MOScout Daily Update: Senate Debate Ed Reform - Minimum Wage Talk - RAGA Riot Connections and more...

Senate Pursues Big Education Bill

In the early morning, after hours of work, the Senate laid over their big education bill, leaving it on the Informal Calendar for another day.

One education reform advocate was undeterred, telling me: We will go back to it. We had a Senator not present tonight.

In other words, it’s going to be a tight vote – but they feel confident.

The afternoon started with Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin introducing her SB 55, the vehicle for the reformers’ agenda.  Floor Leader Caleb Rowden quickly took ownership of the issue.  In a

passionate speech he said he “cares more about [education reform] than anything else.”

Rowden then dropped a mammoth 109-page substitute as the starting point.

One reader thought Rowden didn’t help his cause when he “says we all need to work together, and then takes a shot at the teachers union in Columbia… [you can’t say] Teachers are great public schools are great but, you know the union are horrible folks that don’t care about kids. The great teachers are voting for the horrible union.”

Still the reformers were optimistic this was their year.  And that maybe their hoped for progress wouldn’t be coming through compromise.  They repeatedly attacked the establishment for never being willing to meet halfway.
Scott Dieckhaus on Facebook shared a post from a decade earlier when he’d worked on the issue as a legislator.. “Ten years ago today. We still have the same school districts failing generations of students. We still have very limited choices for parents and students when it comes to education. We have given record funding to Missouri’s public schools year after year, but our schools rank 36th in the country. The answer from the schools? Just give us more money. We’ve tried that over and over with no real gains. It’s time for a change.”

Republicans in support of education reform held the floor for hours.  The game plan seemed to be for Rowden and allies to work on securing 18 votes.  In other words: what would have to be trimmed from the proposal to entice the support of a majority?

Some progress seemed to be made during these hours as word circulated that Sen. Mike Moon, a man who found endless reasons to vote NO on things in the House, was lassoed for the reformers.

Ultimately, around midnight a second substitute was offered.  It was surprisingly still robust from the reformers’ point of view: it still had the ESAs and the charter school expansion – two big items on the reform wish list.

Moon then offered an amendment to require written permission from parents for a school to teach sex education.  It passed by a nose 17-16.  Sens. Karla Eslinger and Elaine Gannon both voted in favor of it.  I almost wonder if they did that thinking it would ultimately make the bill harder to pass.

A second amendment by Rowden put in funding triggers for ESAs.

And the bill was laid on the informal calendar.  To be continued…

Minimum Wage Talk

The Biden administration is considering a $15/hour minimum, reinvigorating talk about that policy lever.

A bill on the topic was filed by Rep. Cody Smith, HB 726.  It would set the state minimum wage at the same rate as the federal rate, undoing voters’ approval of an initiative petition in 2018. 

But if the federal level jumps to $15/hour, that would exceed the $12/hour target of the IP.  Smith’s bill was supposed to have a hearing this week, but was pulled from the agenda. Perhaps now it’s hibernating while the federal politics get worked out.

Senator Josh Hawley weighed in with a new twist: The biggest corporations in America can afford to pay their workers $15 an hour. Raise the minimum wage for big business, not small business.   One assumes this arrow was shot with a populist aim – go after big business.  But it’s also strangely off-target in the sense that only employees of large businesses would get the higher wage, not employees in small businesses.

And

I’ll remind folks we’re now about thirty years past a study which showed that higher minimum wages do not automatically translate into job losses.  It was maybe revolutionary because previously everyone assumed job loss was axiomatic with wage increases.  The study looked at a real-world situation.  When New Jersey increased it minimum wage, fast food restaurants compared to similar restaurant just across the border in Pennsylvania (where the wage was not increased) did not reduce employment.

This is not to say that you won’t see higher prices or lower profits, but rather don’t assume that businesses – even low margin industries – can’t integrate a higher minimum wage with relatively little disruption to their business model.

RAGA Riot Connections

Post-Dispatch reports on the connection between Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and the January 6 DC riot – with a Missouri connection.

·         Emails show the leader of a group that sent a robocall urging “patriots” to march to the U.S. Capitol ahead of violent clashes there on Jan. 6 contacted the Missouri attorney general’s office several times before and after the Nov. 3 election.   The office of Attorney General Eric Schmitt received numerous emails from Peter Bisbee, executive director of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a fundraising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA).

·         But Chris Nuelle, spokesman for Schmitt, said the Rule of Law Defense Fund was not a political group, but rather a policy organization. He has previously said that Schmitt had “no knowledge” of the robocall in question.

One MOScouter scoffed at that characterization… “The idea that the Rule of Law Defense Fund is a ‘policy’ organization and not a fundraising one is patently ridiculous...”

House Appt

Speaker Rob Vescovo appointed Rep. Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway, and reappointed Reps. Justin Hill, Louis Riggs, and Jered Taylor, to serve on the Joint Committee on Government Accountability.

Smith Taps Alert Flag

In a note in the House Journal, Rep. Travis Smith send notice of “personal interest.”

I am hereby filing a written report of personal interest in legislation on which the House of Representatives may vote during the legislative session.  I own Twin Bridges Canoe Rental in the State of Missouri. 

Please publish this letter in the Journal of the House.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact my office. 

Very truly yours, 

Travis Smith 

State Representative  155th District

Perhaps he’s referring to HB 72 and HB 1070 which deal with campground liability.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Rep. Peter Merideth, Tracy King, Rich Chrismer, Jolie Justus, Sonya Anderson, and Stephen Conway.