Lant: Predecessors Were Right About Final Weeks Being Crazy, Survey Results

Marilyn Ruestman, Kevin Wilson, Ron Richard, and Tom Flanigan all tried to tell me how crazy the last few weeks of session are but I had no idea.......

We started this goofy week with hail storms, high winds, and driving rain, then it got rough. Because for the most part, this was the last week a bill had a chance of passing, the bill handlers were fairly frantic about getting their legislation out of the House. We had a Payday Loan bill [HB656] go through that provides more protection for the consumer and the loan industry. We passed a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment [HJR5] that guarantees a citizens' right to hunt, fish, trap, and harvest wildlife. We changed the law regarding violations of public policy of Missouri when decisions are based on foreign law or legal codes.( No Sharia Law ) [HB708]

Legislation was agreed to by both the House and the Senate to provide funding for supplemental purposes in state departments and offices. This was much needed legislation to close some loopholes. The Senate finally passed the bill [HB163] to allow Missouri to receive federal funding for extended unemployment benefits. This bill had been held hostage by a handful of Senators trying to make a point about the huge deficit the federal government is running. It is hard to believe, but one Senator can keep legislation from moving through the Senate. This is what has happened to our re-districting efforts [HB193]. When we were seated in January, we were told that our most important function this year was to get the Congressional re-districting done by the third week of April so that we could insure that we, not the supreme court, would make the decisions for our eight congressional districts. The Senate initially wanted to submit a new map first so while we were working on our map, we waited for the Senate to finish theirs. About six weeks ago we were informed by the Senate that they could not agree and for us to go ahead and finalize ours. What makes this such a daunting task is that each district must have the same number of citizens in it and we were not allowed to change the political make-up by over a percent or two. By losing one district, all those constituents had to be re-distributed to new districts. We had our map ready three weeks ago and it was approved by all eight of the U.S. Representatives as well as The House. A poll revealed that 22 of the 34 Senators approved. It looked like a sure deal. Not to be! One Senator, Jason Crowell, decided that he didn't like the way his Congressman's district was made up so he filibustered and refused to be budged. One man, through hard headedness, selfish ambition, or who knows what, has affected Missouri's six million citizens for who knows how many years. Why, you ask is this such a big deal? Because the Supreme Court of Missouri now has to map our Congressional Districts instead of the elected representatives of the people. We probably won't know what our districts are going to be until just before the election cycle begins, putting the Congressmen and women at a tremendous disadvantage. We won't even know what district we are a part of until late next fall. I don't know what can be done to stop this ridiculous practice in the Senate, but the work of the people sure as heck isn't getting done this way! I will tell you this, our Senators in Southwest Missouri are doing their best to do the right thing! Unfortunately, there aren't enough of them to outnumber the numbskulls elsewhere in the state!

All of the responses from our survey have been returned and the results are as follows:

• The question on workforce development (right to work) had a 68.9% favorable response.
• Allowing School Districts to opt out of prevailing wages for building projects got a 64.2% favorable response.
• Making School Districts pay for remedial education for students entering colleges only had a 22.7% favorable response.
• 3.2% favored large businesses receiving incentives while 82.9% thought small businesses should receive the same treatment.
• Progressive, flat, and fair tax all received about 30% of the support.
• Requiring photo Id’s for voting received a 66.6% favorable response.
• 47.8% of us think initiative petition provisions should be revised or modified.
• A booming 94.3% think we should require prisoners to work.
• Only 37.1% believe we should add nuclear reactors.
• Education Funding (Is education adequately funded) had a 70.9% response.
• Finally, 33% of us think we should create some toll roads to improve highways and hardly anyone thinks we should raise taxes.(What a Surprise!)

This is probably all the good news you want this week, more next time.