Dear Friends & Neighbors,
As I reflect on the final day of session, I am outraged and disappointed over our lack of progress in Jefferson City. Friday marked the end of the 2007 legislative session and again our Republican leadership has accomplished little to reform and expand healthcare, support lifesaving research or pass important legislation regarding our education system. Republican rhetoric has stunted the growth of Missouri. The General Assembly is supposed to convene every year for 4 ?months to partake in quality debate among all its members. Partisanship is supposed to be left at the polling place to pass meaningful legislation. This is a Missouri tradition practiced for over 160 years to best serve the people of Missouri. Instead, over the last 77 days, the Republican majority reneged on deals, limited debate and discarded the rules to suit their needs. These actions vilify the legislative process and disrespect the people's desire for fair government. While compromise is imperative for passing legislation that represents all of our constituents, it must be done in strict adherence to precedent and rules of debate.
The good ole boys club has resurrected itself in the Missouri House of Representatives. During the last days of session, Republican leadership brokered backroom deals. They made it clear that they were in charge and nothing would stand in the way of their reign. After their deals had been made, what happened on the House floor was a formality. Overtly discriminatory practices oozed into the language of legislation they claimed would help Missouri. It infuriates many that the Republican majority could seriously present House Joint Resolution 7, which could make English the language of all official proceedings in Missouri if approved by voters in November 2008. This heartless tactic to exclude certain segments of the population was championed by Rep. Brian Nieves. He claimed to have worked for five years to make English the official language of Missouri because of a small town in Texas where Spanish was spoken at a city council meeting. Nieves never stated to the body that the majority in that small town are of Hispanic origin. Nieves and his arrogant cronies wielded their power to force the Senate to take up this bill in exchange for House passage of SB 577, the MO HealthNet legislation.
The Republicans' tactics on official English as the official language attacked the Senate's tradition of free and unlimited debate. Republican senators used a procedural trick to shut down debate. The move had been used seven times from 1970 to 2006. This year, it was used four times - on official English, abstinence-only education and two bills related to the sale of Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority assets. Now we understand their priorities.
The second component of the deal to pass SB 577 in the House was Senate approval of House Bill 1055. Many years ago progressives stood tall as the United States Supreme Court passed Roe vs. Wade, allowing women the right to choose to have an abortion. Today, the political right seeks to undermine Roe and shield our children from the information that, if absent, could lead to turmoil if uneducated youth engage in sexual activity. During the last weeks of session the majority party pushed legislation dismantling the way sex education is taught, replacing it with an abstinence-only curriculum. Abstinence-only education has never curtailed hormonal surges of teenagers. A recent federal report that compared abstinence-only educated teens to teens who received real sex education found no discernable difference between the age at which students had their first sexual experience, nor did it find that teens receiving abstinence-only education had less frequent sexual encounters. The study did not report on the prevalence of STDs or unwanted pregnancies that occurred during the four years students were monitored.
Rep. Cynthia Davis responded to concerns of teenage hormones by saying that she was a virgin until she was married and others should be able to do the same. Furthermore, Davis stated teenagers should not be taught by groups such as Planned Parenthood, an organization with recognized expertise in sex education. Rep. Davis and the right-wing machine went on to say that these services are not what our children need to understand issues concerning sexuality. As a part of the effort to make HB1055 worse, the Republicans inserted a new section that would ban so-called partial birth abortions unconditionally. This step was a new low of deceit and trickery and left progressives with a feeling that our thoughts and beliefs were inconsequential to the entire process. I thought of a 17-year old Wellston high school student with three children who could barely read and write. Now Missouri fails that person on two fronts - in education and accurate sex information. Other young people in similar situations are now limited to the information they can receive about the consequences of having sex and understanding the importance of safe family planning measures.
MO HealthNet, by far the most widely known piece of legislation in the public eye this year, is a disastrous bill that does nothing to restore health care benefits to the thousands of Missourians that lost coverage in 2005. The Republican Party pushed this initiative to suit Gov. Matt Blunt's needs and not those of Missourians. It is unforgivable that thousands of children will not be covered under this newly renamed program. When the bill returned to the House for final approval late on the last day, Republicans bullied their way through the debate claiming "Democrats need to suck it up and move on because we all can't always get what we want." This came from a Republican majority that spent most of the legislative session limiting debate on important issues. Health care for everyone is of vital importance and should have free and fair debate. Instead, the Republican majority gave HB 577 two hours on the last day of session to hear Democratic concerns with a plan that lacks merit, as a ploy to prevent any further Senate bills from passing in the House. It is tradition on the last day of session not to bar legislation but to pass as many bills as possible. Gov. Blunt and his legislative henchman pushed more of the same nonsense values they have always pushed rather than heeding Missourians' calls for change.
As the House debated HB577, other important legislation fell to the wayside. A crime victims' bill that would have added protections for rape victims and provided funds to the family of Shawn Hornbeck to pay for the education he missed while in captivity was never heard. Additionally, an agriculture bill that would have put new regulations on maintaining agricultural dams was left to gather dust.Missouri actually is blessed yet that some bills failed. One such is Senate Bill 161, which started as a bill to clean some language in existing education statutes. After being high jacked by one senator, SB 161 ended up giving the St. Louis the ability to create charter schools. The Smith-Bearden amendment to SB 161 would have redirected $1.5 million toward "incentive" pay, mandated teacher testing every five years and ended contracts and tenure. This inept policy would have further encroached on the public school system and it was intended to gut state funding from an institution that needs to be improved from the inside out. This senator spent most of Thursday evening lobbying House Democrats and with making deals with House Republicans. This was a disgrace, disingenuous and disrespectful to the people he represents and serves as a back-stab to the party that he claims to support. In the final vote of the Smith-Bearden amendment, only 10 of 71 Democrats voted in favor of it. With one exception, they were the same Democrats who co-sponsored enabling language to allow private school vouchers in Missouri. Isn't that a surprise?
The 2007 legislative session dismantled and turned back the clock on effective safety net provisions when it comes to helping people. Republicans have closed the door on health care for all Missourians by creating a program that has no way of succeeding. Republican affronts to healthcare are out of control.
Furthermore, the General Assembly has digressed from the conversation of a more comprehensive public school reform plan. Instead, in the wee hours of the morning, shallow plans came before the body to divest money from the public school funding formula in order to support pet projects. This legislative session has left me more dismayed than ever at the capricious "process." This now predictable instability has fueled many of us with a strong reverence to lend a hand in reclaiming the House majority and fixing the disastrous legislation that the Republican majority has bestowed upon us in rather a short period of time.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Maria Chappelle-NadalDistrict 72May 23, 2007 |
