| On the Floor
On Monday, April 17, the Missouri Senate stood adjourned in observance of the Easter holiday. Session resumed on Tuesday, April 18, and House Committee Bill 3 was brought to the floor. This bill would eliminate the renter’s portion of the Missouri Property Tax Credit, taking away crucial funds for senior citizens and people with disabilities. “About 100,000 Missourians — people who are low-income, seniors or disabled — find relief in this tax credit,” said Senator Nasheed. “One would think that members of a party that supposedly wants more money in the hands of hardworking citizens instead of in the state’s treasury would be against such a repeal of a tax credit. But we need not be surprised by the actions of a Republican-controlled Legislature that seems to undermine legislative attempts to aid the people of Missouri that need the most help.” Discussion went long into the early morning of Wednesday and the bill was ultimately laid over. Hoping to protect the rights of their constituents, Senator Nasheed and her fellow colleagues fought long and hard into the night. During Wednesday afternoon, the topic of tort reform was brought to the floor. The purpose of House Bill 339 and House Bill 714 is to stop, in a particular case, a plaintiff’s attorney and the defendant from making a deal against the defendant’s insurance company. Bills and Committees Senate Bill 217 – On Tuesday, April 18, the House General Laws Committee heard SB 217. If passed, the bill would include donations to soup kitchens or homeless shelters to the current tax credit for donations to food pantries. Appropriations The Senate Appropriations Committee met this week and continued to discuss House appropriations bills. One of the more controversial topics, both in committee and on the floor, involved managed care. On May 1, companies are expected to provide managed care to hundreds of thousands of low-income Missourians. Despite this needed coverage, a member of the majority party has threatened to filibuster a budget that will ensure health care for Missourians who need it. On the Senate floor, Sen. Nasheed seemed baffled that one of her colleagues would stop the business of the Senate — cause chaos — over opposition to the citizens obtained health care coverage. As mentioned in last week’s update, Senator Nasheed has successfully secured $3.125 million in the 2018 Fiscal Year budget for the city of St. Louis, albeit he budget still has to receive approval from both chambers. Among the money secured for St. Louis is funding for truancy reform and proceedings, Harris-Stowe State University, University of Missouri-St. Louis and a Workforce Development Apprenticeship program. In addition, Sen. Nasheed was very instrumental in securing $2.5 million for Lincoln University’s land grant match. “There are two historically black universities in our state. We should do all we can to assist them, as we do with every other institution of higher learning. My goal is to acquire the funding they need to fully operate.” Sen. Nasheed said. “There are numerous alums from Lincoln University and current students who are from the city of St. Louis. I want to ensure them a proper education provided by both Harris-Stowe State University and Lincoln University of Missouri. I will not stop fighting until we have done just that for our children,” stated Senator Nasheed. Other News Auditor issues subpoena for revenue department records The state auditor issued a subpoena on April 19, to the Missouri Department of Revenue to force it to turn over information concerning whether the department is complying with a state law requiring tax refunds to be issued within 45 days after a tax return is filed. The state auditor said it is the first time since she took office two years ago that she has needed to invoke her subpoena power as a response to a state agency’s refusal to comply with an information request. “If the new administration intends to operate behind a wall of secrecy, I will use the full authority of my office to ensure transparency and accountability when taxpayer dollars are involved,” the state auditor said in a news release. Until 2015, state law allowed 90 days for the Revenue Department to issue tax refunds, although most refunds typically were sent out within weeks. However, Republican lawmakers felt the administration of the last Democratic governor was taking more time than necessary to issue refunds. Thus, they passed legislation, which the governor signed into law, cutting the time for issuing refunds in half. The Associated Press reported that requests for comment from the current governor’s office and the Revenue Department went unanswered. The state auditor, a Democratic, has given the department until April 28 to comply with the law. If it does not, she will ask that the courts enforce the subpoena. House proposes study of transportation funding One week after defeating a proposal to increase the state’s fuel tax for the first time in more than two decades, the House of Representatives on April 18, voted 96-36 in favor of a resolution to establish a 23-member task force to study proposals for increasing transportation funding. The resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 47, now advances to the Senate for further consideration. Missouri’s 17-cent-per-gallon fuel tax has been in place since 1996, when the final 2 cents of a phased-in 6-cent increase that lawmakers approved in 1992 took effect. Since that time, various panels and commissions have been created to recommend a long-term transportation funding solution, with little follow through by the General Assembly. The Missouri Department of Transportation’s annual construction budget has plummeted by more than $1 billion in recent years as a result of bond payments. The department has been forced to shift a sizable portion of its revenue to paying off bonds it sold in the early 2000s to finance a short-term construction boom. In the next few years, MoDOT anticipates that it will not have sufficient revenue to fully maintain Missouri’s 34,000-mile state highway system. Federal judge blocks Missouri’s abortion restrictions U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs issued an injunction on April 19, blocking Missouri from enforcing two state laws imposing tight restrictions on the operation of abortion clinics. In doing so, Judge Sachs said the Missouri restrictions violate a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down similar Texas laws. One of the Missouri laws the judge targeted requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, while the other mandates that abortion doctors have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. While proponents claim such laws are necessary to protect women’s health, critics have long claimed they are thinly veiled efforts to close abortion clinics by imposing burdensome and unnecessary regulations on them. In its decision last year in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court seemed to agree with these critics, noting that the Texas laws, like Missouri’s, only applied to abortion clinics and not facilities that provide other outpatient surgical services. Missouri’s Attorney General, a Republican, plans to appeal Sachs’ ruling. On the same day the decision came down, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives granted first-round approval to legislation that would impose a new set of abortion restrictions. That measure is House Bill 194. |