Representative Dottie Bailey (R-Eureka) is not pursuing another term in the Missouri House. Before the close of business on her last regular session in the chamber, she spoke to her colleagues and House staff.
“Being a voice for liberty, America, and all that she stands for has been my pure joy, greatest pleasure, and one of the best honors in my lifetime.”
The Missouri House has again voted to renounce the 1852 decision by the Missouri Supreme Court that denied Scott and his family their freedom.
Scott had argued that he, his wife, and his two children were free because they had lived in the state of Illinois, where slavery was not legal. The Missouri Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling and said they were still slaves. The case preceded another suit in which the U.S. Supreme Court also found against Scott and his family.
Representatives Raychel Proudie (D-Ferguson) and Dottie Bailey (R-Eureka) both filed resolutions to denounce that decision.
Proudie has often spoken about how for many reasons it is significant for her to be a state representative, including that she is an African American woman and the ancestor of enslaved people.
“I can’t believe I’m standing here at the mic. I can’t believe I have an office key that unlocks this door. Every day I can’t believe it. I am the descendant of slaves, ya’ll. I can’t believe I’m standing here,” said Proudie. “We say that we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams. I don’t even think that Dred Scott could have conceptualized it because he tried and they told him, ‘No.’”
Bailey said she had followed versions of this measure in previous years, including in 2018 when House Concurrent Resolution 86 was passed by the House.
“The federal government, Amendments 13, 14, and 15 came out of that and so that has kind of been recompense and healing for that, but the State of Missouri has never done anything,” said Bailey. “This is a gesture, yes, but it’s monumental.”
Representative Rasheen Aldridge Jr. (D-St. Louis) said the amendment in the House and its counterpart in the Senate have moved forward on the strength of lawmakers from different parties and ethnic backgrounds coming together.
“We don’t agree on a lot of stuff up here but I think this sends a strong message from us to the state to let them know that we all really, really try to make sure we do what’s right and rewrite some of the wrongs and not be afraid to talk about it,” said Aldridge. “We have some scary things in our history and we must talk about it. We must address it and we must rewrite it and do it the correct way.”
The legislation was written with the help of descendants of Scott. The House voted 152-0 to send it to the Senate.
The Missouri House has voted to tell schools in the state to enact guidelines on when students may be secluded or restrained, and to require that when it happens, the student’s parents or guardians must be notified. The bipartisan effort began when practices that one lawmaker called “archaic” came to light.
The chamber approved 149-1 House Bill 387 filed by Representative Dottie Bailey (R-Eureka). It would require schools to have policies in place for when a student can be placed in seclusion or restrained, and that those things only happen when there is imminent danger of harm to the student’s self or others.
In addition to the notification requirement the bill also includes protections for those who report violations of that policy.
“Unfortunately … some of these school districts have used seclusion and restraint for discipline and time outs and punishment. So imagine a child that already has problems interpreting the world – a kiddo with autism – then being punished for that non-interpretation and disciplined, and thrown into a box,” said Bailey. “Not only are these archaic … and need to be done away with for punishment, there are many, many other alternative therapies that have been used, that have been proven to be adequate and without hurting the child and hurting their growth and not traumatizing them further.”
Representative Ian Mackey (D-St. Louis) brought the issue to the legislature after seeing reporting on the practices in some schools. He and Bailey worked to bring the legislation forward. He said most schools in Missouri haven’t been doing anything wrong and won’t have to change any practices because of this bill.
Similar legislation passed out of the House last year and was approved by a Senate committee before COVID interrupted the normal business of the 2020 session.
Bailey said it was important to add to this year’s bill the protection for those who bring to light misuses of restraints and seclusion. She said teachers who brought evidence of violations to a House committee last year faced retaliation.
“We saw urine-filled, stained rooms. We saw drab, horrible things, and then you hear from the teachers telling this story, and I give those teachers so much credit because they took their own careers in their hands because they care about these kids,” said Bailey. “I’ve kept in touch with a couple of them and yes, retaliation has occurred.”
Hazelwood representative Paula Brown (D), a retired school teacher, said she saw retaliation against teachers who spoke out against seclusion.
