May 31, 2023

Ending spoils otherwise good Missouri legislative session

Posted May 31, 2023 5:43 PM
KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr, center, moderates the legislative forum sponsored by the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce. Legislators (from left to right) are Sen. Rusty Black, Rep. Bill Falkner, Rep. Brenda Shields, and Rep. Dean Van Schoiack/Photo by Liby Waltemath
KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr, center, moderates the legislative forum sponsored by the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce. Legislators (from left to right) are Sen. Rusty Black, Rep. Bill Falkner, Rep. Brenda Shields, and Rep. Dean Van Schoiack/Photo by Liby Waltemath

By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

A disappointing last two weeks left a bad taste in the mouth of area legislators looking back on the Missouri legislative session which ended earlier this month.

State Sen. Rusty Black of Chillicothe served in the Senate for the first time this year after serving three terms in the Missouri House and was pleased, for the most part.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to work in the Senate, especially enjoyed it until the last two weeks,” Black told an audience gathered at the Stoney Creek Hotel and Conference Center Monday for the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce Public Affairs Coffee.

Those last two weeks bogged down due to filibusters mounted by senators unhappy that their legislation failed to move forward. Those filibusters killed several measures, including a bill by Rep. Brenda Shields of St. Joseph that would have provided tax credits to increase child care in Missouri.

“That’s, I think, the biggest disappointed for me is that we’re going to go another year without being able to establish how we’re going to help businesses and families address the child care issue in our state,” Shields said in answer to a question from moderator Barry Birr, the host of the KFEQ Hotline.

Shields said surveys indicate a lack of child care is keeping Missouri women out of the workforce and preventing businesses from filling positions. Shields had proposed a series of tax credits to encourage businesses to offset the cost of child care for employees as well as to encourage child care centers to keep open and expand.

Shields could only watch at the end of the legislative session in Jefferson City as her proposed child care tax credits languished in the Senate while senators mounted filibusters because their issues had not been addressed.

“We passed them in the House overwhelmingly. They went to the Senate committee. They passed out of the committee without a single ‘No’ vote,” Shields said. “But because of, and I’ll just say it, the Senate’s dysfunction, they couldn’t get that across the finish line.”

Shields had a good session. Her bill allowing Missourians to seek physical therapy directly without needing a referral from a doctor has already been signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson. She also succeeded in pushing through a measure that would require insurance companies cover diagnostic testing when a mammogram indicates a problem as well as a measure increasing the penalty for tampering with the transportation of livestock.

St. Joseph legislators pointed to success in the record state budget, with millions slated to finance upgrades at Rosecrans Memorial Airport, to expand offerings at Hillyard Technical Center, to build the new Convergent Technology Alliance Center to be operated jointly by Missouri Western State University and North Central Missouri College, and to create the Children’s Discovery Center downtown.

All of the legislators lamented the failure of a top Republican priority:  changing the voter threshold needed to amend the Missouri Constitution. At present, an initiative petition to change the state constitution needs to pass by only a simple majority, such as the ballot issue that legalized recreational marijuana.

St. Joseph State Rep. Bill Falkner has pushed the last couple of sessions to raise that threshold. He blamed the Senate filibusters the last two weeks of session for the death of a proposal to increase the voter threshold to 57%. The House had approved increasing the threshold to 60%. The Senate lowered it slightly.

“I thought that was a really good compromise on things,” Falkner said. “It’s a shame we didn’t get that passed. So, I would have to say that’s my biggest disappointment.”

While not completely defending filibusters, state Sen. Black did say they can serve a purpose.

“As a former House member, we all heard that, your foot is on the accelerator when you are on that side of the building,” Black said, making reference to his time in the House. “And on the other side, your foot is supposed to be on the brake.”

Black promised to never engage in a filibuster that used rhetoric irrelevant to the subject being debated. Black also suggested term limits caused some of the problem with some lawmakers taking up time on the floor making, in effect, campaign speeches for higher office.

Rep. Dean Van Schoiack of Savannah joined with others who expressed disappointment in the failure of changes to the initiative petition process.

“We sent a really good bill over to the Senate. They sent a good bill back to us,” according to Van Schoiack. “We sent 60% to amend the constitution. They sent back 57. We amended that and sent it back and it died in the Senate in the last couple of days. So, we’ll bring it back up again this next year.”

Van Schoiack saw his legislation to regulate the use of drones over private property clear the House only to stall in the Senate.

You can follow Brent @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.