JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – After a 89-66 vote in the Missouri House, Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon will now decide the fate of legislation aiming to solve the school transfer crisis facing the St. Louis region.
Legislation passed on Thursday with opposition and support from both Democrats and Republicans far short of the 109 votes required to override a gubernatorial veto. Seven Democrats joined 82 Republicans in voting for the bill, while 24 Republicans joined 44 Democrats against the measure.
With only three days left in the session, Nixon drew a line in the sand against a provision of the bill that would allow local tax dollars to be used for students transferring to private, non-religious schools. In the conference committee, that provision was limited to only St. Louis and Kansas City.
“The easy thing is to say it’s not a perfect bill and you had to vote no,” said Rep. Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff. “We can sit here and hold out for 10 percent of what we want. We can take the easy vote and vote no. Or we can dot he harder and responsible thing, which is to say we’re not going to let this problem continue to grow out of control.”
The Missouri Senate sent the bill, Senate Bill 493, to the House on Wednesday by a 28-3 vote. It was opposed by three Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Jolie Justus, Sen. Paul Levota, and Sen. Jason Holsman, all from Kansas City. If the bill is vetoed and comes up during an override attempt, however LeVota agreed with Pearce that those are “two different votes.”
The bill received broad opposition from Black Democrats in the House, a day after the St. Louis NAACP announced its opposition.
“This bill does not fix the transfer issue,” said Rep. Clem Smith, a Black Democrat who lives in the Normandy School District. “It furthers experimentation on kids who look like me. If it was so good for St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and KC, why isn’t it being applied to the whole state? It’s only applied to kids who look like me.”
Another Black Democrat, Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a school board member from University City, took a different view. She worked with Senate Education Committee Chairman David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, to move the bill through the Senate this session.
“Are we all satisfied? Absolutely not. If none of us are getting 100 percent, that means we have worked in collaboration to balance out the needs of all the areas we represent,” she said. “If Nixon vetoed this, it would be the second time he has turned his back on poor black children.”
Chappelle-Nadal was critical of Nixon for not being publicly involved in the debate over school transfers.
“Where was the gov last summer? Where was his proposal,” she asked. “The governor never had any plans. For him to come about in true 11th hour is not a mistake, it shows the lack of leadership.”
Missouri’s school transfer law was upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court last summer. It has allowed a couple thousand students to transfer from unaccredited districts like Normandy and Riverview Gardens to better performing school districts in the St. Louis region. The law, which requires the sending school to foot the bill for much of the transfer costs, has stressed the budgets of the failing school districts.
The broader bill would remove the requirement for the sending school to cover the costs of transportation, but how much they would have to pay for tuition would be covered by the receiving school district. If they were to transfer to a private, non-sectarian school district, local tax revenue would cover tuition.
Scroll through transfer vote above.