Missouri House Democrats spoke to the media and fielded questions before legislators went home for the weekend:
House votes to extend opportunities for more jobs, greater salaries to persons with disabilities
The House has voted to expand access to job opportunities and greater salaries to Missourians with disabilities by passing legislation that, backers say, will let those people simply live their lives.
House Bills 970 and 971 make changes to the state’s Ticket to Work health insurance program within MO HealthNet. The key provisions increase the limit to how much a person can earn before they would lose benefits under Ticket to Work and disregard up to $50,000 of a spouse’s income, relative to that limit. It will also direct state agencies to have policies to recruit and keep employees with disabilities and create competitive ways to integrate them into workforces.
The bills are carried by Representative Melanie Stinnett (R-Springfield), whose career in healthcare and as a speech-language pathologist has included a great deal of focus on serving the disabled community. She said she is honored to sponsor this legislation.
She said these changes address outdated statutes that might have made sense in their time, but set limits that today are far too low.
The legislation has been offered in the House for about eight years. One person who has carried it throughout that time, Representative Sarah Unsicker (D-Shrewsbury), said individuals with disabilities have Missouri’s lowest unemployment rate, largely due to discrimination and lack of accommodation and understanding.
“Disability is a natural part of the human condition that affects everybody at some point in their lives, some sooner than others. The existence of a disability should not stop somebody from working and living to their fullest capacity,” said Unsicker. “There are people right now with master’s degrees who cannot work because of services they need just to get out of bed and survive and be physically able to meet the day even if they are mentally able to do incredible work. This will help them be taxpayers to the fullest extent of their ability. This will help people get jobs.”
Representative Bridget Walsh Moore (D-St. Louis) is a Missourian living and working with a disability and has also for several years sponsored this legislation. She said some people in the disabled community choose not to get married because if they do while the current limits are in place, they will lose their health benefits under Ticket to Work.
In her own life, said Walsh Moore, “If anything were to happen to me, my husband makes over $60,000. We would receive nothing from the state, zero support, and $60,000 for the two of us plus our child is not enough, especially with any medical needs I might have,” said Walsh Moore.
She said individuals need the benefits provided by that coverage to function daily, to hold jobs, and to live with dignity. She said she often thinks of a friend of hers who is in her 20s and has a master’s degree.
“Missouri is losing out twice. They’re losing out on her income tax, and that’s another 40-grand that would have gone into our economy,” said Walsh Moore.
She said the provisions aimed at state agencies are intended to create a system that can be a model outside of government.
“As the system stands, we have sheltered workshops and we have full competitive employment and no bridge in between. What this would do is basically set up the state as a model employer. Basically, we will figure out a program ourselves. All state departments will hire people with disabilities. We’ll kind of work out the kinks, figure out the program ourselves, and then we can sell it to corporate America,” Walsh Moore explained. “A lot of corporations I’ve talked to are very interested. They like the idea, they just don’t know what that looks like, and so we’re taking that burden off of them and saying we’ll do it first and we’ll figure it out.”
Stinnett, who is in her first year in the House, said this was one of the first issues she asked about taking up.
The House voted 151-0 to send the legislation to the Senate, and has amended it to other bills.
Proposed Parkinson’s registry could foster work toward treatments and a cure
Missouri could be a leader in creating a knowledge base to help understand and fight Parkinson’s disease, under a bill approved by a House committee.
House Bill 822 would create the Parkinson’s disease registry to collect general information about people diagnosed with that disease and to be kept by the University of Missouri. It would be used to identify commonalities between patients that could lead to a greater understanding of who is likely to develop Parkinson’s, and help to develop preventative measures, treatments, and perhaps even a cure.
Bill sponsor Travis Smith (R-Dora) told the House Committee on Children and Families, “Little is known about Parkinson’s. It is distributed among different population groups and the patterns of the disease are changing over time. Knowing who has Parkinson’s will also assist researchers in acquiring more information about the causes of Parkinson’s, [which are] believed to be a combination of environmental and genetic factors.”
Smith’s inspiration for carrying the proposal was a family friend, Ann Dugan, who often joined his family for dinner each year on Thanksgiving.
The registry would be part of a larger national effort in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which has created a National Neurological Conditions Surveillance Program. That program would gather data on Parkinson’s that could be used by researchers internationally, as they look for a cure.
Before it begins collecting data, however, it needs several states to be online. Julie Pitcher with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research said Missouri could be the fifth state in the nation with such a registry.
