JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri lawmakers returned to Jefferson City on Wednesday to begin their annual legislative session. Many of the issues on tap are not unlike those considered before, but this year, they will be considered by a General Assembly with even stronger Republican majorities and in light of unrest in Ferguson.

Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, said he is preparing to focus on four distinct issues.

“While I do not have a fancy acronym I’ve been using as I go around the state,” he said, offering an implicit joke about the tactics of former House Speaker Tim Jones, “we do have a great deal of work to do.”

Ferguson
Dempsey said a major focus of the General Assembly in response to unrest in Ferguson will be reforming municipal courts. Currently, cities can pull up to 20 percent of their revenue from traffic fines and court fees. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a St. Louis Republican who is running for state treasurer, wants to drop that to 10 percent.

“I don’t want to paint with a broad brush and say we have a problem across all communities, but we do have problems in various parts of the state, most pronounced in north St. Louis County,” he said. “Our action will be to curb what we believe to be abuses of the court system.”

Agriculture
Dempsey said Wednesday he hopes the Senate will move quickly on an agriculture bill not unlike one vetoed last year by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, but this time, without the poison pill that was a section related to farming deer that he found objectionable.

“There were still a number of important pieces,” he said. “We’ll be moving very quickly on the other pieces of that, which includes supporting the dairy industry.”

Education
After Nixon vetoed a bill related to addressing the school transfer issues most pronounced by the problems surrounding failing schools in St. Louis and Kansas City, Dempsey said lawmakers will give another shot at changing the state’s policy.

In December, he said, lawmakers had a meeting with Nixon and others at the University of Missouri in St. Louis that focused on the issue.

“There will be a proposal where we hopefully have an executive branch and a legislative branch that will speak with one voice so we can give every child in the state of Missouri a quality education,” he said.

Federal pushback and Medicaid?
Dempsey said his Senate plans to push back on some federal policies, including health care issues and regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We do not believe the state’s roll is to blindly follow the federal government,” he said.

On health care, Dempsey said lawmakers plan to focus on Medicaid “reform,” not expansion.

“We have free and fair debate, I’m sure amendments will be offered to expand Medicaid. It will be discussed as to the benefits and the problems,” he said. “We’re also going to have a serious discussion about the reforms we can make to better use existing resources.”

When asked about whether he agreed with the governor’s suggestion that there was a real chance for Medicaid expansion this session, Dempsey said flatly, “Uh, no!”