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House Democrat leader offers veto session predictions

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House Republicans could attempt overrides of several vetoes by Governor Jay Nixon, but two issues are expected to be at the forefront of today’s veto session.

House Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City)

Republicans will have to start in the Senate to attempt an overturn of Senate Bill 749, to allow employers and individuals to opt out of insurance coverage for contraception, abortion and sterilization. House Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) says that veto will be tough to sustain.

“I think that if you look at the vote total, and if you look at the makeup of certain districts that some of our folks represent, I think that one is going to be the much tougher of the two to do.”

Talboy says Republicans will have a much harder time finding the votes to overturn the veto of HB 1329, to allow sales tax collections on vehicle purchases made out of state or from private Missourians.

“I know that there are some Democrats that, for their area, feel that it is vitally important. However unless you get to a 95, 96, 97-type area with the Republican votes, I don’t know that there are enough Democratic votes to even come close to anything there.”

A two-thirds majority, 109 votes, is necessary to overturn a veto in the House. When the bill passed in May it received 122 “yes” votes. 44 of those were from Democrats, but 16 Republicans voted against it.

Some lawmakers say enough Democrats might switch their vote to side with the Governor to fall short of the veto override. Or, they say Governor Nixon might have swayed enough lawmakers by saying more than 122 thousand Missourians will retroactively owe taxes on vehicle purchases made since March if the veto is overturned.

Talboy says the Governor’s office has been contacting members of his caucus. “As far as how many of them have had in-depth discussions, no I don’t know how many of those folks were there, but I know they’ve called me asking where I am and then kind of giving me the pitch on why they feel that it is important to veto and important to sustain the veto.”

The Kansas City Star reports one House Democrat was recently targeted in a mailer paid for by a nonprofit organization funded by the Democratic Governors Association, America Works USA, for supporting the bill in May. Representative Genise Montecillo (D-St. Louis) and 19 Republicans were the subjects of mailers.

Talboy says that hasn’t been popular among House Democrats. “That has caused some consternation in our caucus … but as far as whether or not it’s going to make any difference moving forward on this bill, I don’t think anybody that got the mailer changed their mind based upon it.”

House Republicans and Democrats assess the session (VIDEO)

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As one might expect, Republicans and Democrats in the House see the 2012 legislative session two very different ways.

Representatives Tim Jones (left) and Mike Talboy (right) courtesy, Missouri House Communications

Republican Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones (R-Eureka) says the House kept the promises it made and had a successful session. “We are very proud of our session, we are very proud of our caucus. We were very proud to welcome our members across the aisle … along with our colleagues in the Senate.”

Jones touts accomplishments including a charter schools reform and accountability bill, a co-employee liability fix and narrowing the difference in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine-related offenses.

Democrats backed all of those proposals, but Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) says the two top priorities going into the session, a foundation formula fix and job creation, went undone.

“Regardless of whether it’s the House’s fault or it’s the Senate’s fault, when you have the majorities that were discussed at the beginning of this cycle, one of those two things should get done.”

One fundamental difference between the two parties’ positions going forward regards new revenue.

Democrats, like outgoing representative Sara Lampe (D-Springfield) say in order to keep meeting the state’s obligations to education, transportation and public safety, more money will be needed. “We’ve had them before this legislature. They’re out there. (Increasing) cigarette tax sales collection, internet sales collection and tax amnesty. All three of those could have gone through this year but didn’t.

Jones disagrees. “‘Raising revenue’ is simply code for raising taxes. Across this nation, across this great state that is not what the voters want. They spoke loud and clear on that in 2010 and I believe they will again this fall.”

View the House Republicans’ and Democrats’ end-of-session media conferences below, courtesy of Missouri House Communications:

House leaders consider legality of blind pension compromise

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Some say the way the House and Senate budget conferees compromised to fund the blind medical subsidy fund won’t pass constitutional muster.

(left to right) Representatives Sara Lampe, Mike Talboy and Ryan Silvey (photo courtesy; Missouri House Communications)

The compromise was to include over $24 million dollars for the fund and to add language to the budget that restricts eligibility for it based on income levels, then provide over $3 million additional dollars through premiums and copays resulting from the eligibility guidelines.

Governor Jay Nixon’s office has released a statement saying adding those restrictions “through the budget process does not change existing law – and is invalid.”

House Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) agrees. “As early as 2010, and a myriad of cases beforehand, state … language in the budget that attempts to legislate is invalid.”

The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Sara Lampe (D-Springfield), says Governor Nixon should know what he’s talking about. “The Governor clearly comes out of the Attorney General’s office and he probably knows more about that than I do, but we clearly have to look at that.”

Lampe says if the legislature’s proposal doesn’t stand, she doesn’t know where else the $3 million-plus dollars would come from except education.

House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) says putting directive language in a budget is not a new practice. “The appropriations bills are also laws, and to say that we don’t put direction on how to spend an appropriation in the budget is to have not read the budget. I mean, we do it all over the budget.”

In fact, Silvey says, the language the Committee used is based on that for the State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) program, and was found in that section of the budget.

See the eligibility  language for the SCHIP program (Section 11.555) and the Blind Pension (Section 11.128)

House Democrats say the Republican majority might amend the eligibility language from the blind pension section of the budget to another bill and pass it before the end of the session, on Friday.

Second vote sends gold & silver bill to the Senate (AUDIO)

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The House has approved a plan its sponsor says would give Missourians a more efficient way to back purchases with gold and silver, and hedge against inflation in the process. 

Representative Paul Curtman (picture courtesy, Missouri House of Representatives)

Representative Paul Curtman (R-Pacific) says his proposal is based on a new kind of business that has developed in Utah, that he describes as a sort of “clearing house” for gold and silver.

“The way they do it … it allows you to liquidate it and spend it in real-time. We’re not monetizing gold and silver in the sense that you’re going to walk into stores and use gold and silver, but if you have gold and silver and you put it in a depository, for lack of a better word, they might in exchange give you a debit card. So, you can go out and use your debit card and as you spend it the depository will sell off your gold and silver for you to cover the cost of the transaction.”

See Curtman’s proposal, HB 1637

Curtman says the plan only deals with U.S. minted gold and silver coins. He says Missourians can already back purchases with those precious metals, but his bill would simplify the process. “Right now you have to go through the process of going to a coin shop or going to a pawn shop, selling it all off and then going out and spending it. Doing it this way makes it much more convenient.”

He says it will help fight against inflation in the process.  “Beef, cotton, sugar … all this stuff has gone up twenty, thirty, forty, fifty percent over the last five years. None of the people in my district, to my knowledge at least, have been getting twenty, thirty, forty, fifty percent raises … Inflation always catches up with the consumer last, so we’re the ones that suffer the most from it. This bill will give people an opportunity … it’ll just protect the value of their labor and their money.”

The provisions of the bill won’t be utilized unless and until a business like the one in Utah is developed in Missouri. Curtman says, “Right now it’s a new concept and so there’s not really regulatory authority over it, so that’s one of the parts of the bill … if this happens, the Secretary of State’s Office would be the one to handle it, because it’s commodities exchange.”

House Democrats questioned the need for the legislation. Representative Mary Still (D-Columbia) says the legislature’s time would be better spent on more pressing issues. “To me, this is the height of nuttiness. This is the goofiest of the goofiest bills we have heard.”

Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) says the proposal would put Missouri back on the gold standard and stands no chance of passing in the Senate or being constitutional.

Curtman says he sees the challenge of getting support for the bill in the Senate as one of getting people to understand it. “It just helps facilitate the convenience of selling off your gold and silver almost (in) real-time in order to cover the cost of a commerce transaction, I think people will begin to understand.”

He says he was surprised at the resistance his proposal met. “I thought it was going to be an easy bill to get through.”

A rare second chance

The legislation was defeated in its initial third reading vote early Thursday afternoon after many lawmakers left the chamber to attend a media conference with Governor Jay Nixon regarding the development of new nuclear power reactors in Missouri.

When the body returned from a recess later in the afternoon, Representative Tim Meadows (D-Imperial) made a motion to reconsider the legislation, which could only have been made by a lawmaker that voted against it. He did so at the request of Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones, who said the bill would have passed if all the members of his caucus had been present.

The motion was carried, and the bill did pass on the second vote, 95-37.

Talboy said of Meadows’ decision, “Representative Meadows has been here longer than I have. He is a very thoughtful, thorough individual and he had discussions on what he thought was the right thing to do and I will stand behind my caucus member on that especially one with the integrity that Tim has.”

The proposal must still go through the Senate in the last four weeks of the session and be signed by the Governor to become law.

AUDIO:  Hear debate between Representatives Mary Still and Paul Curtman, 7:18

House approves $24 billion spending plan

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The state House has sent the Senate a $24 billion dollar budget that Republicans say meets the priorities of the average Missourian, and Democrats say results from pitting priorities against one another.

(from left) House Speaker Steven Tilley, Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones, Speaker Pro Tem Shane Schoeller and Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey (picture courtesy, Missouri House Communications)

The budget includes a two percent pay increase for state employees making less than $70,000 a year and a $20 million increase in funding for the state’s veterans homes. Republicans have said their top priority has been education, however, and Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) says they met that goal.

“The Governor has requested cuts to higher education every year he’s been in office, and we’re just not going to go along with that anymore. If you continue to cut away and cut away and cut away at higher education, before long you start cutting into your educated workforce. If you don’t have an educated workforce, how are you ever going to dig out of a depressed economy?”

The Governor’s budget proposal cut $106 million from higher education and the House Budget Committee restored that, in part by cutting the $28 million blind medical subsidy fund.

