Missouri House Republicans and Democrats fielded media questions after wrapping up work for the week:
Legislators to MODOT and Conservation: get dead deer off the roads
Two House lawmakers say there are too many dead deer on the state’s roads and it’s hurting economic development and tourism. They say it’s time the legislature steps in and gets the Departments of Conservation and Transportation to do something about it.
Hazelwood Democrat Paula Brown and Mexico Republican Kent Haden have each filed identical legislation that would require the Department of Transportation to move dead deer from roadways and bury them at least three feet deep on Conservation land, and would have the Department of Conservation pay for that removal and burial.
Both representatives say this is an issue driven by constituent concerns. Brown shared with the Committee on Transportation Accountability some of the reports she’s gotten from people throughout the state: “There’s 22 deer on this stretch of road … I hit a buzzard because it was eating a deer … then one of my other representatives from my side of the aisle called and said, ‘Have you been hearing about dead deer?’ and I was like, ‘It’s time to do something.’”
Haden had a similar experience.
“We are open to solutions,” said Brown. “This is not to punish anyone but when constituents call you and tell you how disgusted they are, and they’re from all over the state, it’s time for us to do something.”
“ … the problem’s gotten worse, not better.”
The issue came before a House transportation committee four years ago when its then-chairman, former representative Tim Remole (R-Excello), said he counted 75 deer on Highway 63 in the roughly 30 mile distance between Moberly and Columbia. Remole filed legislation about the problem then, and Haden said the committee was told by the Departments of Conservation and Transportation that they would work something out and a legislative solution would not be needed.
Transportation Accountability Committee Chairman Don Mayhew (R-Crocker) said he was on the committee then, “I was a participant in that [hearing] and that was four years ago and I can tell you from my own personal experience the problem’s gotten worse, not better.”
“If the two groups would do what is right for the State of Missouri and not argue over, ‘It’s our money. You can’t tell us what to do,’ then this wouldn’t be an issue,” said Haden. “We have two commissions with adequate funding who … have not yet done what is correct for the betterment of the whole State of Missouri, for a relatively small amount of money.”
The Departments told lawmakers a combination of things has led to the large number of dead deer remaining along the state’s byways. One of those has been staffing.
Department of Transportation Legislative Liaison Jay Wunderlich said the Department is down about 300 maintenance workers. Also gone are hundreds of incarcerated individuals who, pre-COVID, helped remove carcasses and trash along highways.
“ … right now what we’ve been asked to do is just turn the deer around and to leave it on highway right-of-way … ”
Another factor has been chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurological disease in deer and other cervids. Department of Conservation Deputy Director of Resource Management Jason Sumners said the Department is concerned about the movement and disposal of deer carcasses in relation to controlling the spread of that disease.
Wunderlich said Transportation crews have been following Conservation Department guidance on what to do with a dead deer.
He said between Conservation directions and financial concerns, leaving the deer on the roads made more sense to his Department.
“To make it a priority to go out picking up dead deer our number one focus for the particular day, that’s just not good [use of] taxpayers’ dollars in our minds. We’ve got to take care of the roads so that people are driving safely,” said Wunderlich. “Do we have the choice of picking up dead deer for that particular area or do we have to go out and fill potholes, fix a bridge that has a hole in it, put up guardrail, what have you. We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got but right now the best that we have is to just go out there to remove the deer as we see them, as it becomes a health or a safety factor.”
At least one Committee member, Lakeshire Democrat Michael Burton, sympathized with the Transportation Department’s argument.
“ … somebody’s going to have to say, ‘What’s good for the State of Missouri and who’s going to do it?’”
Haden and Brown insist, though, that the current situation needs to be addressed. They said in addition to being eyesores, sources of odor, and potential road hazards, the carcasses are threats to economic development and tourism.
“A million dollars could very well be made up with one business settling in our state who could be turned off by the fact of, ‘What is the deal here?’ if they come from a state who does pick up their deer better,” said Haden. “You also have all the tourists coming through. How many of them want to look at a decaying, rotten carcass, with odor? What is that damage to the State of Missouri? In my opinion it’s very damaging … as Representative Brown said, it is a constituent-driven issue.”
