JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri General Assembly gaveled in for their fourth week on Monday, the first full week since coming together in early January.
House Speaker Tim Jones said the floor schedule for the week would remain light. On Monday, perfected the only bill on the calendar, HB 1125, which would allow a person with a physical disability or a member of the armed forces on active duty filing a declaration of candidacy by certified mail to designate a representative for the ballot order random drawing.
Jones said “there’s a lot of buzz going down at the committee level,” where some 200 bills have been referred. Nearly 570 bills have been filed so far this year, and more are coming.
“Now that the speeches are concluded, we’re now onto the tasks at hand.”
1. The Budget
Jones said like other years, the budget is a monumental tax for the legislature. He said “because of careful fiscal management” by the GOP (a slight jab at Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon), the state has a surplus. But the size of the surplus is still in question.
“It looks like the governor’s budget is $310 million more than we think will be coming in,” House Budget Committee Rick Stream said on Monday. “We will be increasing a lot of areas, including education funding, just not at the levels the governors proposed.”
2. Fulton State Hospital
Nixon has made clear his hope that the legislature will pass a supplemental budget including $14 million in funding for bond payments to help pay for replacement of facilities at Fulton Hospital. His FY 2015 budget includes another $14 million. It is Nixon’s hope that the $24 million will provide the state two years worth of resources to pay bond payments in advance on the up to $198 million needed for construction.
The House has scheduled a hearing Wednesday morning to hear from state Budget Director Linda Luebbering to hear more about Nixon’s proposal.
“We have several options we’re thinking about. It’s an urgent need – it needs to be done as quickly as possible,” Stream said. “Wednesday’s hearing is to get the governor’s position on how they’re going tot ind it. … Everybody realizes this is an urgent need, the question is how do we fund it.”
3. Abortion and contraception legislation
The Missouri Senate met on Monday evening to hear Sen. David Sater’s SB 519, which would change the current waiting period for having an abortion from 24 hours to 72 hours.
Later in the week, the House Health Care Policy committee is set to meet to consider House Speaker Tim Jones’s HB 1430, which would allow medical providers to refuse to perform or participate in activities that “violate his or her conscience or principles,” aiming specifically at the contraception mandate in the federal healthcare law.