“We are on a quest to get better data,” Pitcher told the committee. “Patients really do want to be part of this to look for long-term effects, genetic predispositions, biomarkers, and other reasons that they may be living with Parkinson’s, and for future generations.”
Roughly 20-thousand to 30-thousand Missourians are believed to have Parkinson’s. Nationally that number is about 1.2-million, and Pitcher said the rate of diagnosis is expected to increase.
Researchers hope the registry would help answer the question as to why an increase in instances of Parkinson’s diagnoses is occurring.
The registry would not include personally identifying information and patients could choose not to be included at all. Smith said he made sure that was the case before moving forward with the proposal.
He said what it would include are things like, “What your age group is; geographical – where have you been, where have you been, what have you done; occupation – were you in the military, were you a farmer, were you a teacher, were you a lawyer. It’s going to be very broad.”
The committee voted 10-0 to advance that bill to another committee, and from there it could go on to the full House.
Democrats press conference after passage of House budget proposal
The House today voted to send its proposed Fiscal Year 2024 budget to the Senate. House Democrats spoke to the media and answered questions about that spending plan.
House votes to bar invasive patient exams without consent
The Missouri House has voted unanimously to end the practice of performing certain invasive medical exams on patients who are unconscious and have not given consent.
Legislators learned that in Missouri and elsewhere, medical students and residents in teaching hospitals are allowed and even instructed to perform anal, prostate, or pelvic exams on unconscious patients as part of their instruction.
“That’s a really bad practice because it’s not a good way of teaching students, but it’s also incredibly traumatic and harmful for that patient, to know that they could have been violated while they were unconscious,” said Matthew Huffman with the Missouri Coalition against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Representative Hannah Kelly (R-Mountain Grove) agrees and she sponsors House Bill 283, which would require informed consent from the patient or someone authorized to make decisions for them, unless the exam is deemed necessary for diagnostic purposes, or for the collection of evidence when a crime is suspected and the patient cannot give consent for medical reasons. If an exam is performed the patient would have to be notified.
“This bill is aimed at making sure that those who are survivors of trauma don’t have to experience further trauma as they go seek healthcare from their provider,” said Kelly. “I want to make sure that sexual assault survivors can confidently walk into their doctor’s office and know that they are empowered to be in control of the process and that there are no surprises. I have seen firsthand how important that is to strengthen the individual.”
Huffman explained that this issue is particularly important for the people his organization works to protect.
Kelly said she has seen what Huffman is talking about through her daughter, who has given Kelly permission to speak publicly about her experience and encouraged her to pursue related policy.
“She is someone who has dealt with the unfortunate situation of being a victim of sexual assault … we all need healthcare, right? Someone who is a victim of assault, that’s a paramount kind of subconscious concern is, ‘Okay, am I going to be safe? Am I going to be in control of this situation?’”
Both Kelly and Huffman say whether this bill becomes law this year, they hope it will help call attention to what has been happening to some patients and what people can do now. They encourage people to ask questions when visiting a medical practitioner.
“I would hope that an individual who might … feel like they’re not getting full disclosure or they feel like they have questions, I hope he or she will raise their hand and say, ‘I have some questions. What are we going to do here today? There’s not going to be any surprises, right? Walk me through what’s going to happen once I go under anesthesia,” said Kelly. “That’s what I would hope, is that people feel empowered to hold up their hand and say, ‘Hey, make sure that I understand what’s happening here, please.’”
Huffman said what is as important as anything about this proposal, which has come up for several years now but has yet to reach the governor, is that it’s made people aware that these incidents are happening.
Representative Patty Lewis (D-Kansas City) was one of the legislators who expressed the surprise Huffman references, when HB 283 reached the House Floor.
Huffman said what is not known is how often such instances are occurring, largely because they aren’t always reported.
HB 283 was sent to the Senate on a 157-0 vote and awaits action in that chamber. A similar measure has been advancing through the Senate.
Production note: some of Rep. Kelly’s audio was overmodulated and not fit for air, so it is quoted here but not linked.
House budget proposal aims to help people when they want help with addictions
The budget proposal that the House will consider this week includes $4.5-million for a drug treatment network that targets people with addiction issues at a most crucial time: when they are seeking help, and before they get discouraged and fall away.
“This is [Federally Qualified Health Care Centers] money to address our, not just our opioid, [but] our addiction crises,” said Marshfield representative John Black (R), the sponsor of this funding item. “The key language in the description,” he said, “is the [words] ‘prevention network.’”
