Lant: Monumental Week At Capitol

Well, I promised a big week and I'm not going to let you down! We started off by passing in the House HCS SJR2 which amends the Missouri Constitution to require a person to provide valid, government issued, photo identification in order to vote in Missouri. Voting is a basic and precious right and now that we have passed legislation to prevent voter fraud, we need to make sure this right is no longer abused. It will now become the job of the voters at the next statewide election to decide whether we want this to be the law in Missouri. SB 8 deals with providing protection against co-employee lawsuits in workers compensation cases and was sent back to the Senate for some of their fine tuning.

The Senate began to send the budget bills back to us a few at a time. After the Conference Committees made the necessary compromises, we debated the changes and voted on each of the bills separately. It is no small job for the Budget Committees to allocate 23.2 Billion dollars. It took an enormous bipartisan effort to pass a budget that is not only balanced, but sets aside 28 Million in savings and continues to reflect the top priorities of Missourian's. We held funding for the school Foundation Formula and mitigated the Governors' cut to Higher Education by appropriating 12 Million more to educational institutions statewide. We rescued the Senior Rx program from the Senate. We budgeted 8.4 Billion for the MO Health net program for the neediest Missourians. We also funded over 40 Million for job training, retention and development programs in the Department of Economic Development.

Along with strong conservative management of the taxpayer dollars, we cut the budget of the Missouri House by 365 Thousand dollars, reduced Department Directors and Deputy Directors’ compensation by 1 Million, and restricted the excessive use of the state airplane.

Last but most assuredly not least, Missouri history was made last week when the Governors' veto of the redistricting map [HB193] was overridden by a bipartisan effort in the House. Shortly thereafter, the Senate also overrode the veto and we now have a fair, compact, and contiguous map that is good for all of the citizens of the state. After hundreds of hours of work and compromise by State Representatives and Senators as well as the support of all the U.S. Congressmen, a last minute herculean effort by the House and Senate negated the Governors' attempt to send the map to unelected judges.

The weather at the Capitol was wonderful last week and many school groups were on field trips. I was honored to be able to introduce a class from Tri-Way Elementary at Stella. For any individual or group that wishes to visit your Capitol just let my office staff know, and we will arrange functions and tours.

Just one more week of session! I can't wait to see what unfolds! I'll fill you in next week, until then I am and remain in your service.