MISSOURI WATCH: OUR STATE'S PUBLIC SERVANTS ARE ON THE ROAD AGAIN

No, dear reader, Willie Nelson did not write the Official Anthem of the Missouri General (Getaway Assembly. Willie's classic ditty, "On the Road Again," which even the tone-deaf among us can sing, is merely an apt description of how some of the 197 members of the General Assembly spend their off-session moments. On the road. Again. And again. And again.

Reading the travel expense reports, required by law before lawmakers can be reimbursed for their "out-of-pocket" and "out-of-purse" expenses, is a sheer delight. It restores anyone's faith in the ancient art of Taking Advantage of a Good Thing, not to mention the age-old tradition of Sticking It to the Taxpayers.

What makes the exercise of pouring through scores of pork-laden travel expense reports so rewarding is that the taxpayer's faith in creativity among public officials is restored and revitalized. Watching the General Assembly in action is enough to kill one's belief that the men and women we send to Jefferson City for four and one-half dismal months every year are in the least bit imaginative. Looking down from the gallery, the taxpayer is convinced there's precious little intelligent life on the Planet Politic. Members drone on and on, discussing subjects they seem to know little about, and then execute various rules of order that either create another useless, unwanted law or doom to oblivion what may be the best idea of the century.

When the General Assembly at last adjourns in mid-May, members return home, saying they are delighted to return to civilization, the comfort of their hometown and the loving embrace of their families. This lasts anywhere from two to six weeks, and then members begin looking around for an excuse to chuck it all and hit the road. Again. This can be accomplished in one of several ways, all of them by now legal if sometimes politically incorrect.

The best avenue for traveling is to get the Speaker of the House or the president pro tem of the Senate to name the legislator to an interim committee. This is not only an official body of the state but it carries with it the further enhancement of all-expenses-paid. The only difficulty with this otherwise acceptable excuse is that the member is usually consigned to some specific task, which sometimes leads to some small, remote village where local experts present perfectly absurd reasons for sending additional millions of taxpayer coins to the local township. Of course there's always the outside chance that the interim committee will have an opportunity to study Missouri's wine growing industry or the chance to investigate Mafia infiltration in the state's nightclubs. The choice interim assignments include the study of our state's fledgling gambling industry or the possibility of resuming pari-mutual horse racing and how the sport is working in other states. Interim committees have also been known to investigate the profusion of luxury vacation spas, the need to regulate landscape engineers employed to care for golf courses and the influx of professional showgirls in Branson.

One St. Louis lawmaker was able to convince the powers-that-be that her presence was needed at the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held this year in China. Her report will no doubt lead to legislation on how Missouri can convince 90-year Chinese leaders to lift centuries-old oppression of their female population, now estimated to be 680 million. On the other hand, if Missouri can't quite bring unfettered freedom to the female population of China, perhaps the lawmaker picked up some new recipes for Chinese food that she will share with us in the next edition of the Blue Book.

I'll admit this all-expense-paid trip was unusually creative, but such inspiration is not wasted on a single lawmaker. Another member took along his Capitol secretary, who served as his chauffeur, driving a new Lincoln Town Car up and down the streets of the vacation city where a most vital conference was being held on urban transit and campaign finance. Frankly, I believe Missouri needs more of both. If we had more rapid transit, we'd have fewer elected officials renting luxury cars driven by their secretaries, and if we had campaign finance reform we would have fewer excessively opulent legislators.

We taxpayers should demand that the people we elect to the Getaway Assembly use their creativity to find solutions to problems that are really meaningful. Like how oppressed women could help Mizzou's football program or if renting Lincoln Town Cars would be cheaper than building urban transit systems.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.