Missouri Editorial Board Criticizes Legislature
| A Missouri resident who might wander into the
state Capitol this week would get a pretty good sense of the
priorities of the state Legislature, which enacts laws that affect
our daily lives. It's an important week: The first bills tapped by Republican leaders make their way to the floor. Other priorities get quick hearings, with bills put on the "fast track" to send a message that might steal a headline from Gov. Jay Nixon's annual state of the state speech, which he gave Tuesday. Such a person, wanting to see progress made on jobs or education or roads or perhaps new rules to save dying children in unregulated day cares, would be disappointed. They might even be spitting mad. That describes the feelings of Republican Sen. Jason Crowell of Cape Girardeau toward his colleagues as they tried to rush through a bill favored by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce that would make it harder for workers to be compensated fairly for workplace injuries. The bill looked nothing like one senators passed the previous session after a full year of intense debate and behind-the-scenes negotiating. Instead, it mirrored what the chamber wanted, with little regard for workers who might get sick from certain occupational diseases and find themselves with nothing to show for it. The bill, Mr. Crowell said, 'spits" at the tradition of the Senate. Indeed, if what is going on at the state Capitol this week is any indication, the Missouri Legislature is all but abandoning any serious work in this election year. In the House, leaders rushed a bill to the floor that would limit the ability of the state to raise revenue when the economy improves, rather than doing anything to counter the ongoing budget crisis. In the Senate, the first bill slated for serious debate would make it easier to discriminate against workers. Businesses violating the civil rights of their employees would avoid costly lawsuits. In hearings this week, lawmakers heard bills that would reduce workers' wages and criminalize undocumented immigrants, importing unconstitutional bills from Arizona and Alabama to the Show-Me State. A hearing on a very important topic, the future of Interstate 70, highlighted the state's inability to embrace its responsibility to fund transportation, instead looking to tolls as the only solution worth discussing. Meanwhile, Mr. Nixon, a Democrat, once again embraced Missouri's cost-cutting race to the bottom, proposing a budget that cuts higher education by 12 percent while repackaging the same tired, old business incentive handouts that have done little to rebuild the state's economy. Yes, Mr. Nixon, Missourians are granite-strong, and we will rebound from natural disasters. But as the state continues to cement its status as one in which there is no hope that our educational system will ever be funded adequately, or even reach the middle of the nation's rankings, where is the countervailing message to the Republicans' attempts to destroy the social contract that says we care for our fellow man and that we should build a better future for the next generation than the one we have? Such hope is hard to find while walking the stately marble floors of the Missouri Capitol this week. Neither the governor nor the Legislature is willing to commit to big ideas that might actually make Missouri a better place to live. Be scared, Missourians. Be very, very scared. |
posted by Branson Missouri at 6:19 AM
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