The Committee’s top Democrat, Michael Johnson, hails from Kansas City which in coming years will host the NFL Draft and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.
The committee took in the concerns of the two departments but most members commented that something different needs to start happening. Representative Rudy Veit (R-Wardsville) said he doesn’t think the legislature should be having to deal with this.
The legislation is House Bill 501 (Brown) and House Bill 404 (Haden). The committee has not voted on either bill.
Pronunciations:
Remole = REM-oh-lee
Wunderlich = WON-der-lick
Veit = veet
Bipartisan set of bills would extend post-pregnancy healthcare
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is sponsoring legislation that they hope will save the lives of women and infants in Missouri, and in doing so, move the state farther from the bottom in the nation in infant and maternal mortality.
Their proposals would extend MO HealthNet or Show-Me Healthy Babies coverage for low-income pregnant women to a full year after the end of their pregnancy. Currently that coverage stops after 60 days.
Six representatives have filed that proposal, including Majority Floor Leader Jonathan Patterson (R-Lees Summit).
He says there are about 5,000 women in Missouri who don’t have insurance coverage either through the state, personal coverage, or an employer.
Governor Mike Parson (R) in his State of the State Address earlier this month said, “we are heartbroken to be failing,” in the area of infant mortality, with Missouri ranking 44th in the nation for its “abnormally high” rate.
Kansas City Democrat Patty Lewis calls the situation, “abysmal.” She said in a Department of Health and Senior Services report covering 2017 to 2019, “Something that was pretty astounding to me based on their findings is 75-percent of the deaths are preventable. As [someone with a] background in nursing, if we can prevent something that’s what I want to do,” said Lewis.
She said in the years covered by the report an average of 61 women died while pregnant or within one year of pregnancy, with 68 in 2018.
Freshman representative Melanie Stinnett (R-Springfield) said maternal healthcare was an issue that voters talked to her about leading up to her election in November.
Representative Brad Pollitt (R-Sedalia) said the data about how many of those deaths could have been prevented weighs heavily on him.
He said the proposal, “is just giving a little extra healthcare to get them off on the right foot and to help the mother who may be having issues and I just think it’s the right thing to do.”
The Republican sponsors of the bill acknowledge that it also relates to their party’s identity regarding its pro-life stance. Bishop Davidson (R-Republic) said his party is often criticized as only supporting life before birth, but this bill is one thing that demonstrates otherwise.
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Representative LaKeySha Bosley (D-St. Louis), who is for the fourth time sponsoring this proposal, says that it is “imperative” after Dobbs, “as we did pass the abortion ban, and [even] before we passed House Bill 126, the heartbeat bill, women who were in rural or underserved communities were dying [in] childbirth.”
Patterson agrees with his fellow Republicans, “We’re a pro-life state. I’m very proud to be pro-life, but that also means taking care of these children that are born. This is a measure that would ensure that the mother has healthcare for a year after they’re born, which is critically important to the wellbeing of the newborn baby.”
Bosley notes that while maternal mortality rates are an issue statewide, they hit some in Missouri harder than others.
Bosley is glad that this proposal has gained more sponsors and a lot of media attention and she hopes it will lead to more.
“I’m happy that it’s a hot topic. Let’s go further than just the 12th months. Let’s talk about doulas. Let’s go into the holistic conversation about how we can provide some assistance to doulas and have them be reimbursed,” adding, “Extending the coverage from the three months to the twelve months is just one of the small things that we can do, and it may seem small but it’s going to mean so much to a lot more people across the state.”
Patterson observes that the broad appeal of this plan isn’t limited to the House but extends to the Senate, where two versions have been filed and have already received a hearing. He and the other sponsors share great optimism that this will pass this year.
“It’s just a common sense measure that we can do to ensure the health of the babies.”
None of the House versions of this bill have been referred to a committee.
The bills that have been filed are: House Bill 91 (Patterson), House Bill 254 (Pollitt), House Bill 286 (Lewis), House Bill 328 (Bosley), House Bill 354 (Davidson), and House Bill 965 (Stinnett).
