Newman: Time Is Running Out For Serious Work

We're in the countdown...only 11 days are left in the 2011 legislative session.

It's difficult to say what we have actually accomplished so far.

One reporter recently wrote - "The MO GOP-led legislature has been in a rush to pass bills relating to hogs, dogs, discrimination and redistricting". Yes, that seems accurate.

No jobs bills. At least non yet. As a member of the minority party, we do not control what legislation we hear in committees or what is brought up on the floor. Therefore, we are consistently playing defense since we never know what bill we are debating next. I am always prepared to jump into the debate when I can but am often frustrated.

You can be assured that I constantly think of families back home and gauge if any of the bills we vote on will truly benefit anyone. Our state desperately needs additional revenue to boost elementary, secondary & higher education funding along with jobs incentives that mean something. That type of legislation is missing and I don't know when or if we will see it before we adjourn for the year on May 13.

Listen to what we are debating when we are in session - which becomes quite lively at times - www.moga.mo.gov.

Stacey

THIS WILL BE MY LAST UPDATE UNTIL AFTER SESSION CONCLUDES ON MAY 13TH.

ANOTHER SMALL VICTORY TO BRAG ABOUT...

This morning my equal pay bill, HB349 was given a public hearing and then was voted out of committee - Workforce Development and Workplace Safety. This is something to brag about since this bill last progressed this far in 2002 under sponsorship of then-Rep. Joan Bray.

I thank Chair Rep. Barney Fisher (R-Nevada) who believes in pay equity enforcement because of his own mother's experiences as a rural high school principal making less than her counterparts. HB349 will not make it to the House floor this session but Rep. Fisher has agreed to work with me to get it moving earlier next year.

I also thank many who testified in favor of the bill particularly Eli Karsh (St. Louis) an employment attorney and Holly Burgess (Columbia) with AAUW.

I will be working hard on the pay equity issue throughout the state after session ends. Missouri women need equality via wages now and I hope not to disappoint.

SO WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE DOING IN JEFF CITY?

PAY DAY LOANS - HB656

We voted last week 96-58 in favor of legislation that would change state regulations on the payday loan industry. While supporters labeled the bill “reform,” opponents said the measure wouldn’t do anything to prohibit predatory lending practices and was little more than a love letter to the pay day loan industry.

Under existing law, lenders are permitted to charge $75 per $100 borrowed for an annual percentage rate of 1,955 percent. HB 656 would allow lenders to charge $60 per $100 borrowed for an annual percentage rate of 1,564 percent. All of the support for the bill came from Republicans. Democrats unanimously opposed the bill as merely the pretense of reform and were joined by six Republicans.

I VOTED NO.

COMPROMISE ON DOG BREEDING?

On April 13 we granted final approval to SB 113, which would repeal all significant regulations on commercial dog breeders contained of Proposition B, a ballot measure 52 percent of Missouri voters approved in November. On April 18, however, Gov. Nixon announced that he had brokered a so-called compromise on the issue with representatives of the industry and animal welfare advocates. While Nixon’s proposal would still largely repeal Proposition B, it wouldn’t go quite as far in doing so as SB 113 in doing so.

Nixon’s plan was quickly denounced by the Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the two groups primarily responsible for funding the effort to put Proposition B on the ballot. Those organizations are also pushing Nixon to veto SB 113 along with 10 agriculture groups and 70state lawmakers.

I HAVE VOWED TO UPHOLD THE VOTE OF THE PEOPLE IN MY DISTRICT - I CONSISTENTLY VOTE NO ON REPEALING/REVISING PROP B.

REDISTRICTING

Congressional redistricting is at an impasse. And that's an understatement!

House leadership announced we would only have a technical session (no floor debate) last Thursday so the joint House & Senate redistricting conference committee could meet and decide on a new map. They began their public hearing Thursday at 6pm and worked through the night, finally calling off deliberations early Friday am.

On Good Friday the House convened (disrupting many who had Easter travel plans) - even though there was NO compromise map - to present another one of theirs. This was a truly meaningless exercise.

According to the STL Post Dispatch: it cost nearly $40,000 in taxpayer costs for legislators' expenses for three days (including Monday the 18th technical session) in which little public work was being done.

I had a sense that no legislative work would be done this past Friday so I elected to come back home to my district and keep my 3 scheduled appointments with the 4th grade classes of Glenridge, Captain and Meramec Elementary Schools ini the Clayton School District.

One of my senior colleagues reminded me that sometimes the work we do OUT of the Capitol is far more important that what we do IN the Capitol. In this instance, I agree.

STAY TUNED - THIS WILL BE A VERY LONG PROCESS - ESPECIALLY NOW THAT THE SENATE AND HOUSE REPUBLICANS ARE BATTLING EACH OTHER.