JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers voted Wednesday to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s vetoes this summer of more than $60 million in budget items.
The votes came as lawmakers met to consider more than 30 vetoed bills and dozens of line-item budget vetoes.
Nixon, a Democrat, has said the Republican-led Legislature is trying to “grow government” with its efforts to override his line-item vetoes, while Republicans have said the governor has given his own travel expenses priority above needy children and other state needs.
“When he spends that money” on the state’s plane, “yet vetoes money for domestic violence and abused kids, he’s making a very clear statement of what is important to him and what is not,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, told reporters ahead of the vote.
To articulate that point, the Missouri House used its first vote on the matter Wednesday to override Nixon’s veto of a spending item that would provide more than $1.45 million to pay for forensic exams for physically abused children. Other measures included funding for defibrillators for the Water Patrol and nearly $1 million — including federal money — to expand Medicaid for people with brain injuries.
The Legislature voted to reinstate more than $5.1 million that Nixon vetoed for the Missouri Rehabilitation Center operated by the University of Missouri in Mount Vernon. The university plans to close the center at the end of October.
Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, said the center employs 324 people in the region, and that he hopes it stays open.
“It is the only facility in the state of Missouri that treats spinal cord and brain trauma injuries for people who can’t pay for it themselves,” he said.
The Mount Vernon center holds a veterans clinic, which is why Rep. Charlie Davis, R-Webb City, said he hopes it stays open too.
“The Missouri Rehabilitation Center helps our veterans — the X-rays, the lab, the cafeteria as well as other things,” he said. “This doesn’t just help the indigent, it helps our veterans, and the men and women who serve this country proudly.”
Throughout the day, the measures received bipartisan support in the House, including votes in favor by all of the Joplin area’s delegation.
Legislators spent most of Wednesday passing the budget bills, but their efforts may be reversed. Nixon, who has said the Legislature’s budget is out of balance, is likely to turn around and withhold the spending legislators approved.
While Nixon was easily defeated by lawmakers on Wednesday in terms of his budget vetoes, he appeared to be winning on sales tax cuts. Nixon spent much of the summer campaigning against a package of sales tax measures that he said would cut more than $760 million from state and local budgets annually if they were enacted.
Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, who sponsored one of the largest sales tax cut measures, said Wednesday that he would not bring up the bill for a vote. It had several provisions, including ones that would exempt from sales tax items used in data storage, items used by electric utility companies, and some fees paid to places of recreation.
Dixon said in a statement that he would seek larger tax code reform when lawmakers reconvene in January.
Tax notification
WHILE THEIR EFFORTS to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s vetoes of the bulk of the sales tax measures failed, legislators did advance other priorities. The Senate voted to override Nixon’s veto of a bill that would require the Missouri Department of Revenue to notify businesses when sales taxes change, with the support of Sen. Ron Richard, R-Joplin.
“The DOR has been practicing a system of ‘notification by audit’ by not telling Missourians of changes in sales tax policies, causing them to pay thousands in back taxes and penalties,” Richard said. “This is not only unfair, but it’s also unevenly enforced, putting some businesses at a competitive disadvantage.”