Black told his colleagues on the House Budget Committee that professionals in Missouri know there are many good treatment options available in the state for those who are dealing with substance abuse disorders, but those options aren’t always well connected. It is the gaps between resources through which people seeking treatment often fall.
That’s where, Black said, the network supported by this budget item would come in.
The proposal was added to the budget on a unanimous voice vote. Springfield Democrat Betsy Fogle encouraged other budget committee members to support it.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations about the substance abuse crisis our country’s facing and this is a great step,” said Fogle. “Something I really like about this proposal is I think it addresses patients that don’t have insurance, patients who have Medicaid, patients who have private insurance; all Missourians for all walks of life. We know there’s a shortage of providers for each and every one of those groups of people.”
The proposed item includes a combination of state and federal money, half of which will go through a network in the Springfield area, with the other half available for any similar program elsewhere in the state that is ready to do the same work.
That spending proposal is part of the committee’s budget plan that will be debated by the full House this week, and from there could be advanced to the Senate for its consideration. It is found in House Bill 11.
VIDEOS: House Republican and Democrat end of week media conferences
House Republicans and Democrats addressed reporters and fielded media questions after the close of business for the week:
House votes to increase state efforts against veteran suicide
The House has voted to improve the state’s efforts to prevent suicide among its veteran population.
Representatives voted 156-0 for House Bill 132, which directs the Missouri Veterans Commission to work with the Department of Mental Health to come up with recommendations on how Missouri can prevent veteran suicide. It would require the Commission to report annually, beginning June 30, 2024, on new recommendations and on the implementation and effectiveness of the state’s efforts.
The bill is sponsored by Jefferson City Republican Dave Griffith, a U.S. Army Veteran who served with the 8th Special Forces Group as a Green Beret. He has spent much of his career in the House dealing with veterans’ issues, and with ways to stem suicide not only among current and former service members but in the population in general.
Griffith speaks often of the social media campaign #22, and his personal goal of decreasing or eliminating what that number represents.
Though he and others in the legislature and state government have been talking about these issues for years and developing related programs, Griffith said Missouri has a long way to go. Representative Ashley Bland Manlove (D-Kansas City), who has served in the Missouri National Guard, agreed.
“I think the biggest population that we should be talking about is the one percent of American population that raises their right hand for this country,” continued Bland Manlove. “The best way that we can thank our veterans for their dedication and work to this country is by taking care of them.”
Rogersville Republican Darin Chappell (R) has a great deal of experience with the issues faced by military members and their families, as he is a veteran of the Navy and the Army Reserves and has many service members in his family.
Before casting their votes for the measure, legislators reflected about their own personal experiences. St. Clair Republican Brad Banderman solemnly told his colleagues, “About two years ago my little sister laid down on the grave of my older brother that shot himself in 1990 and killed herself. Anything that we can do as a legislature, as a body, as individuals, to help prevent the suicide of our veterans, I’m in full support of.”
Missouri as of 2020 had the 14th highest suicide rate in the U.S., with about 1,125 people having died by suicide in that year. The rate among veterans is approximately 1.5 higher than in the rest of the population, and experts are telling legislators they fear that suicide rates are going to increase.
“I think we need to do better and I think this is a good start,” said Representative Robert Sauls (D-Independence).
The same bill passed out of the House last year but did not come to a final vote in the Senate.
Anyone in need of help for themselves or someone else for a mental health, substance abuse, or suicide crisis is encouraged to call 988.
House bill would keep high schoolers’ personal finance curriculum up to date
Missouri high school students’ education in personal finance would be regularly updated, to keep up with changes in the world of finance, under a bill being considered in the state House.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) already requires that high schools teach personal finance. House Bill 809 would ensure that this continues by putting it in state statute. It would also add the stipulation that a work group review the mandated curriculum every seven years to make sure it’s keeping with the times.
The bill is sponsored by Representative Michael O’Donnell (R-St. Louis), who among other things is a fixed income securities trader for an investment firm.
He said the working group proposed in HB 809 would include people with backgrounds in both education and finance. They would work, “to make sure that we’re building a curriculum that’s age appropriate – the course would be for [high school-aged students] – and then make sure that we’re covering the important topics in the industry that folks are going to need to know once they’re out in the real world.”
He said a lot of aspects of personal finance aren’t intuitive, and Missouri needs to make sure students understand what they’ll be getting into.
O’Donnell said updating the curriculum periodically is an obvious necessity, as changes in financial industries are coming faster and faster.