House efforts target suicide especially among veterans
One House member continues his push to reduce suicide in Missouri, particularly among the state’s veterans.
Representative Dave Griffith (R-Jefferson City) has made veterans’ issues a priority throughout his five years in the House, and now chairs the chamber’s Veterans Committee. Over the summer he also chaired an interim committee on Veterans’ Mental Health and Suicide.
Griffith said one of the most important things that committee learned is that in Missouri the 988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline is not fully funded.
Griffith is again this year sponsoring legislation to give guidance to the Missouri Veterans Commission about how to use the data it collects on veteran suicides, as well as to require it to report annually to the legislature on that data and what it’s doing to reduce the number of those incidents.
“Where we rank in this in the entire country is not good,” Griffith told the House Committee on Health and Mental Health Policy, saying Missouri is around fourth or fifth among the states with the most veteran suicides.
He added that even though his proposal, which this year is House Bill 132, didn’t pass in 2022, the Commission is already doing much of what it would require.
“Their heart’s in the right place and I can tell you that they get it and they’re dealing with it.”
Griffith said his aim is not just to increase awareness about mental health and suicide in the military and veteran communities but among the population as a whole.
This week Griffith presented HB 132 to Veterans Committee and presented the report from his interim panel to the Committee on Health and Mental Health Policy, showing that the issue is again his top priority as the 2023 session gets underway. He spent much of both presentations speaking about the 988 hotline because of the importance of listening to those considering suicide, whether it be when they call the hotline or in other settings.
He said one thing discussed at a recent symposium on suicide in the military community that resonated with him is a question that was put to commanders: “Do you really know your personnel?” He said the same could be asked of managers in the private sector.
“In order for us to be able to make a difference they’ve got to be able to know and be able to identify and recognize when there’s something going on in [their subordinates’] lives,” said Griffith. “What my hope was, is we can take that same model and we can bring that into the private sector. We’ve got companies like Scholastic and we’ve got Hitachi, we’ve got Westinghouse, large companies across the State of Missouri and each one of them have got supervisors. If we can train those supervisors and we can get people that have got the aptitude and really the forthrightness to be able to do something like that, it’s something that I hope we can learn from our military background and military friends.”
Griffith’s proposal passed out of the House unanimously last year but didn’t reach Governor Parson. The Veterans Committee will likely vote on it soon.
House Democrats assess 2023 State of the State Address
Missouri House Democrats responded to the 2023 State of the State Address delivered today by Governor Mike Parson. House Minority Leader Crystal Quade (D-Springfield) spoke and fielded reporters’ questions:
RAP Act would govern when lyrics, other art can be evidence in criminal trials
Some people in Missouri’s prisons are there after a jury considered the lyrics they wrote or listened to when weighing their guilt. One House member thinks courts should have to consider whether lyrics or other artistic expressions are relevant to a case before they are allowed in a trial.
House Bill 353 would lay out when such expressions could be introduced to a jury and require that a hearing be conducted to see whether they meet that criteria.
The Restoring Artistic Protection (RAP) Act, as it’s being called, is sponsored by Representative Phil Christofanelli (R-St. Peters).
“We want artists to not be afraid to engage in their full scope of expression when they’re creating music in our state,” said Christofanelli. “It’s really a First Amendment issue because we don’t want to have a chilling effect through state action on the expression of artists in our community.”
Christofanelli said many judges are already doing what his bill would require because they recognize that things like lyrics are often used to prejudice a jury.
“[Prosecutors] introduce that they have sung or rapped about unsavory things in the past so obviously they must have engaged in whatever crime they’ve been currently accused of,” explained Christofanelli. “But certainly if it’s the case that they’re actually singing about literal representations of things that they’ve done in the past, well then that would be relevant. I think that as long as we have a gatekeeper to make sure that that sort of evidence doesn’t reach the jury unfairly I think that it will be okay.”
Under HB 353 before song lyrics, literature, visuals, or any other form of art could go before a jury as evidence against a defendant prosecutors would first have to convince a judge that it was relevant to the crime.
Supporters say in more than 500 cases in the U.S. have lyrics played a part in criminal trials.
Christofanelli said one of the entities he has worked with in deciding to file HB 353 is Warner Music, which owns labels including Elektra Records, Reprise Records, Warner Records, Parlophone Records, and Atlantic Records.
Missouri House opens 2023 session
The Missouri House on Wednesday opened the first regular session of the 102nd General Assembly. Here are some scenes from the first day:
House plan would protect those calling for help in college hazing incidents
After some college students in Missouri and elsewhere in the U.S. have suffered permanent physical damage or even died following hazing incidents, one state lawmaker is proposing a law he thinks could help to protect students in this state.
Many of the incidents that have received attention in the news in recent years have involved excessive consumption of alcohol. After once such case last year at the University of Missouri a freshman was left blind and in a wheelchair and 11 of the brothers in the fraternity to which he was pledging are facing criminal charges.
Representative Travis Smith (R-Dora) said hazing is not what it was when he was a student at MU.
“Hazing back then basically was you had a lot of these people coming in from high school that were big man on campus … and it was a lot like the military. It was designed to break you down and build you back up.” Smith says hazing has become something different, and it starts with the fact that alcohol being outlawed altogether on many college campuses, “and what a lot of these kids are doing is getting hard liquor and drinking it as quickly as possible.”
Smith’s proposal, House Bill 240, would protect from being charged with hazing anyone who calls 911 to report a person in need of medical assistance, or who remains at a scene to assist such a person until emergency personnel arrive.
Smith believes with his bill in place students who have drank too much could get life-saving care faster.
The legislator says it’s important to remember that these students are young and situations like these are frightening.
Smith has prefiled HB 240 for the session that will begin January 4.
Extension of restitution to all wrongly convicted prefiled for 2023 session
People convicted of felonies in Missouri but proven innocent by DNA evidence can be paid $100 for every day they were incarcerated after their conviction. People proven innocent by any other means get nothing. At least one Missouri lawmaker will try to change that in the 2023 legislative session.
Kansas City Democrat Mark Sharp filed on Thursday House Bill 113 to extend restitution to anyone exonerated for a felony in Missouri.
Sharp said the idea continues to have bipartisan support.
Similar legislation was approved by two House committees in the session that ended in May by a combined vote of 24-1, but it was never brought up on the House floor for debate.
Sharp said the amount of harm done to a person and their family by a wrongful conviction goes well beyond the inability to have a job during their incarceration. It can involve difficulty finding work and housing after release, lingering issues that could require medical treatment and counseling, and relationship issues.
“This can devastate an entire generation, or several generations in the family when the head of a household or a man or a husband or a wife or a father or a mother or a daughter or a son, for that matter, is put away wrongfully, and for them to walk away with nothing just isn’t right,” said Sharp. “If somebody wasn’t able to receive all the restitution payments, those payments need to be then deferred to someone else in that family. This needs to be a full payout.”
Sharp hopes the legislature would also look at some point into increasing the restitution amount from $100 for every day of imprisonment.
“It probably doesn’t go far enough, honestly. I would hope that at some point we could have a robust discussion about what that payment should look like,” Sharp said. “It’s not going to break the bank … this is something that happens very rarely and when it does we need to pay them accordingly.”
Missouri’s restitution statute has been under more scrutiny in recent years as more attention was paid to the case of Kevin Strickland. He was released from prison a year ago after serving 42 years of a life sentence for murder before being proven innocent, but because he was not exonerated based on DNA evidence he received no compensation from the State of Missouri.
Thursday was the first day legislators could prefile bills for the new session, which begins January 4.
House proposal would require licensure of religion-based boarding houses
Representative Sarah Unsicker (D-Shrewsbury) was joined this morning by Representative Ingrid Burnett (D-Kansas City) and Emily Adams to talk about House Bill 15, which would require that all residential care facilities – such as care homes for children – be licensed by the state, including those run by religious orders.
The bill is in response to instances of abuse in Missouri, such as those coming to light from the Agape Boarding House in Stockton. Adams was a victim of abuse at a facility in Mississippi that was run by a couple who later operated a facility in Missouri.