By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer says he’s a bit frustrated with the General Assembly that it hasn’t approved legislation requiring photo identification to vote.
Luetkemeyer’s frustration stems from the fact that when the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the former voter photo ID law, it outlined a path by which the legislature could craft a constitutional law.
“They pretty much told us what they thought the legislature got wrong in the prior photo ID bill and then created a sort of roadmap for the legislature going forward to create one that would be constitutional,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “And so, I think that we should heed the court’s advice and go back to the drawing board and draft up a bill that will be constitutional.”
Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Parkville, has pushed his own legislation following the court’s direction. It also would ban the use of electronic voting machines.
Luetkemeyer is lukewarm, at best, about Gov. Mike Parson’s push to raise state worker pay.
“I have sort of mixed feelings about that,” Luetkemeyer says. “I think, on the one hand, we do need good people serving in state government and we do have some of the lower paid state employees in the country.”
Luetkemeyer says he understands the state needs good people at the DMV, Department of Corrections, and other state agencies.
“But, at the same time, I have concerns with the fact that there’s a workforce shortage right now,” Luetkemeyer says. “The fact that we have businesses in St. Joe and elsewhere around my district that are not able to recruit and retain the employees that they need in order to make their small business function.”
Luetkemeyer worries increased state pay would put Missouri in competition with the private sector for scarce workers.
Legislators included a 5.5% cost-of-living adjustment for state workers in the $4.6 billion supplemental budget, but hedged on the proposal by Gov. Parson to set the state employee minimum pay at $15 an hour. Instead, lawmakers gave the option to state agencies to increase the pay of their own workers.