Hanaway gets high marks, but serious issues remain

KENNETT, Mo. -- It's been 49 years since a Republican served as speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives, and if one is to believe the claims of the legislative session just ended, the 2003 term was not only headed by a Republican but a woman with extraordinary powers of persuasion and leadership.

Indeed, much of the progress the legislative branch has achieved during the past five months has been placed at the doorstep of state Rep. Catherine Hanaway, a 39-year-old lawyer from the St. Louis suburb of Warson Woods who was first elected to office five years ago.

Speaker Hanaway's success in redirecting the course of new legislation in the state is generally viewed as remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least being that neither legislative chamber in Jefferson City has ever been headed by a woman, with perhaps the more important explanation being her style of leadership, which has taken advantage of the Republican control of the House after a half-century of electoral drought.

While many of the Hanaway-inspired changes border more or less on common-sense decisions, the House speaker has not neglected the traditional priorities of her political party, while welcoming and accommodating many of the high-level changes sought by the GOP since the Nixon era and embracing many of the concepts advanced by our incumbent George W. Bush. Such issues as abortion, gun control, school curriculum control and alleged tax equality have all received a welcome from the new legislative leadership in both the House and Senate.

It has been the obvious solution favored by Speaker Hanaway to maintain a tight lid on existing tax structures, eschewing higher levies to meet some of the basic needs of a tax-strapped state government. It has been these decisions that have led to funding shortages in such critical areas as local school aid, programs to aid the poor, full participation in federal relief projects and a shrinking of existing assistance programs in such fields as the environment.

Hanaway and her strong leadership team have given full backing to efforts to correct some of the glaring loopholes that exist in today's nursing home regulations, and thanks to this support efforts to bring about needed changes should be forthcoming. Reform should also be a part of future improvements in foster care programs.

Unfortunately, much of the financing requested to maintain other existing programs has not been available due to falling national and state economies, reflected by declining tax collections in both venues. Unfortunate, too, has been a reversal of relatively steady costs in such vital fields as medical care for the elderly, drug and substance abuse programs and maintaining an acceptable level of care and treatment for the mentally ill and mentally retarded. In all these fields, as well as some seldom if ever noted during the legislative session just ended, there was little progress in meeting needs.

Jefferson City has yet to deal with yet another challenge that faces other state governments around the country: The shocking increase in prescription costs, a burden that falls proportionately greater on low-income and poor families. America is indeed leaving these families behind as they attempt to deal, often unsuccessfully, with high prescription costs for their families. One state House member recently castigated the poor for their lack of fiscal planning to meet the cost of needed prescriptions, noting "There isn't enough money in Jefferson City to cover these charges" and then cited estimated outlays that exceeded the amount of embezzled money at Enron. It's obvious there is an information gap in the Missouri Capitol needing firm resolution by the office of the House Speaker.

Background stories on the ascension of leadership by the St. Louis County Republican border on the breathless. One observer likened her new rules to a "culture change" in the Missouri House, and while we have great respect for Hanaway's well-publicized abilities, we seriously question its presence in the dog-eat-dog environment of crafting state legislation.

Seeking to minimize charges of cynicism, an appropriate observation would seem to be that anyone who can de-emphasize corporate greed, political cronyism and the pursuit of political power has received unique, earthly and heavenly powers that merit wider distribution than Cole County.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.