Running Out of Time
The First Regular Session of the 100th General Assembly of the State of Missouri will end at exactly 6 p.m. on May 17. Like it or not, that’s it. Whatever we don’t get done will have to wait. Many worthwhile and well-reasoned legislative proposals will fail to pass. Supporters of those measures may try again next year, but any progress those bills made this year will be lost. Missouri’s citizen legislators will return to their districts, and again devote their attentions to regular jobs, businesses and activities.
There were more than 500 Senate bills and resolutions introduced during the 2019 session. The House of Representatives produced at least 1,500 separate pieces of legislation. As I draft this column, with one week remaining in the session, fewer than two dozen bills have passed under their original bill numbers. Other legislative proposals have made it to the finish line in the form of amendments. I will not venture to guess the exact number of bills that will be “truly agreed to and finally passed” in the next week, but it’s safe to assume we’ll be discussing dozens, not hundreds of successes during our post-session press conference. My staff and colleagues inform me that is par for the course in any legislative session.
The Missouri Senate is a different place today than it was just a few weeks ago. We may have a few more late night sessions – hopefully, not many more overnight ones – but the pace will be more like a sprint and less a marathon. There’s no time for long-winded discourse. We must get down to business.
Many of the issues that have dominated this session are yet to be settled. The governor’s call for bold new workforce development programs remains unanswered. The surprise prospect of an expanded General Motors plant in Wentzville raises the likelihood that we will be talking about jobs in the coming days, though. The highway and bridge funding plan rests in the hands of the House of Representatives, which has yet to decide whether it will accept the modified version of the governor’s bonding plan that passed in the Senate.
Other issues that seemed destined to take center stage this session barely made an appearance. There was a lot of talk about sports betting three months ago, but I haven’t heard much about that topic lately. The proposed merger of St. Louis City and St. Louis County and the question of whether that required a statewide vote has faded from view, due to factors completely unrelated to discussions inside the State Capitol.
Several contentious topics loom in the background. There are school choice proposals, pro-life bills, a prescription drug monitoring program and private property questions yet to be finalized or abandoned. As a freshman legislator, I’m not prepared to predict how any of those battles will unfold. The one thing that I do know is that with just one week left, there’s much work left to be done.
It’s my honor to serve as your senator for the 16th District. If you have questions or need any assistance, please call my office at 573-751-5713 or log onto my webpage at https://www.senate.mo.gov/brown for more information.