Approval of the state budget highlights the session’s first half.
JEFFERSON CITY — Coming out of the weeklong spring break that marks the traditional halfway point of the legislative session, what hasn’t happened is almost as significant as what has.
The House took almost 50 days before it began regular floor debate, while the Senate endured several late-night filibusters that prevented action on a bill requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls and another banning certain labor agreements on public works projects.
Despite the slower start, the House has approved a $21 billion state budget — the first time it has passed the budget before spring break since 2003. House Speaker Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill, said finishing the budget and avoiding the flare-ups that can mark an election year were the big accomplishments in the first half.
With the entire House and half the Senate seats on the ballot in November, leaders in both chambers set relatively modest priorities for the session — an overhaul of state eminent domain laws, tougher punishments for sex offenders and an assortment of changes to the state Medicaid program.
Some of these goals are further along than others.
Eminent domain has a high profile thanks in part to a special task force and a pledge by Gov. Matt Blunt to take significant steps to protect landowners after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to allow local governments to give private property to other private entities for economic development.
Since Blunt endorsed the task force’s recommendations last year, eminent domain has surfaced only twice — once in a committee hearing and a
second time during House floor debate, when lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected an amendment that would have barred special tax breaks for projects that use eminent domain to seize private property.
Senate Majority Leader Charlie Shields said the balance between protecting private property and allowing local governments to grow is delicate, prompting ongoing discussions.
“It isn’t an issue that hasn’t been touched,” he said.
The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled its second hearing on the issue this week.
Regarding Medicaid, the House and Senate have taken divergent paths in following up on changes approved last year by Blunt and the Republican-led Legislature that reduced or eliminated coverage for hundreds of thousands of people.
The House voted to reinstate a trimmed-down version of the Medical Assistance for Workers with Disabilities program, which allows certain disabled people to keep Medicaid coverage who otherwise would make too much money to be eligible. The program was eliminated with last year’s changes.
The Senate, meanwhile, has focused on Medicaid fraud, after media accounts raising questions about medical providers overbilling the state, and crafting a program to replace Medicaid once it sunsets in 2008.
Shields, R-St. Joseph, said Senate approval for a special fund to improve medical technology, such as converting medical history records into electronic form, is a good start.
Democratic leaders say they have addressed some issues by joining forces with Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Maida Coleman said senators in both parties made cracking down on sex offenders a priority. Coleman, D-St. Louis, pointed out a bill the Senate passed that increases the minimum prison sentences for certain sex offenses and requires lifetime supervision and electronic monitoring of more sex offenders.
Rep. Paul LeVota, a House Democratic leader from Independence, said the minority contributed to a ban on funeral protests, restoration of the Medicaid program for the disabled and gained Republican leaders’ support for a Democrat proposal to exempt Missouri-made vehicles from sales taxes.
Lawmakers return to the Capitol on Monday to finish their work. The session ends May 12.