Local legislators prepare, share goals for upcoming legislative session

Missouri's 103rd General Assembly session begins Wednesday, Jan. 8, with the swearing-in of legislators.

District 148 Rep. David Dolan will be sworn into office for the first time, while District 27 Sen. Jamie Burger — replacing Holly Thompson Rehder who fell short in her bid for lieutenant governor — will be sworn into the opposite chamber for the first time after serving four years in Dolan's role.

Burger said his broader goals for this year's session is to help pass legislation through the Senate that would "benefit all Missourians" such as lowering taxes, controlling crime, improving police forces and getting the "bad elements off the streets". In addition, he said he will support Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe's initiative to attempt to eliminate the state income tax.

Pre-filing for the upcoming session began Dec. 1. Burger has pre-filed 12 bills as of New Year's Eve, including Senate Bill 82 which would add provisions regarding the state's water supply being exported to western states, one of his top priorities in his inaugural year as a senator.

"There's a western states alliance that is looking for water. (Missouri is) one of the last states going towards the West that has an ample supply of water, and we want to make sure we maintain that," Burger said. "We need to create a regulation to protect our water rights in Missouri, so we don't have the western states going into our aquifers underground and pumping our water to the west."

In addition to Burger's pre-filing, District 146 Rep. Barry Hovis has pre-filed nine bills, one of which has been withdrawn, while District 147 Rep. John Voss has introduced two and Dolan has pre-filed one. Dolan's bill aims to modify provisions relating to the punishment of court reporters who attempt to receive payment for court reporting without being licensed or file false information to try to obtain a license. Dolan was unavailable to comment before publication of this article.

Hovis, who hopes to be re-appointed to his role as chairperson of the state's Pensions Committee, has two bills pre-filed pertaining to law enforcement retirement — House Bills 147 and 558. In addition, Hovis has filed a "right to repair" bill that he said "broadens the consumer protection laws for farming and agricultural equipment" as well as construction equipment.

Another piece of legislation on Hovis' radar is known as the "truth in sentencing" bill, which would require multi-time offenders — who haven't committed what Hovis calls "serious felonies" such as murder, rape and robbery, which already have minimum sentencing — to serve a minimum sentence for each subsequent offense. Hovis said he has plans to meet with Kehoe regarding the legislation soon.

"People believe in second chances, as do I," Hovis said. "The issue is that people that were getting arrested a second time for maybe the same crime ... were not even going to prison. On the second time, they were going and probably getting shock time in a county jail, 30 to 60 days, and they would renew their probation. But on the third time, when they got arrested and they would go to prison, the Department of Corrections would treat them as a first-time offender and they're only serving one month for every year given. So if they got a third-time felony for burglary in the second and they got a five-year sentence out of that, they would be out in about six months.

"I told people, 'That is stupid', so we're changing the law. We're taking out that they cannot discount prior felonies."

Voss said his two pre-filed bills would contribute to "good governance". One would add an additional 32nd Judicial Circuit judge, while the other would change provisions for design-build contracts. One of his main focuses continues to be reforming coroner qualifications, which he said he plans to pre-file a bill for before the session begins.

"These families are usually at their most vulnerable, emotionally when this interaction (with a coroner) has to occur," Voss said. "We need to make sure that the people that we elect are competent and qualified to do those jobs, and we know they're going to perform them in a way that makes us all very, very proud. I don't think the qualifications that I'm asking for are going to be unattainable. I think they're very achievable by people that truly want to serve in the office and coroner, and we just need to put them in our statutes."

Voss, who served on the Budget Committee during the 102nd General Assembly and hopes to do so again during the 103rd, also highlighted his intent to "make sure that Southeast Missouri is represented in our budget", including funding for public and higher education, expanding transportation and education savings account (ESA) opportunities for children who attend private schools, supporting Southeast Missouri State University and improving availability and affordability of day care and access to health care in rural parts of the state.

"Education is a golden ticket to the American dream," Voss said. "When you are more educated about how you make choices, I think you'll make wiser choices, and it's incumbent upon us as leaders in our community and leaders in our state to make sure that we are enabling our future citizens, our future generations, to make wise choices. So we have to continue to invest in education."

Last year's General Assembly got off to a rocky start for the Republican Party as members of the "Freedom Caucus" disrupted the early portion of the session by stalling Senate legislation from advancing, including passing the state's budget, unless an immediate vote was held on a bill to reform the state's initiative petition (IP) process through a then-record 41-hour filibuster. All three local legislators interviewed are hopeful the infighting can be minimized in 2025.

"I think everybody is more united, maybe than what they have been in the past years," Burger said. "I think we have some people there with some really, really good common sense. You're always going to have different factions of any party, more right or more left than others. I think everyone's committed to make the Senate a working body like it should have been in the past, and hopefully will be in 2025."

IP reform continues to be a hot-button issue in the state. Republican legislators disagree with the state's current law that requires a certified petition to receive 50% plus one of the votes to be enshrined into the state constitution. Last year, the IP reform died at the end of the session in the Senate after Democrats broke the Republicans' record with a 50-hour-long filibuster after the House of Representatives added back provisions that had allowed it to pass the Senate.

Voss, in particular, said he looks at the state constitution as the "bedrock of how our government works" and believes the current iteration is already "too big" and "contains too many detailed items."

"It should be more difficult to change our constitution than, perhaps, changing our statutes," Voss said. "We are changing our constitution and a lot of that is being driven by outside-of-Missouri interests that also happen to be well capitalized, so I support us raising the threshold on what percentage it takes to change our constitution."

To effectively accomplish their goals, local legislators will need to work across the aisle with Democrats to pass legislation, which is something Hovis, Voss and Burger each welcome.

"I think good ideas don't just come from one party or the other, good ideas come from people. They don't necessarily come from legislatures," Burger said. "They come from people that have these problems with certain issues or certain laws that we have in effect today, and I think as Republicans and Democrats come together as we convene in Jeff City, I think those conversations are ongoing. Anybody that has a good idea, I always welcome that in my office, whether they are Republican or Democrat, as long as it benefits Missourians."