Oklahoma Archives - Missourinet

Toll roads are “dead on arrival” with key Missouri lawmaker in 2020 (AUDIO)

December 29, 2019 By Brian Hauswirth

(This is the second story in Brian Hauswirth’s two-part series about Missouri transportation)

The chairman of Missouri’s Senate Transportation Committee says toll roads are “dead on arrival” with him and are a non-starter. The opposition from State Sen. Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, is significant because any toll road legislation would have to go before his committee.

State Sen. Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, speaks on the Missouri Senate floor in Jefferson City on January 10, 2019 (file photo courtesy of Senate photographer Harrison Sweazea)

Libla has looked at states that have tolls.

“You know people talk about how good Oklahoma’s roads are and the fact that they have 17-cents a gallon (state gasoline tax), which is the same as ours,” Libla says. “But what everybody leaves out, just about everywhere you drive (in Oklahoma) you have to drive on a toll road. So you still have to buy gas and pay tolls.”

Missouri voters rejected toll roads at the ballot box in 1970 and again in 1992. Chairman Libla says it’s too late to try to toll aging I-70 across Missouri.

“Interstate 70, we have lost our exemption now to toll that road from the federal government, so we can’t toll it anyway. Now you can build a new toll road.”

But Libla opposes that, saying the state owns its transportation assets. He instead has filed legislation to raise Missouri’s gas tax from 17 to 19-cents per gallon. He tells Missourinet state lawmakers can raise it on their own, adding they have a fiduciary duty to do it on their own.

His proposal, which is Senate Bill 539, would also increase the tax on diesel fuel from 17 to 23-cents per gallon. Libla’s legislation would also adjust the taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel annually for inflation.

He predicts his proposal would raise about $144 million annually for transportation. Libla also says we’ve funded roads and bridges for 95 years in Missouri with a gas tax.

While Missouri has the nation’s seventh-largest highway system with 34,000 miles of roadway, it ranks 49th in funding. Missouri’s gas tax has remained the same since 1996. It was part of a bipartisan 1992 agreement between former Governor John Ashcroft (R) and former House Speaker Bob Griffin, D-Cameron.

Missouri voters rejected a proposed ten-cent gas tax increase in November 2018. Libla says the state Department of Transportation (MoDOT) is dipping into reserves for federal matching funds. He praises the work MoDOT has done, with the resources they are given.

MoDOT has said that congestion in St. Louis and Kansas City and along Interstates 44 and 70 in Missouri is causing an annual economic loss of $575 million.

Click here to read the first story in Brian Hauswirth’s transportation series.

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee Chairman Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, which was recorded on December 10, 2019:

Death sentence and murder conviction upheld in 2009 central Missouri case

December 10, 2019 By Brian Hauswirth

The state Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the murder conviction and death sentence in a high-profile 2009 mid-Missouri case.

Convicted killer David Hosier is incarcerated at the Potosi Correctional Center in southeast Missouri’s Mineral Point (January 2018 file photo courtesy of the Missouri Department of Corrections)

64-year-old David Hosier was convicted of first degree murder and armed criminal action for the 2009 killing of Angela Gilpin of Jefferson City.

Court documents say Hosier had been having an affair with Gilpin, who was a married woman. The court filings say the affair ended, and that Angela reconciled with her husband Rodney in August 2009.

Prosecutors say Hosier broke into Angela Gilpin’s apartment in September 2009, shooting and killing both Angela and her husband.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in April, and Hosier’s public defender, Amy Bartholow, argued that his trial counsel was ineffective. She also said that Hosier’s trial counsel should have called a psychiatrist at trial to testify about a stroke and brain damage that Hosier had suffered.

Bartholow told the court during April’s oral arguments that Hosier’s “brain is dead in places.”

Hosier’s public defender, Bartholow, said Hosier suffered a transient ischemic attack in 2007. Her court filings say 2007 medical records from Audrain Medical Center indicate that.

Missouri Assistant Attorney General Greg Barnes argued the case before the Supreme Court in April, saying Hosier was represented by highly-experienced legal counsel.

“Trial counsel, guilt phase trial counsel had over 150 trials worth of experience over many years in both Texas and Missouri,” Barnes told the Supreme Court in April.

Barnes also questioned whether Hosier had a stroke, telling the court in April that the stroke “didn’t explain the 1986 assault on his wife or his threat to kill multiple law enforcement officers or to kidnap his kids and take them to Mexico during that time.”

In a unanimous 7-0 decision written by Judge Paul Wilson, the Missouri Supreme Court today unanimously affirmed Hosier’s convictions, which means he remains under a death sentence.

Click here to read the Missouri Supreme Court’s 31-page opinion.

Hosier remains incarcerated at the maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center in southeast Missouri’s Mineral Point.

While Hosier is suspected of killing Rodney Gilpin, he was never charged for the second murder.

Court documents say Hosier was captured in Oklahoma after the 2009 Jefferson City murders, after urging Oklahoma police officers to shoot him “and get it over with.” The court filings say a STEN submachine gun was used to kill Angela and Rodney Gilpin, and that Oklahoma authorities found it in Hosier’s vehicle. They also found 15 firearms, ammunition, a bulletproof vest, crowbar, latex gloves and a knife.

The court documents also say that Jefferson City Police found an application for a protective order against Hosier, in Angela Gilpin’s purse, after the murders. The court filings also say there was a document in her purse, stating that she was afraid Hosier might shoot her and her husband.

Mike Lear talks death penalty with St. Louis Public Radio’s Chris McDaniel (VIDEO)

May 2, 2014 By Mike Lear

Attorneys for condemned Missouri inmate Russell Bucklew and others say a botched execution this week in Oklahoma is reason for concern regarding Missouri’s procedures.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Chris McDaniel talks with Mike Lear about what’s happened in Oklahoma and what parallels exist between its protocols and Missouri’s.

Five states join Missouri in challenge of California egg law

March 6, 2014 By Mike Lear

Missouri is not going it alone in challenging the State of California’s egg law.

Attorney General Chris Koster has announced that five states have joined in his suit against California alleging that it is unconstitutionally trying to regulate farming practice outside its borders. Those states are Nebraska, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Iowa.

With Missouri, those five states produce more than 20-billion eggs per year, 10-percent of which are sold to consumers in California.

California voters in 2008 passed Proposition 2 that, beginning next year, would regulate the size of the enclosures that house egg-laying hens. To avoid a potential competitive advantage to that state’s own egg producers, the California State Assembly passed a bill requiring producers in other states to comply with that law in order to sell eggs in California.

The six states’ suit asks the federal court to rule that California’s legislation violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. Koster says that clause prohibits any state from enacting legislation that regulates conduct wholly outside its borders, protects its own citizens from out-of-state competition, or places undue burdens on interstate commerce.

In a statement Koster says he welcomes those five states joining the effort.

“This case is not just about farming practices,” Koster says. “At stake is whether elected officials in one state may regulate the practices of another state’s citizens, who cannot vote them out of office.”