Sater: A Stirring Week

It has been a busy two weeks since the 96^th General Assembly, First Regular Session ended. My father of 92 years old passed away. He led a great life and although I hated to see him pass away, it was his time. The 3^rd weekend in May was my daughter’s graduation at KU in Lawrence, Kansas. My wife and I came back to Cassville on the evening of the 21^st. We found out later that we were 20 minutes ahead of the tornado as we passed east of Joplin.

This last week was a time of calling fellow legislators and offering whatever help I could give. I was invited to a memorial service at Taylor Auditorium in Joplin this past Sunday afternoon. As Sharon and I drove closer to MSSU, hundreds and hundreds of people lined the streets with flags and signs to show support for the residents of Joplin. The ceremony included three different pastors, a Methodist choir from the church that was completely destroyed and the pastor of that church spoke. Governor Nixon spoke from his heart and I thought did an excellent job with his remarks. He was really moved with what has happened. President Obama flew in, took a tour of the devastation along with Senator McCaskill, Congressman Billy Long, and Governor Nixon. The President spoke for about fifteen minutes and even stayed around afterwards, greeting those in the crowd of five thousand that were affected by the tornado. Getting in and out of an event like this with all the security, one has to be patient, but I am glad Sharon and I attended. Tragedies like this have a way of bringing people together and all support is truly appreciated. I can only imagine how I would feel if a tornado ripped through Barry County killing many people in its path.

I doubt if the Governor calls us back for a Special Session. Right now I do not believe the House and Senate can come to an agreement on much of anything, so it would be a waste of time and money to go back into session. However, we will have Veto Session the first of September. This is required by the state constitution even if we do not have anything to do.

Some of the issues I worked on this year made it through and many did not. That is par for the course in Jefferson City. Unlike running your own business you cannot snap your fingers and get things done at the Capitol. It is painstakingly slow and compromise sometimes is needed. A good example is a bill that I filed for several years. This legislation would keep the Department of Revenue from going into pharmacies, doing an audit, and demanding sales tax be paid for the previous three years. Prescription drugs are tax exempt. So if the physician writes a prescription for an over-the-counter product we have always treated it as a tax exempt product. When I first filed this bill two years ago, the Speaker wanted to add durable medical equipment to the bill as a tax exempt product. Since it was the Speaker I of course said, yes. The bill passed the house, but failed in the Senate, This past session, the Speaker wanted to add diabetic testing supplies to a tax exempt status. I agreed because it was the Speaker. The bill passed again this year and moved to the Senate. The Governor had some “heartburn” over this issue so he sent two people to speak to me about how much money this was going to cost the state in revenue if the bill passed. So we worked on a compromise. I dropped the diabetic and medical equipment from the bill during “conference committee”, and by doing so he endorsed the prescription part of the bill. We also agreed the Department of Revenue would stop all current audits. Without the compromise and the leverage, it would not have passed. This is how things work here in Jefferson City, leverage and compromise. I will be speaking on more issues that happened this past session in future articles.

Keep your thoughts and prayers with those affected by the tornados and in the weeks and months ahead, keep remembering and helping in your own way. We get all excited at first and then in a few weeks, we forget. Please don’t forget these people.