that might be more favorable to Republicans. The tactic limited the number of bills the chamber could consider and reduced the output of the legislature as a whole.
Falkner says as the legislative session drew to a close, legislators scrambled to move their measures by any means possible. Many amended whole bills onto the bills that did reach the floor for debate, whether the bills touched on the same subjects or not.
“It just makes it difficult when there toward the end and everybody wants their stuff to go through and they’re piling all these amendments on bills, some of them had no rhyme or reason to be on there,” Falkner says. “I mean they were stretching what the bill actually does onto a bill that in my opinion didn’t fit.”
As the days dwindled and tensions rose, the friction sparked hard feelings in the Senate. Senate leaders chose to adjourn early, leaving on the Thursday before the last day on Friday, reasoning ill will would prevent anything from being accomplished.
“I was betting that they would leave on Wednesday the way things were going,” Falkner says. “So, I wasn’t surprised at all.”
Falkner says he anticipated the Senate would leave early, because the Senate left early last year.
“And the bickering was a little bit more so this year than it was last year,” according to Falkner.
Despite it all, the legislature agreed to some needed improvements, according to Falkner, especially in the area of education. Falkner says the highlight was devoting more money to education as well as providing some legislation to help children, including those in foster homes.