Issue of cutting House members may go to statewide vote

The state Senate wants Missourians to decide if they want to get rid of more than one-third of their state representatives. Senate Leader Ed Quick has been on this issue from day one this year… cutting the House from 163 members to 105. He proposes sending the issue to a statewide vote. Senators have griped about the republican-led slowdown in the House that endangers laws senators want to pass…Quick, a democrat, says the “gridlock” as he calls it could be reduced with fewer members. But Senator Morris Westfall, a republican, tells senators it’s wrong to burn down the barn just to kill rats. House leaders on both sides of the aisle are hardly excited about Quick’s plan.