By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
After a lost year, the Missouri General Assembly works through its final week before taking its traditional one-week spring break.
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville is working to get his COVID-19 liability bill through this session after running out of time in the coronavirus pandemic-shortened session last year.
The bill would shield Missouri businesses, churches, and agencies from COVID-19 liability lawsuits as long as they followed coronavirus precautions.
Luetkemeyer succeeded in guiding his bill through a filibuster and onto passage in the Senate, but failed to get enough votes for an emergency clause. Luetkemeyer says there is some sentiment in the House to take another try for the clause, but he would rather the House pass it as is.
“Because the House does not have a filibuster, whenever you have a bill that has been subjected to a filibuster like the COVID liability bill was whenever it was in the Senate, it’s always a little bit of a risky proposition for the House to send the bill back, because if they do there’s a risk that the bill could get tied up again and you could lose the legislation,” Luetkemeyer tells St. Joseph Post.
An emergency clause would make the bill effective upon the signature of the governor rather than wait until late August.
Another big issue for Missourians affected economically during the pandemic has arisen in Jefferson City. Some unemployed Missourians are facing another financial difficulty: how to repay unemployment compensation mistakenly given them.
Unemployment overpayments went to more than 46,000 Missourians with about 80% of the $150 million in overpayments coming from federal unemployment checks.
The Missouri House has approved a bill forgiving the federal overpayments, but requiring repayment of state overpayments.
Luetkemeyer favors forgiving the entire amount.
“The vast majority of overpayments were due to errors that were really beyond the control of the individual who submitted the unemployment claim,” Luetkemeyer says. “I don’t believe that people should be put on repayment plans due to no fault of their own, they got an overpayment from the department. I think the state should hold them harmless.”
Luetkemeyer says he would vote for the bill as is, but would prefer the Senate expand the forgiveness to include the state unemployment compensation mistakenly given as long as it was not fraudulently obtained.
Another issue Luetkemeyer is sponsoring this session is one he says is designed to cut state red tape.
“It would say that for every new state regulation that comes into effect, the administrative agencies would need to remove an existing regulation,” Luetkemeyer says about his bill. “And this is just part of the effort to remove a lot of the bureaucratic red tape in state government to make the environment in Missouri a more favorable environment for small businesses to come here and to thrive.”
Luetkemeyer says the measure would force state agencies to review their regulations, rather than simply allow them to continue year-after-year.
The one-week legislative spring break begins Monday, March 15th.