JEFFERSON CITY – Upon adjournment of the 2015 Senate legislative session, Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, expressed her grave disappointment with legislators’ conduct on both sides of the aisle during the final weeks. The Senator expressed anger with members of her own party for filibustering in retaliation to the forced passage of Right to Work. Senate majority party members had brought that vote earlier in the week by use of the Previous Question, a rare and controversial motion that automatically ends debate on a bill. 

“They brought up a bad bill, and forced it down our throats – it was wrong of them. But the decision to kill every bill on the calendar was selfish as well. Communities like mine, who have recently suffered a human disaster, aren’t helped at all by these games,” the senator asserted.  

“For all my reforms that were made casualties of this embarrassment, expect to see them again. I am here to do my job, and I hope my colleagues remember their own priorities.”  

Senator Chappelle-Nadal referred to the following bills that did not pass as a result of the legislative impasse:  

SB 199: Use of Deadly Force – This bill would have updated Missouri’s use of force law, and added clarity for law enforcement officers. SB 199 would have aligned Missouri with the ruling from the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court Case Tennessee v. Garner that clarified when a police officer can use deadly force.  

SB 82: Familial Involvement – This bill would have encouraged long-term care facilities’ promotion of greater familial involvement in the lives of its residents. Examples included organizing conferences between families of residents to share their experiences, and discussing how to provide support to the residents of the facility.

SB 11: Ethics Reform Bill – This bill would have introduced badly needed reforms regarding the ethical behavior of public officials and lobbyists, such as not allowing elected officials to become lobbyists immediately after leaving office.

 HB 152: Human Trafficking, Child Protection – This act would have enhanced protection of children from sexual exploitation by adding child pornography to the crime of sexual trafficking of a child.

HB 458: Anti-Bullying Protections – This bill would have helped address the problem of bullying by requiring schools to establish clear policies on the subject, as well as acknowledging “cyberbullying” on social media as behavior that requires disciplinary action.  

“This is the most dysfunction I have ever witnessed in the 15 years I’ve been in this building,” the senator added. “I have always been willing to reach across the aisle when it came down to it – Missouri citizens depend on us to act like adults. What happened this week reduced the Missouri Legislature to a 5th grade classroom of rowdy children.”