Friday, April 24, 2015
Managed Care Expansion Makes It Through Legislature
The legislature passed the budget hitting their self-imposed inside-baseball deadline to deliver the document to the governor’s office in order to override any line item vetoes while in session.
There have been plenty of eye rolls in the halls at the race to try to outflank the governor. One of the more common questions is: won’t he just sign all the budget bills and then withhold whatever he doesn’t like?
The most contentious debate of the day was again over the move to managed care in the Department of Social Services’ budget. It passed the House with the slimmest majority of the budget bills, with 85 voting in favor.
Tweet of the Day
Chris Dunn @4LastingChange: Thanks to staff in House Information Systems, Clerk's office, Print Shop, & Appropriations for pulling all-nighter to finish budget. #MoLeg
The Baum Pulls Down a Murrow
The peerless John Combest’s morning headlines and links has a winner this morning… a link to KWMU’s mighty Jason Rosenbaum story which won a Edward R Murrow award for fine journalism. See it here.
CEMO to Fraker: Let My Bill Go
The press release: Today Missouri energy consumers are waiting for HB 784, which would establish a transparent competitive bidding system for electrical corporations, benefit consumers, and attract more businesses and jobs, to be released from the Utility Infrastructure Committee chaired by Representative Lyndall Fraker of Marshfield.
Moving the bill out of the Utility Infrastructure committee would allow the bill to come before the Select Committee on Utilities following the committee structure and process put in place by House Speaker John Diehl.
CEMO’s Managing Director Lynne Flowers said: “HB 784 is trapped in the Utility Infrastructure Committee where it will be chained until it dies if the Missouri electric utility monopolies have their way. Transparency, accountability and opportunity make for good governance in both public and private business transactions. We simply want the process to continue….”
BJ Headlines
Front page Kansas City Business Journal this morning reports on Hallmark’s “intrapreneurs.” “Hallmark’s Create Team, a little-known unit of the $3.8 billion company, has built a portfolio of a dozen startups, now in various stages of vetting and development…”
And the St. Louis Business Journal looks at the many millionaires that have rode the success of Stifel Financial’s stock to riches. See it here.
Bits
Some senators are having second thoughts about Sen. Kurt Schaefer’s SB 352 which would expand the powers of the attorney general. Right now the bill is in Fiscal Oversight, and some are hoping it stays there long enough that it diminishes its chances of making across the finish line this session.
Kansas City and Uber reach accord… See it here.
Eric Greitens reads at the St. Louis County library next week. See it here.
Sen. Bob Dixon amended his campaign account with his April filing to seek 2016 statewide office… little over $100K on-hand…
Worst In-Box
Rep. Jeremy LaFaver confessed to 6,782 unopened emails across his various email accounts. But he was dwarfed by another state representative who is too embarrassed to be named… with over 42,000 emails in his in-box….
Today’s Events
From Mary Scruggs’ indispensable events calendar:
Sunday: Sen. Gina Walsh Birthday Bash Reception – Hendels Market Café, Florissant – 3-6PM.
Lobbyist Registrations
Nikola Nable-Juris added The Campaign For The Fair Sentencing Of Youth.
Carter Weil added Halcyon Asset Management LLC.
Aimee Priya Ghosh and Craig J Saperstein added Yoga Alliance.
$5K+ Contributions
Teamstera Local Union 688 Political Action Committee - $11,793 from Drive Committee.
Local 41 Political Action Fund - $8,764 from Drive Committee.
Greitens for Missouri - $5,001 from Educare Capital Partners LLC.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Sen. Brian Munzlinger (59).
Saturday: Ed Finkelstein (77), and Courtney Lauer-Myers.