TAKING IN THE COLOR

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State lawmakers face primaries

The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY -- The first step toward control of the Missouri Legislature was taken Tuesday, as voters settled primary challenges to three state senators and 47 representatives.

Voters were also selecting party nominees for 15 House seats in which there was no incumbent.

In south-central Missouri, powerful Senate Appropriations Chairman Mike Lybyer of Huggins faced a Democratic primary challenge from Bob Funk of Rolla, a retired union firefighter from St. Louis.

In St. Louis County, freshman Sen. Betty Sims' deciding vote against overriding the governor's veto of a ban on a type of late-term abortion helped draw retired executive John Lewis into the Republican primary.

Another GOP primary was in southwest Missouri, where Sen. Marvin Singleton of Seneca faced former Joplin Mayor Ron Richard.

In Jefferson County, one legislative career was fading as another generation tried to come to the statehouse. Ryan Glennon McKenna of Barnhart was competing in the Democratic primary for House District 102 against Byron Snider of Imperial. McKenna is the son of retiring Senate President Pro Tem Bill McKenna, D-Barnhart.

In west-central Missouri, there was a District 26 Democratic rematch between freshman Rep. Jim Seigfried of Marshall and the veteran lawmaker he unseated two years ago, Tom Marshall of Marshall.

And in the most crowded statehouse primary election, seven Republicans and two Democrats competed for nominations to seek the District 115 seat held by retiring Rep. Don Steen, R-Eldon.

Democrats have controlled the Missouri House for four decades, and entered the primaries with an 86-75 majority, plus one vacant seat formerly held by a Republican who died in office.

The Senate is also under long-time Democratic control, 19-15. Half of the 34 Senate seats are on the ballot this year, and all 163 House seats are to be filled by voters.

The Democratic numbers have gotten tighter, after years of comfortable majorities. It takes 82 votes to control the House, 18 votes in the Senate. Republicans have long considered a House takeover and perhaps seizure of the Senate as key targets in 1998.

The Lybyer-Funk contest was triggered by Lybyer's vote against a bill to legalize collective bargaining for public employees. Funk drew most of his funding and support from labor groups. But his challenge hit a bump just before the election with Funk's acknowledgement of a 1992 guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of receiving a stolen all-terrain vehicle.

In the Sims-Lewis primary, the incumbent caused outrage among anti-abortion voters when she helped sustain Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan's veto of a bill making in a felony to perform the procedure that critics call partial-birth abortion. Sims said she was concerned that the bill had no exception to protect the mother's health.

Many veteran lawmakers, such as Lybyer, who first came to the statehouse 20 years ago, were making their last legislative campaigns. That's because of voter-approved term limits that for many incumbents marked the end of a political era.

This year's retiring members included Rep. Gene Copeland, the longest-serving House member. The Democrat from New Madrid was first elected to his seat on the 1960 ticket headed by John F. Kennedy.