Ethics, tax credit focus of final day of 2010 legislative session

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri's governor gave state lawmakers a mixed review at a news conference immediately after the General Assembly adjourned its 2010 session.

He praised the legislature for mandating health insurance coverage for autism, on agreeing to his college tuition budget freeze proposal and for stronger drunken driving laws.

But he faulted legislators on a "watered-down" ethics bill and for failing to pass a jobs bill.

"It's frustrating that these bills didn't make it past the finish line," said Gov. Jay Nixon.

As the 2010 legislative session progressed, lawmakers proposed reforming the state's tax credit system and reducing government expenditures but neither of those bills materialized by the session's end on Friday.

Tax credits

The Missouri Senate spent the better part of its final day of session on a bill designed to create tax credits aimed at the Ford Motor Company to keep it from shedding jobs at its plant in Claycomo, near Kansas City.

But a group of fiscally conservative Republicans in the Senate stalled a vote, demanding that any business tax break package include scaling back other tax credits that cost the state about $500 million per year. Nixon had supported stronger controls on tax credits, but the idea had been declared dead by House Republican leaders including House Speaker Ron Richard, R-Joplin.

Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville — who presides over the county where the Ford plant is located — said the company currently has no commitments to continue its operations in Claycomo after the end of next year, when it is set to finish a line of sport utility vehicles being produced there.

 

The the tax credit plan for the company was proposed as an amendment to a bill by Sen. Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, which addressed taxes on automatic teller machines.

A contingency of Senate Republicans had opposed plans to increase tax credits incentives for businesses and expand their operations in the state. Some of the same senators filibustered the passage of the bill throughout the day.

After Republicans, and then Democratic senators, held closed-door sessions with the governor, the Senate approved the tax incentive amendment designed for the Ford plant. But that vote appeared to be more for show than substance since Dempsey immediately put the bill itself aside without calling for the final vote necessary to pass the bill out of the Senate.

The amendment was adopted with a 24-9 vote in the last few hours of the session, but that left scant time to pass the full bill and send it to the House for approval.

Sen. Matt Bartle, R- Lee's Summit — who voted against the measure — called the plan the "special treatment" for a specific company.

"When governments make decisions about the allocation of private capital resources, government will inevitably make bad decisions," Bartle said. "We'll buy too many guns and not enough butter."

Ethics Bill

By an overwhelming margin of 153-5, Missouri's House passed an ethics bill approved by the Senate the previous evening.

The bill would ban the transfer of money between political action committees and candidate committees. It would also allow the Ethics Commission to conduct its own investigations if approved by all six members of the commission and make it a crime to lie to the ethics commission, punishable by a year in prison.

Rep. Tim Jones, R-Eureka — the handler of the bill in the House — described the measure as an "aggressive and meaningful ethics proposal."

This is "one of the most impressive ethics packages in this country," Jones said.

But Nixon called it a "missed opportunity" for not including provisions he had recommended such as limiting campaign contributions, banning legislators from getting paid by their colleagues for political consulting and imposing a waiting period before a government official could become a lobbyist.

Rep. Jason Kander, D-Kansas City who had proposed his own ethics bill before the legislative session began, said he supported the bill, but warned members against "breaking their arms" to pat themselves on the back for passing "comprehensive" ethics reform.

"This is the beginning of ethics reform," Kander said, adding that he supported the bill because it created a foundation from which future reform could be built.

The chairman of the House's ethics committee, Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, also lamented the loss of a number of provisions which came out of his committee but did not make the final bill.

"Do not under any circumstances say this is comprehensive ethics reform," Wilson said, who had earlier described the bill as "ethics lite."

House Republican Majority Leader Steven Tilley, R-Perryville, earlier agreed that the final bill did not go far enough, and promised to work on further ethics measures during the 2011 legislative session.

Abortion

Earlier in the day, the House also passed a measure adding new provisions for abortion providers.

Under the new measures, women seeking an abortion would be required to wait 24 hours before receiving an abortion. During that time, doctors would be required to provide women the option of viewing an ultrasound and literature describing health risks associated with abortion.

Rep. Bryan Pratt, R- Blue Springs, urged support for the measure, but lamented the loss of provisions which were contained in an earlier abortion bill he sponsored and that was approved by the House earlier in the session.

Under Pratt's earlier legislation, it would have become a crime to coerce someone into having an abortion. The earlier legislation also would have required doctors to report to prosecutors anyone younger than 18 seeking an abortion.

Pratt said the current bill, even without his earlier provisions, would "decrease the number of abortions in the state of Missouri."

The abortion measure had been substantially weakened in the Senate to avoid a filibuster.

Rep. Beth Low, D-Kansas City, spoke in opposition to the measure and described the bill as a "charade."

"Abortion is going to continue," Low said, "so long as there are unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies."