LEGISLATURE MUST CONTROL PURSE STRINGS

Editor's note: Following last week's decision by the Missouri Supreme Court that all of the money from the tobacco settlement must go to the state, state Sen. Wayne Goode sent the following letter to state Sen. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau and others.

There are different points of view among senators as to the use of the proceeds from the tobacco settlement.

Some would argue that the money should be refunded or at least subject to the Hancock lid and be refunded if that lid is exceeded.

Others would use it for a wide variety of purposes.

And some, myself included, would target health care-related expenditures.

Some senators would argue that the money should be expended under our existing constitutional authority to establish our priorities through the appropriations process, while others may prefer to designate the purposes by statute.

However, I believe that few, if any, senators believe the allocation of tobacco-settlement funds should be locked in the Constitution.

The purpose of this letter is to make you aware that there is a group of special interests preparing to circulate an initiative petition which would usurp our constitutional responsibility to establish state policy and priorities through our constitutional authority to appropriate revenue and write the budget.

Regardless of our different opinions on how to utilize these funds, I don't believe any senator wants to see our policy-making and appropriation authority diminished in this manner. This is nothing less than a blatant attack on the legislative branch of government.

While highway and conservation money has long been locked in the Constitution, the detail to which the tobacco-settlement funds would be controlled in the Constitution is unprecedented.

I hope you will join me in letting those, I am sure, well-meaning but ill-advised people behind the initiative petition know that this attempted power grab is unacceptable. If allowed, the precedent established by such an initiative petition would likely set the stage for future attacks on the legislative branch.

If you believe I am wrong or needlessly concerned and that the initiative petition is a good idea, I would like to have your thoughts on the matter.

Wayne Goode of Normandy, Mo., is chairman of the Missouri Senate's Appropriations Committee.