Back in 2012, St. Louis County enacted a local ordinance that required lenders to negotiate with foreclosed home-owners with the help of a neutral third-party, also known as mediation. Lenders were forced to pay for the mediation, which can be costly, and those who didn’t faced steep fines.

There are a number of problems with this move, not least of which is the question of whether or not the county even has that type of authority. It’s doubtful. There’s also the issue of a county passing a local law that will affect the entire state. Finally, the ordinance may not even be constitutional, or at least that’s the argument currently being considered by the courts as cases wind through our state justice system.

Despite that legal fiasco, the City of St. Louis chose to pass a similar measure earlier this year. We now have two local governments that have enacted ordinances that fly in the face of federal and state statutes, and could have a serious economic effect on the entirestate.

On Monday, the Senate sent to the governor House Bill 446, which establishes that real estate loans will only be governed by state and federal law. This legislation would nullify the city and county ordinances.

We have to have consistency with lending regulations in Missouri. If we don’t, it could seriously undermine our efforts to revitalize our economy and could deal a huge blow to the barely-recovering real estate market. If lenders are forced to jump through more hoops in a select area of our state, especially one as economically important as St. Louis, it will affect the prices on loans, which shrinks the number of available buyers and makes it much harder to sell homes.

No one wants to see a family kicked out of their house, and my heart goes out to those home-owners. But if there is a real need for mediation laws in the state, it needs to be considered by the Legislature, by the state as a whole, not by a county acting of its own accord in a way that could have a negative effect on every citizen in Missouri.

The Senate worked late into the night on Tuesday finalizing legislation that would enact major tax reform in the state. House Bill 253 contains a 50 percent tax cut for businesses that pass through income to owners’ individual returns, such as sole-proprietorships, partnerships and limited liability companies. The bill also lowers the personal income tax rate to 5.5 percent and the corporate income tax rate to 3.25 percent. These reductions would be phased-in over a 10 year period.

One of the most critical provisions in the bill implements a safeguard in case we face another revenue shortfall.  The legislation contains triggers that prevent the tax rate reduction from kicking in unless state general revenue collections increase by $100 million the previous year. This ensures that we will not drastically reduce our revenue unless the state’s economy is doing well enough to provide higher collections. This bill was truly agreed to and finally passed and is on its way to the governor.

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