“So much of banking … ten years ago the number of folks that did the bulk of their banking online was pretty small and I would say probably the majority of folks are now doing 90-plus percent of their banking online,” said O’Donnell. “The other thing that we probably wouldn’t have talked about ten years ago is floating rate mortgages. Interest rates have been so low for so long that we’ve been talking about fixed rate mortgages for a long time. Now we’re in this higher interest rate environment where folks should know that to get that lower interest rate on that adjustable mortgage, it means something and that there are some pitfalls.”
The legislation would require a half-credit, equal to one semester, of education on this subject matter. O’Donnell discussed with legislators on the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education whether that would be enough.
The committee did discuss incorporating some of this education at a less-complicated level into an earlier grade level, such as eighth grade.
The bill’s supporters include the Missouri Bankers Association and the Missouri Credit Union Association. No one testified in opposition to it.
HB 809 cleared that committee on a 12-0 vote and awaits action by a second committee. O’Donnell said the language of this bill will likely be incorporated into at least two other pieces of legislation.
PHOTO GALLERY: House fresh off renovation for ’23 session
When the Missouri House convened in January for this, the 102nd General Assembly, it did so in a freshly renovated House Chamber featuring new voting and message boards; refinished woodwork; updated wiring; and most importantly, badly needed new carpeting.
You can see photos from before, after, and throughout that project in the gallery below (and linked here), and scroll down to read more about it.
The work done during the summer and fall of 2022 was overseen by the Chief Clerk and Administrator of the House, Dana Rademan Miller. Among other things, Miller has a deep appreciation for the history and cultural significance of the Capitol, and she brought that to this project.
She tells us that when the Capitol was being built more than 100 years ago the carpeting in the House was originally wool. It has been replaced several times since then, the last time having been in 2008.
In what was intended to be a cost saving decision the carpet installed at that time was synthetic. Instead of saving money, this proved to be a costly choice that hampered business in the Chamber because the synthetic carpet built up static electricity more quickly than had the wool.
“Pretty quickly after we had that installed we were noticing that members were, as they were populating the chamber and walking about, they were building up a static charge and then they were shocking each other, but they were also shocking their voting boxes when they would go to vote,” Miller explained. “A member would go to vote and they would shock their box, which then would create a chain reaction and it would shut their box down and … it would shut all of the voting stations behind it all the way to the back of the room.”
This problem developed at the beginning of a session, and obviously the voting system was of primary importance, so staff at the time had to quickly come up with a short-term fix.
The wiring in the chamber was replaced that next summer to alleviate the static issues. Now the Chamber is back to having wool carpeting not just for the sake of historical significance and functionality, but also because wool holds up better than did the synthetic.
A lot of thought was put into the visual design elements of this new carpeting by Miller and others with a mind for history. It leans heavily on symbology already found elsewhere in the Chamber.
Miller said when these symbols were built into the Chamber they were meant to represent qualities that, it was hoped, would be found in the representatives in the House as well as in all people.
Among other work done during this time, professional woodworkers refinished the fine features of the dais and rostrum. When carpet was removed from the stairs leading up either side of the dais, a fine cork floor – chosen for that structure in part to control sound – was uncovered, and it was able to be saved.
The members’ desks from the House floor were sent to a St. Louis company to be refinished for the first time in about 35 years, and before-and-after photos show that now they look virtually new. Most of these desks are original to the building, their number having increased as the size of the House has increased since 1917.
The removal of the carpeting and those desks also presented an opportunity to update the wiring beneath the Chamber floor. This work will better serve the modern laptops and new voting boards. It also added a system that will help the hearing impaired.
The replacement of the voting boards had been a priority for Miller for years. The old ones dated back to 1997 and were still running on a program that relied on Windows ’97.
Finally, the sound desk – which had not been original to a Chamber that originally had no sound system – was updated to a smaller, more efficient design.
For Miller, as someone who admittedly loves the Capitol and its history, it has felt good to get to leave her stamp on the Chamber by having a project like this take place during her time as Clerk.
She says there is still work to be done in the Chamber, including some plaster detailing and decorative paintings that need to be touched up. She said there has been money set aside by the General Assembly for restoration of the Capitol as a whole, but the legislature will have to give more attention to that issue.
“We need the full commitment from the General Assembly … we’ll see how that turns out,” said Miller. “[The Capitol is] 100 years old and it has issues, as any historic home would have. You have to do the maintenance and the upkeep and you have to do the remediation at times when you have environmental factors that have taken a toll, and we have all of that.”