LEGISLATIVE REPORT: BUSY TIME FOR LAWMAKERS AS HOUSE AND SENATE HAND EACH OTHER BILLS

It's a busy time at the state capitol with House and Senate bills clearing their originating bodies and moving for final consideration. We've sent nearly 200 bills from the House of Representatives to the Senate and they've passed about 140 bills on to us. I will summarize some of the bills we worked on last week.

House Bill 1317 would increase the penalty for not carrying a motor vehicle responsibility insurance identification card at all times, as required. About 5 million people hold Missouri licenses. Any owner who operates or authorizes operation of a vehicle where the driver has no insurance would be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor. Additional penalties would be levied against uninsured drivers. This bill moves to the Senate.

We have had extensive debate to change child support laws, but passage of a significant bill is doubtful.

After fielding 22 amendments, the comprehensive child support House Bill 972 was laid aside. However, House Bill 1836 that would change child support law to comply with federal law is moving ahead (now in the Senate).

The plan makes retirement benefits of certain legal officers subject to garnishment. It allows the Division of Child Support to order a person to make child support payments directly to a caretaker or state agency when the person entitled to the support payments has relinquished physical custody of the child to such entities.

House Bill 1381 would put two Missouri counties in a pilot program of the U.S. Department of Defense allowing overseas military workers to cast their ballots over the Internet, a worldwide computer web.

This came up because some feared overseas ballots did not always arrive in time to be counted. The debate is the importance of the availability to vote versus the integrity of the vote cast.

I want everyone to be able to vote, but I feel at times it is impossible to secure the integrity of a vote by computer. (Our own computer system on the Floor failed during debate.)

One person suggested it would be more secure, and probably cheaper, to simply pay overnight mailing charges for all overseas ballots!

The House Education Committee approved Senate Bill 781 last week and the bill will probably be debated on the House Floor sometime next week. When the bill came to the House from the Senate, it contained authorization to establish charter schools in St. Louis and Kansas City.

The House Education Committee removed that authority. The bill makes changes to the Foundation Formula to ensure Kansas City and St. Louis continue to receive millions of state tax dollars at the expense of the other 523 school districts in Missouri.

These two districts have already consumed more than $3 billion tax dollars over the past 20 years with dismal educational results.

The bill also creates a special overlay district for the purpose of, yet again, raising property taxes by 85 cents. Hence, the name "overlay" because this new tax would be overlaid on top of existing property taxes.

The bill also throws out the current elected school board in St. Louis and authorized the governor to appoint a new special three-member school board. The last paragraph in the bill says that the bill's provisions are terminated if the St. Louis court case is not settled by the end of this year.

With all the bill's flaws and so little consensus it does not make a lot of sense to ram this bill through in the last weeks of session. The worst case scenario is that the bill adds insult to injury -- the best case scenario is the bill is much ado about nothing. Gov. Carnahan and those who are leading on this issue are leading the public astray by advocating the position that Senate Bill 781 will end desegregation in Missouri.

David Schwab is a state representative from the 157th district