Minority Caucus Secretary Sara Lampe during floor debate on the budget (picture courtesy, Missouri House Communications)

Budget Committee member Sara Lampe (D-Springfield) says the budget put lawmakers in unnecessarily tough positions. “We are making false choices because we have not addressed the revenue stream.”

She and other Democrats say lawmakers till have to get away from cutting along to balance the budget. They call on their Republican colleagues to entertain collection of taxes on internet sales or raising the tax on tobacco products.

An amendment offered by Representative Bert Atkins (D-Florissant) would have authorized the Department of Social Services to use a $50 million federal grant for computer system upgrades, but that was also rejected by the Republican majority for its ties to the federal healthcare plan.

Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (picture courtesy, Missouri House Communications)

Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) says at some point the legislature has to get away from putting important issues or people at odds in competing for budget dollars. “We do it with children and we do it with veterans, we do it with education and we do it with development. We do it now with the blind and higher education, or elementary and secondary education, because those were the two areas that you could cut money from to give back to the blind.”

The $24 billion dollar total budget figure does not represent a $1 billion increase over the governor’s $23 billion dollar proposal. The House Budget Committee removed 444 estimated budget amounts, referred to around the Capital building as “Es,” totaling just shy of the $1 billion dollar difference. Republicans and Democrats alike say this results in a more accurate reflection of what the state is spending.

What will happen in the Senate with the cut to the blind program remains unclear. Senate Leader Rob Mayer (R-Dexter) has said his chamber will reverse it, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) says “everything must be on the table.”

At halftime, no education bill on the Missouri House floor (AUDIO)

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House Republicans say they have achieved most of their slate of legislative priorities for the session heading into Spring Break, but House Democrats say one top priority has been absent from floor debate. An education bill has yet to advance out of the committee process.

The House Republican Caucus, lead by House Speaker Steven Tilley, says it has reached most of its legislative goals so far.

House Speaker Steven Tilley (R-Perryville) says those bills are still being worked on but right now there is no consensus in his caucus on them. While leadership in both parties called education a “must pass” issue early on, Tilley now says, “If we can get it done we certainly well and if we can’t, we can’t, and we’ll come back next year and work on it.”

Several GOP leaders said from the outset that they want to package together education issues this year. That could put the issues both parties are concerned with, fixes for the foundation formula and the Turner decision, in a bill with things like tuition tax credits and tenure reform.

Tilley stands by that plan. “Part of the logic between the leadership team is to try and put parts of it together so it actually could cobble together coalitions to get us to 82 (votes in the House).”

Minority Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) has his own opinion of the Republicans’ motivation. “I realize that they have (St. Louis philanthropist) Rex Sinquefield to answer to, and if Daddy Rex says that something needs to be in there then Daddy Rex is going to get what he wants.”

Minority Floor Leader Mike Talboy is flanked by the House Democratic Caucus after Thursday adjournment heading into Spring Break.

Talboy has said since the beginning of the session that the education issues need to be separated out. “Education of children in this state is more important than creating jobs that we don’t necessarily have an educated workforce to fill if we don’t do something about the education system, and I think that it is offensive to sit there and say that the economic development bills should stand on their own, but that the education bills are not important enough to stand on their own and pass on their own merits.”

Tilley says if an education bill does not pass, the session can still be called a success. “I’m not gonna pin any specific thing on whether it’s a success or a failure. I think you have to look at the session in totality.”

He adds, “But, it certainly would be something I’d like to get done.”

AUDIO:  Listen to the House Republicans media conference, 13:09

AUDIO:  Listen to the House Democrats media conference, 8:24

Top House democrat wants new DED offerings

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The Minority Leader in the Missouri House of Representatives says rather than focus only on ideas that have already been vetted, the legislature needs to consider some fresh ideas.

State Representative Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City)

Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) points to the states neighboring Missouri, all of which he says have angel investment opportunities. Those could be tax credit programs or funds that are typically smaller than some of the economic development programs already in Missouri.

He says putting programs like that into effect can provide “good bang for your buck in the beginning. But then also as the budget years get better and as we have more revenue in the state and as we see the returns on those types of programs, then you can look at expanding them if you need to or be able to expand them into different parts of the state.” Talboy says there is nothing like what he is talking about currently offered by DED.

Talboy says just having some new tools for economic development can spur some important discussions by stirring discussion that might not happen without them. “It allows tangentially some of these ideas to come out of those conversations that are new that we don’t have…you see some of these new ideas sprout up from those conversations.”

The Department of Economic Development has come under scrutiny by lawmakers investigating a failed project to bring a sucralose plant to Moberly. Talboy says that should not have any impact on discussion of new incentives that department might offer. “Whether or not they’re a good program…I don’t think depends on the conversations and whether people have an issue with department or another. I think that if the program’s worthwhile we’ll find a way to make sure that it gets done. If people have objections to certain departments, we’ll deal with those separately.”

The new legislative session begins tomorrow.