MOScout Daily Update: Senate Perfects COVID Liability - Moon Shakes Fist - Curator's Horserace - Parson to Super Bowl? and more...
Senate Filibuster
Just minutes before hitting “send” the Senate – which worked throughout the night – was coming to a conclusion on the COVID liability, SB 51 & 42. The bill was perfected around 5:10AM. The debate started around 2PM yesterday.
What It Means
This journey through the long night and into the early morning has become a hallmark of the tenure of Senate Floor Leader Caleb Rowden. He telegraphs the priority bills and insists that the body stay on them until compromise is reached, using the slog of the filibuster to drive the parties to a resolution.
This formula may actually be a bit easier for Rowden to employ this year as the average age of the Republican Caucus seems to have become a bit younger this session.
And
Some Senate committees will be cancelled or postponed because of the all-nighter. Check the schedule. The Senate itself will “gavel in gavel out” at 10AM.
Vaccine Situation
Less than two months ago, there was great optimism about the coming vaccine roll-out. It was reported that Missouri would “have enough doses to vaccinate 2 million people by the end of February.”
That would have represented a third of Missouri’s population. And assuming it was targeted to the most vulnerable Missourians, it would have been a gamechanger resulting in a dramatic decline in the COVID deaths in the state.
Instead, according to Missouri’s vaccine dashboard yesterday only 6.7% of Missourians had received only one dose. And with the federal allotment running around 75,000 doses a week, the 2M target is way out of reach.
According to the CDC numbers, Missouri still ranks at the bottom. Governor Mike Parson has spent some energy telling reporters not to look at that dashboard, but rather use at the state dashboard which has more current numbers.
Doing so deprives an apples-to-apples comparison to understand how well we’re doing relative to others state. But if you use our state numbers against the “old” CDC numbers it does give us a bounce in the rankings. It would moves up from a tie for last (50th) to 44th. Yay?
And
Yesterday, Missouri’s death total from COVID leapt over the 7,000 mark.
Legislature Aims to Control Summary Language
In the House Elections and Elected Officials Committee (Noon), Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann’s HB 850 will get a hearing. It would prevent the courts from messing with summary language that the legislature has written for constitutional amendments.
If the general assembly adopts a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment or statutory measure that includes an official summary statement, the statement shall appear on the ballot, and no court shall have the authority to rewrite or edit the summary statement or ballot language.
While I’m not a constitutional lawyer, it seems like it might an overreach to pass a law reining in the power of another branch of government.
But the purpose of the bill could be to send a message, like yelling at the ump.
Stith to Retire
At yesterday’s virtual State of the Judiciary speech Chief Justice George Draper announced that Judge Laura Denvir Stith would be retiring from the Supreme Court of Missouri. That statement said that “her retirement will be effective after the close of business March 8, 2021.”
The mighty Jason Rosenbaum noted on Twitter that the Supreme Court has a mandatory retirement age of 70 so Stith is the “first of three judges @GovParsonMO will get to replace during his term.”
Curator’s Horserace
One MOScouter sent in this account of the “intensifying campaign for the 6th Congressional District seat on the University of Missouri System’s governing Board of Curators.”
Former Missouri Republican Party Chairman Todd Graves is making a hard run at gaining the 6th CD seat appointment from Governor Mike Parson. Graves has been calling senators and calling in chits for support, even though some senators remember The Kansas City Star’s editorial description of Graves as “the chief apologist for Greitens,” the disgraced ex-governor who made Graves GOP chair.
If cattleman Parson had his druthers, he might appoint another reported contender who wants the job, immediate past Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst. Farm Bureau and Hurst were solidly with Parson as he ran up huge votes across rural Missourah in the November election.
But a new sprinting contender is coming up in the 6th CD Curator field, with backing from Kansas City business leaders.
Supporters say Lisa Weixelman, an attorney with Polsinelli and a University of Missouri-Kansas City law grad, is gaining support from those who insist UMKC deserves a voice on the influential board. Both Graves and Hurst are graduates of the Columbia campus. UMKC doesn’t currently have representation on the board, even though it’s one of the four main campuses including a law school, medical school, teaching hospital, renowned music conservatory and the Bloch School of Business.
Weixelman’s backers are said to include Kansas City Senator Greg Razer, former UM Curator Warren Erdman of Kansas City Southern, and retired UM System President Gary Forsee, ex-CEO of Sprint. Weixelman is a trustee of the UMKC Law Foundation and her love of her alma mater is a fine motivation for a curator. The Kansas City business community is reaching out to support her for the board.
Hurst’s long-time role in promoting agriculture makes a good case for him serving in the seat representing almost all of the state’s farm country north of I-70. UM has agricultural programs all over the state through Extension. It would be a popular choice in the outstate territory that gave Parson his victory.
Graves’ constituency is less clear, though he has been a key part of the political connective tissue of the wealthy Herzog construction family of St. Joseph, along with former state Senator Brad Lager, a Herzog bigwig. After the death of company patriarch Stanley Herzog, his estate endowed with hundreds of millions of dollars the Herzog Family Foundation. Graves was named its chairman. There are concerns Graves could re-introduce partisan politics to the board, which has spent the last seven or eight years healing from prior overtly partisan appointees.
Insiders’ assessment is that Weixelman would be an appointment to keep Kansas City happy, while Hurst could get another plum at some point and Graves may shift his attention to lobbying for a candidate of his choice for the Missouri Supreme Court opening, with the just-announced retirement of Judge Laura Stith.
Gas Tax
At yesterday’s hearing on Sen. Dave Schatz’ SB 262, