When a person is trying to get out of a domestic violence situation one of their needs is a place to live, sometimes for children as well as their self. If that person is under a lease agreement, property owners are under no legal obligation to release that person. This could have lasting repercussions both financially and in finding another place to live.
Representative Jean Evans (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Those bills would prevent anyone at risk of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking from being evicted, being denied tenancy, or violating a lease agreement as a result of that risk. A person who was a victim or in imminent danger of being victimized would be able to use that as a defense if a landlord takes them to court. The bills would establish what evidence a landlord must accept as proof of such situations.
Heinen said individuals attempting to escape domestic violence often find it difficult to find a new place to live after facing problems getting out of a former residence.
Representative Proudie’s legislative assistant, Holly Bickmeyer, told the committee she was 14 when she lost her mother due to domestic violence. She thinks legislation like these bills could have made a difference in her life.
Representative Jim Neely (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The committee held hearings on HBs 243 and 544 on Tuesday morning. There was no opposition voiced. Daryl Dewe, a registered lobbyist for the St. Louis Apartment Association, joined those testifying in support.
February 18 will mark the five-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook Springfield, the State of Missouri, and the nation. State lawmakers are hoping this will be the year the legislature passes a bill meant to honor the little girl killed that day in 2014.
“Hailey’s Law” is named for 10 year old Hailey Owens.
House Bill 185 is commonly known as “Hailey’s Law,” named for Hailey Owens. Owens was 10 years old when she was kidnapped while walking home from a friend’s house. She was murdered and her body was found early the next morning.
Soon after the arrest of her killer, state officials and lawmakers turned their attention to the Amber Alert System. Though witnesses saw Owens being abducted, more than two hours passed before an Amber Alert was issued to let authorities and the public statewide know to look for her, and what her kidnapper and his vehicle looked like.
Legislators then and now said that faster issuance of an Amber Alert is unlikely to have changed the outcome in Owens’ case – she is believed to have been killed too soon after her abduction – but Trent said the case highlighted a need to expedite the issuance of Alerts.
HB 185 would require the Amber Alert System to be tied into the Missouri Uniform Law Enforcement System (MULES), the computer system that allows all law enforcement in Missouri to communicate. That means once an officer enters information about a missing child into MULES, it would at the same time be available to the Amber Alert system.
Law enforcement in Missouri has already instituted this change. Trent said the purpose of passing Hailey’s Law now is twofold: to make sure those changes remain in effect by requiring them in law, and to honor Owens by naming that law after her.
Representative Curtis Trent (left) and Jim Wood of Springfield testify to a House Committee about Hailey’s Law. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Jim Wood is the father of the man sentenced to death for killing Hailey Owens. He told the House Committee on Crime Prevention and Public Safety that it was his truck his son was driving on the day of the crime, but law enforcement didn’t contact him until about five hours after the abduction. At the time of the abduction he was at a restaurant about 2-minutes away from his son’s house, which is where Owens was murdered.
HB 185 would also require the state’s Amber Alert System Oversight Committee to meet at least once a year to discuss ways to improve the system. Currently there is no requirement for that committee to meet.
Trent said having that committee meet regularly to evaluate the system means there will be an ongoing effort toward getting alerts out more quickly.
The House and the Senate have in previous years passed the language of HB 185, just not in the same bill, so it’s never become law.
The language of HB 185 was first offered by then-representative Eric Burlison of Springfield, who this year became a state senator. Burlison is now carrying his bill in the Senate. Before Burlison was elected to the Senate the language was carried in that chamber by Senator Caleb Rowden (R-Columbia), who is now the Senate’s majority floor leader. Trent believes having the support of those two lawmakers only increases the chance that Hailey’s Law will at last reach the governor.
The Committee on Crime Prevention and Public Safety will vote soon on HB 185.
A bill meant to make it easier for sex trafficking victims to avoid being prosecuted for prostitution is advancing through the Missouri House.
Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman presents House Bill 397, the first bill of her legislative career, to the House Committee on General Laws. (photo; Mike Lear, Missouri House Communications)
Missouri law makes it an affirmative defense for a minor charged with prostitution to have been acting under coercion at the time of the crime. Under House Bill 397 it would be an affirmative defense that the defendant was under the age of 18. It would also allow a person guilty of prostitution while a minor to apply to the courts to have records of that crime expunged.
The bill would also add some offenses related to child abuse and sex trafficking to the state law’s definition of “pattern of criminal gang activity.” Advocates say the frequency of trafficking operations being conducted by gangs has increased in recent years.
Office of Child Advocate Director Kelly Schultz spoke in support of that provision. She told the committee about the handling of a case when a child in the state’s foster system was found to have been trafficked.
Schultz stressed to lawmakers that in a 2013 nationwide raid by the FBI, about 60-percent of the children recovered were involved in the child welfare system and many had open foster care cases.
The committee voted unanimously to advance the bill. It is scheduled to be considered Monday by another committee, and then it could go before the full House for debate.
Sixty-two percent of Missouri voters in November approved Constitutional Amendment 1, better known as “Clean Missouri.” The Amendment included language that would extend the application of the state’s open records law to the state’s lawmakers.
Chief Clerk of the Missouri House Dana Rademan Miller (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Since its passage, Missouri House staff has been examining what it will mean for state representatives as well as the citizens they serve.
Otherwise known as the “Sunshine Law,” the open records law dating back to 1973 allows members of the public to request records from any public governmental body. The House and the Senate had been exempt prior to Clean Missouri taking effect on December 6.
Miller said the House began working on updated policies to educate members shortly after Amendment 1 passed, and that work continues.
The House has provided members and their staffs with a memo outlining the provisions of Amendment 1 and materials from the Attorney General’s Office on Sunshine Law compliance, briefed incoming freshman lawmakers, and held additional meetings on managing Sunshine requests.
Miller said that there are parts of the Sunshine Law that could benefit from clarification, and that interpretation of some provisions varies. She said the language regarding exemptions is one such case.
Members of the Missouri House were sworn in on January 9, 2019, for the beginning of the 2019 legislative session. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The way the new constitutional provision is worded makes clear that each representative will be the custodian of records for his or her office.
Miller hopes the inclusion of individual lawmakers in the requirements of the Sunshine Law doesn’t discourage constituents from reaching out to those lawmakers to seek help. She did say that members of the public should consider leaving personally identifiable information out of initial correspondence.
Miller stresses that in her discussions with representatives, they haven’t been looking for ways to skirt open records requirements placed on their offices.
Of course, other portions of Amendment 1 have been the subject of discussions with lawmakers, including the prohibition against campaigning while in the Capitol and on other state property; and a $5 limit on gifts to legislators. Miller said the respective caucuses have also been discussing the implementation of the new provisions and that the work to implement the changes will continue.
Missouri lawmakers will again consider a bipartisan effort to reduce exposure to and the transmission of HIV in the session that begins in January.
Representative Holly Rehder will again in 2019 sponsor legislation that would change Missouri laws to allow needle exchange programs; and to encourage people to be tested for HIV. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Representatives Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) and Tracy McCreery (D-St. Louis) have filed legislation that would change Missouri laws that criminalize exposing individuals to HIV. Rehder will also file a bill that would let organizations give clean needles to users of illegal intravenous drugs. Both proposals were also filed last session.
Rehder’s House Bill 168 would relax state laws against delivery of drug paraphernalia. Programs that offer clean needles to users could register with the Department of Health and Senior Services and be allowed to continue operating.
Supporters say the offer of clean needles could reduce the spread among IV drug abusers of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C. Representative Rehder said it also make s users 5-times more likely to enter drug treatment because the needle exchange programs put them in direct contact with medical professionals.
Last session’s needle exchange legislation, House Bill 1620, was passed out of the House 135-13, but stalled in the Senate.
House Bills 166 and 167, filed by Reps. McCreery and Rehder, respectively, both aim to change Missouri laws that criminalize the act of knowingly exposing a person to HIV.
Representative Tracy McCreery is again sponsoring legislation meant to encourage people to get tested for HIV by easing Missouri’s law regarding knowingly exposing others to the disease. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Both bills would expand those laws to criminalize knowingly exposing a person to any serious infectious or communicable diseases. Both would also specify that individuals who attempt to prevent transmission, including through the use of a condom or through medical treatment that reduces the risk of transmission, are not knowingly exposing others to a disease.
McCreery and other supporters said those laws have actually discouraged people from getting tested and, if necessary, treated for HIV.
LaTrischa Miles, treatment adherence supervisor with KC Care Health Center, said in the time since Missouri’s and other states’ HIV exposure laws were written treatments have advanced so that people who might be in violation of those laws aren’t actually exposing anyone to a risk of HIV infection.
LaTrischa Miles with KC Care Health Center, which says Missouri’s HIV transmission laws are outdated and actually discourage people from getting tested and treated for HIV. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Rehder agreed with McCreery in saying that it’s time for Missouri to update its laws regarding HIV exposure and transmission, which were written in the 1990s.
Last session’s versions of the HIV transmission laws legislation, House Bills 2675 (McCreery) and 2674 (Rehder) were subject to a hearing by the House Committee on Health and Mental Health Services. The hearing was in the final days of the session so the bills did not advance, but the committee encouraged McCreery and Rehder to reintroduce the bills for 2019.
These three bills were among dozens filed by lawmakers on Monday, the first day legislation could be prefiled for the session that begins in January.
The new chief clerk of the Missouri House brings to the job years of experience, a love for the legislative process, and a passion for history.
Dana Miller has been appointed to be the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House of Representatives. The House will vote on her appointment after the new session starts in January. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Dana Rademan Miller was the House’s assistant chief clerk for the past six years. She has worked for the House since 2001 following internships in the Senate and the State Historic Preservation Office. The House will vote in January on her selection for the role of chief clerk.
Miller succeeds Adam Crumbliss who was the clerk for the past 12 years and recently accepted a position with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
The chief clerk is the nonpartisan top administrator for the House. The office is responsible for making sure the lawmaking process complies with Missouri laws and the constitution, and for overseeing the chamber’s day-to-day operations. It handles parliamentary inquiries; is responsible for the movement of proposals through the legislative process; and deals with legal matters involving the chamber.
The clerk’s office also heads up the extensive staff that the House has year-round that includes legislative and budget experts, printing and communication offices, and information technology and maintenance coordinators.
The Missouri legislature has dealt in recent years with a number of scandals. Perhaps most notable was the attention brought to the treatment of interns three years ago when a former House speaker and a former senator both resigned amid allegations of harassment. Miller said she has no qualms about taking over leadership of the House knowing she could have a major role in responding to any future scandals.
It is the House staff that provides employees, legislators, and interns with sexual harassment training, partly in response to the scandal of three years ago.
As the House’s Deputy Chief Clerk for the past six years, Miller has worked with lawmakers like Representative Mike Bernskoetter in various procedural capacities. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Miller came to the Capitol at a time when plans were being made to begin restoring it, but those plans were tabled by an economic downturn. She watched as the condition of the building continued to deteriorate. Then in 2012 she was appointed to the then-dormant Missouri State Capitol Commission, helped spur it into action, and was made its chair in 2013.
The Commission’s work contributed to getting underway the multi-year project to restore and preserve the Capitol. That project continues with sections of the Capitol being wrapped in a tent that allows crews to work in all weather, and it recently saw the statue of Ceres being removed from the dome for the first time in 94 years so it can be restored in Chicago.
Miller and House staff are now busy welcoming freshman lawmakers to the Capitol and helping them prepare for the new legislative session that begins in January.
For the first time since 1924 the statue of Ceres is no longer on the top of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City.
The statue of Ceres from the top of the Missouri State Capitol building is removed for cleaning and restoration. The removal is part of a years-long project to restore and preserve the Capitol. (Photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The 10-foot, four inches tall and 2,000 pound bronze statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, was placed on the Capitol dome on October 29, 1924. It was taken down off of the dome Thursday morning by crane so that it can undergo cleaning and conservation.
The removal of the statue from the top of the dome took approximately five hours.
The statue was available for public viewing on the south side of the Capitol for a few hours before crews began preparing it to be taken to Chicago. It is expected to be placed back atop the dome after roughly a year.
Ceres’ removal and restoration is part of an approximately $50-million project to restore and repair the exterior of the Capitol.
The Ceres statue is 10-feet and 4-inches tall and was sculpted by Sherry Fry of Iowa. (Photo; Mike Lear, Missouri House Communications)
Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe said the Capitol’s water damage is somewhat visible from the ground, but when he was up on the dome with the crews that prepared the Ceres statue for removal, it was much more apparent.
Dana Miller is the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House and Chairwoman of the Missouri Capitol Commission. She said the removal of Ceres is the latest step in the years-long project to restore the Capitol. She said the exterior work represents the second phase of that project, which is about one-third complete.
The statue of Ceres will be taken to a Chicago firm for restoration and cleaning. Several hundred people turned out to see the statue being taken down from the dome and during a public viewing after it was lowered. (Photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
After the second Capitol building in Jefferson City was destroyed by fire following a lightning strike in 1911, Missourians voted to approve tax funding for a new Capitol. The tax generated approximately $1-million more money than was needed for construction of the Capitol, but all the money it generated had to be used on the building. The remaining $1-million went into the artwork found around and throughout the Capitol, including the Ceres statue.
Historian and author Bob Priddy said that commission chose Ceres to adorn the dome because Missouri is an agrarian state. Some have suggested that she should then face north because most of Missouri’s best cropland is found in that half of the state. Priddy said she faces south because the main entrance of the Capitol is on its south side.
Brown said the plan is to restore Ceres to her south-facing position when the statute is returned to the dome.
Kehoe noted that just as this Capitol’s predecessor was struck by lightning there is evidence that the Ceres statue has been struck as well.
The Ceres statue is hoisted onto a truck before being viewed by the public. It took crews approximately five hours to slowly and gently lower the statute from the top of the dome. (photo; Mike Lear, Missouri House Communications)
The Ceres statue will be taken to the Conservation of Sculpture and Objects Studio, Inc, in Chicago, for cleaning and conservation. The last time it underwent such work was in 1995 when a crew restored her to prevent deterioration, but the work was done while the statue remained on the dome.
The statue was created by sculptor Sherry Fry of Iowa. Some historians believe the statue was modeled after Audrey Munson, a silent film star known as America’s first supermodel, who was the model for countless statues in the nineteen teens and nineteen twenties.
Brown said those who didn’t get to see the statue up close today will have another chance before it is returned to the top of the dome.
The Missouri legislature moved quickly to pass two bills that were the subject of a special session called by Governor Mike Parson (R).
Representative Kevin Austin (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Parson called lawmakers back into session to reexamine issues covered in two bills he vetoed. One of those would establish statewide standards for treatment courts, such as drug and veteran courts; the other would allow high school computer science courses to count toward graduation requirements for math, science, or practical arts credits. The House voted on Wednesday to send those bills to the Senate, and today the Senate approved those bills without making any changes to them. That means they go to Parson for his consideration.
Representative Kevin Austin (R-Springfield) sponsored House Bill 2, which deals with treatment courts. Such courts in Missouri provide a court-supervised, comprehensive treatment program as an alternative to jail time. Lawmakers and prosecutors agree the program is not an easy out for a defendant.
Over the years courts have been established in numerous districts in the state but without universal guidelines for how to operate. HB 2 seeks to provide those.
Austin said one of his favorite parts of the bill is a transfer clause, which will allow defendants who are candidates for treatment courts but are in a circuit that doesn’t have them, to be transferred to a circuit which does have them.
House Bill 3 would let computer science courses count toward math, science, or practical arts credits needed for graduation. Under the bill students could begin in middle school to be prepared for the opportunities they could have in the job market. Its sponsor, Holts Summit Republican Travis Fitzwater, has been working on STEM legislation for years.
Representatives Jeanie Lauer and Travis Fitzwater (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Representative Jeanie Lauer (R-Blue Springs) chaired the House Committee on Workforce Development and worked with Representative Fitzwater on the computer science portion of HB 3. She said it could help move Missouri forward in workforce development.
Parson announced on August 30 his call for the special session and legislators worked quickly to pass new versions of these bills that addressed the concerns he cited with his vetoes, while spending as little time as possible on the special session. The session’s costs were lessened because it coincided with the constitutionally-mandated veto session.
The Missouri House voted to override the governor’s vetoes of four items in the state operating budget that became law in July. The Senate has opted not to take up those items for consideration, so the governor’s vetoes will stand.
House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick proposed the overrides of five vetoes the governor made in the state’s budget. The House voted for four of those overrides. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The House voted to override Governor Mike Parson’s (R) vetoes on line-items that support juvenile advocacy units in the Kansas City and St. Louis offices of the state public defender; time-critical centers for heart attack and stroke patients in Missouri hospitals; independent reviews by the Office of Child Advocate of local offices that serve troubled youths; and the oversight of grants to organizations that serve the deaf and blind. The four items totaled more than $785,000.
House budget leaders said those items will be brought up for consideration when the legislature meets again in January, for the start of its regular session.
The House voted only on five budget items during its annual veto session, which began and ended Wednesday. On the fifth budget item, $50,000 for grants to law enforcement agencies for the purchase of tourniquets for officers, the House fell short of the constitutional majority needed for an override.
Money for inspections of state-certified heart attack and stroke trauma centers
House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said after the governor vetoed money to fund inspections and certification of time-critical trauma centers for heart attack and stroke patients, his administration then said those inspections would be conducted anyway. Fitzpatrick said he wants to see the inspections continue, but for them to be funded by pulling money from parts of the budget not intended for them violates the role of the legislature in the budget process.
Money for Office of Child Advocate review of local abuse investigations
$100,000 for the Office of Child Advocate would pay for two people that St. Charles Republican Kurt Bahr said would conduct a thorough review of how child abuses cases are processed. He said the office needs those two additional staff members to keep up with that extra work.
Money for oversight of grants to organizations serving Missouri’s deaf and blind
The $45,000 for the Missouri Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing would pay for a person to oversee grants to organizations serving the deaf and blind. That position was created as part of House Bill 1696 passed in 2016, which was sponsored by Representative Lyle Rowland (R-Cedarcreek). He said those grants have been fully funded for the past two years.
Money for public defenders for juveniles in Kansas City and St. Louis
Fitzpatrick said the $487,000 for juvenile advocacy units in the St. Louis and Kansas City offices of the public defender system would ensure that the constitutional right to counsel for juveniles in those regions would be met.
Kansas City Democrat Barbara Washington said she has personal experience as a juvenile offender, and said the importance of juveniles having representation cannot be overstated.
Kendrick was not critical of the governor, even regarding the veto of funding for time-critical trauma center inspections and the procedural issues surrounding its continued funding.
The Missouri Legislature will convene for a special session next month to reexamine two bills vetoed by Governor Mike Parson (R).
One bill dealt with guidelines for treatment courts. The other allows high school computer science courses to count toward graduation requirements for math, science, or practical arts credits; and aims to begin preparing students at an earlier age for the opportunities they could have in the job market.
In Parson’s veto messages, he said the treatment courts bill appeared to violate the state constitution’s prohibition on legislation covering multiple subjects. He objected to a provision in the education bill that he said seemed to narrow a bidding process down so that only one company could qualify.
Representative Kevin Austin (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Treatment courts in Missouri provide a court-supervised, comprehensive treatment program as an alternative to jail time. Participants must complete a rigorous regimen including interventions and supervision in order to complete the program. Drug courts, juvenile treatment courts, and veterans’ courts are some examples of these programs.
House Bill 2562 was sponsored by Springfield Representative Kevin Austin (R). He said in the past the legislature has dealt with treatment courts in a “piecemeal” fashion, and the main goal of the bill was to consolidate the various types of treatment courts and lay out best practices.
The bill would also allow defendants in a circuit that lacks a treatment court to be transferred to one in another circuit, with certain approvals.
Austin said treatment courts benefit not only participants, but also their families and communities, and they save the state money through factors such as decreasing incarcerations.
The House handler of the education legislation is Representative Travis Fitzwater (R-Holts Summit), who has worked on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) bills for several years. He doesn’t believe that Senate Bill 894 needed to be vetoed, but is “thrilled” the governor and legislative leadership saw the issue as important enough to revisit it in a special session.
Representative Travis Fitzwater (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Fitzwater said by readdressing his legislation in a special session rather than waiting for the new session to begin in January, its provisions might not have to be pushed back another school year. This would allow another grade level of students to benefit from it.
Austin said the sooner the legislature can deal with the treatment courts issue, the sooner the state’s courts can begin implementing the most effective practices. It would also make a difference for defendants who could benefit from treatment courts but might not have access to them, especially in cases in which the transfer language would apply.
The special session will begin Monday, September 10 and will overlap with the annual veto session, which was already scheduled to begin Wednesday, September 12.
Additional audio: Kevin Austin says treatment courts offer an alternative to jail time, but a defendant must go through a rigorous process to successfully complete the program and faces that jail time if he or she fails.