“I, for one, was not retaliated against when I reported to the school administration that a kid was locked in a dark closet but I do know that it does happen, and I was probably only not retaliated against because I happened to be president of the teachers’ union at the time,” said Brown. “I’m urging the body to support this bill. It is a wonderful bill and it will protect children, and it will protect teachers.”
HB 387 also adds a prohibition to “prone restraint,” not seen in last year’s legislation.
The bill now goes to the Senate.
Earlier stories:
VIDEO: Parent speaks about bipartisan legislation on restraint and seclusion of students
House to consider restrictions on student restraint/seclusion in Missouri public schools
A bipartisan effort to regulate when students can be restrained or isolated in Missouri schools is off to a quick start in the 2020 legislative session.
Representatives Dottie Bailey (R-Eureka) and Ian Mackey (D-St. Louis) have filed identical bills that would ban the use of seclusion or restraint except when students, teachers, or staff face safety concerns. House Bills 1568 (Bailey) and 1569 (Mackey) would also require that when such measures are used, all parties involved except students write a report on the incident, and require that parents or guardians be notified that the measures were applied to their student.
Mackey first filed the legislation last year, after media reports brought to light the use of those measures in Missouri. He said in the last year he has seen “tiny, empty closets built and designed solely for the purpose of isolating small children,” in Missouri schools.
“If a teacher was notified on Wednesday morning by a child that that child’s parent had locked them in a closet and would not let them out, what would that teacher do? I can tell you as somebody who spent nearly 8 years in the classroom teaching, myself, as a mandated reporter I would make an initial call to the [child abuse and neglect hotline],” said Mackey. “Yet in our schools right now in this state, that’s happening day in and day out.”
House Bill 1568 will be heard Tuesday morning by the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education. This afternoon, Mackey and Bailey spoke to the media joined by parents who say their children have been restrained or secluded in an unacceptable manner.
They also displayed pictures of the some of the isolation rooms they have seen in Missouri schools, including one in the school that Shawan Daniels said her son was put in, in a Columbia school.
Daniels said she learned that her son had been restrained about three hours after the incident.
The legislation would require districts to enact policies limiting the use of restraints and isolation, but does not propose penalties for violating those limitations. Both representatives say they are open to adding language to create penalties.
“It’s an open conversation,” said Mackey. “It’s reasonable to say that there would be a way for [the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] to review, to have a disciplinary system in place for reports that are made about teachers who misuse these rooms. [Teaching is] a licensed profession. Most licensed professions have disciplinary measures that at the greatest extent would cause your license to be either suspended or put on probation, or revoked. I think that’s something we should look at,” said Mackey.
He said Illinois has had the same language he filed last year in its laws for 20 years but it was not being followed.
The lawmakers are enthused that this legislation is moving quickly in the first days of the legislative session that began last week. They said it shows House leadership considers this an important issue.
“I think it’s awesome. I think it’s great,” said Bailey. “We hope it’s fast-tracked … kids and safety isn’t a bipartisan issue. It’s just a human issue. I couldn’t sleep at night if I heard this [when it was proposed last year] and I didn’t do anything about it, and I think Ian feels the same, so I’m thrilled to death to work with him … and to start out the session like this is great.”
The committee could vote on the legislation any time after the hearing is held on it. Two House Committees approved Mackey’s proposal last year.
Earlier story: House to consider restrictions on student restraint/seclusion in Missouri public schools
The Missouri House will consider limitations on when the state’s public schools can restrain students or put them in seclusion.
Two bills were prefiled for the session that begins next month, one by Representative Dottie Bailey (R-Eureka) and one by Representative Ian Mackey (D-St. Louis). Missouri is one of 11 states that has no protective laws for students with disabilities. It also has no law protecting against seclusion or restraint.
Bailey, who will be the vice-chair of the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education, said she was disturbed by the stories she heard when Mackey presented his legislation during the 2019 session.
Bailey said she was surprised to learn how restraint and seclusion were being applied.
“It’s very archaic or medieval, whatever words you want to use,” said Bailey.
Mackey said advocates brought the issue to him and when he researched it, the stories he read were alarming, and many of them come from Missouri.
“I began to research it and quickly found story after story after story of children who had been locked in these rooms, these closets, without their parents knowing, for extended periods of time, for multiple days, in every part of our state,” said Mackey. “It immediately became clear to me that it was an urgent issue and that it was an issue that we should address right away.”
House Bills 1568 (Bailey) and 1569 (Mackey) would ban the use of seclusion and restraint except when there are health or safety concerns for students, teachers, or staff; require that when restraint or seclusion are used that all parties involved except students write a report on the incident; and require the notification of parents or guardians of the incident within 24 hours. It would allow parents or guardians access to all reports on the incident and the right to a meeting to review it, and allow them to file a complaint with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Bailey said just as important is that the legislation would put into state law a definition of seclusion and restraint.
Both lawmakers say there could be times when seclusion or restraint is necessary, so their bills don’t aim to bar it altogether.
“I think that there are a few stories that exist of children who can at some points be particularly violent, and obviously if a child is being violent and posing a direct, serious physical safety threat to others around them, then that’s an instance where that child needs to be removed and that’s what our bill allows for,” said Mackey. “What we see happening … is kids are just doing kid things … they’re not exhibiting a threat to the extent that would require them to be locked away, and again without their parents even being notified.”
Two House committees passed Mackey’s legislation in 2019. He and Bailey are optimistic their bipartisan effort can get a bill through the legislative process in 2020.
The new session begins January 8.
The Missouri House has voted to create a statewide monitoring program for drug prescriptions. Backers hope such a law would combat the abuse of prescription drugs and help prevent conflicts between medications. Opponents say it would violate Missourians’ constitutional right to privacy.
House Bill 188 would create an online database that physicians and pharmacists could use to track pill purchases and pharmacy visits. Missouri is the only state in the U.S. without such a system, statewide. A program launched in the St. Louis region several years ago now covers 67 of the state’s 114 counties, encompassing about 87-percent of its population.
The bill cleared the House 103-53. Republicans who opposed it were very vocal about fears that the program would create a government database that would jeopardize Missourians’ medical information.
Backers say no other PDMP database has ever been successfully hacked and say this would fall under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy protections. Blue Springs Republican Dan Stacy remained critical, and said that to say databases won’t get hacked is, “probably somewhat naïve.”
Eureka Republican Dottie Bailey said she remembered being a concealed carry permit holder when, under the administration of Governor Jay Nixon, information about those permit holders was shared with the Department of Homeland Security.
“Nothing has happened to that administration since that occurred other than my name is with the federal government as a firearms owner, or permitted, so right now, not a big deal, right? But what happens when another administration gets in that wants to weaponize those databases? And this is where I worry, this is where my constituents worry,” said Bailey. “This bill is very difficult because yes, something needs to be done, but an overwhelming, sweeping government program has never, ever done what we think it’s going to do and then we usually end up regretting it.”
Proponents said concerns over privacy were being overblown, and paled in comparison to the bill’s goal of saving lives by fighting prescription drug abuse.
“Hacking is a real concern, I know, for all of us,” said Representative Sheila Solon (R-St. Joseph), “however we can’t let that worry consume us or we would never use a credit card to go to a restaurant or to go shopping or go to the gas station. We’d never use a credit card or do any shopping online.”
Other lawmakers expressed frustration that all attempts to amend the bill were rejected. Among those amendments were proposals to require physicians and pharmacists to participate in the database – the bill would make that optional – and to create penalties for failure to participate.
“No penalties; no requirement to participate; no protection for chronic pain patients, and that is unfathomable. I just don’t get it, why we are punishing those who actually need the help,” said Ash Grove Republican Mike Moon.
Bill sponsor Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) responded to those critics, saying, “I disagree with those who said that we didn’t do our job because this bill hasn’t been amended. Mr. Speaker this bill has been massaged for years on this floor. We started this year with where we had left off with the things we had agreed with. The ones who wanted to amend it wanted to kill it.”
Rehder, who has proposed PDMP legislation for several consecutive sessions, told opponents that one way or another Missouri will have a monitoring program.
HB 188 now goes to the Senate, where past years’ versions have run into opposition and stalled out. While the senator who led that opposition is no longer in that chamber due to term limits, last week the Senate version of Rehder’s bill stalled in a tie committee vote.
Rehder and other backers note that all members of that committee were present for the vote, and she believes that outcome isn’t representative of the chances of passing a PDMP bill this year.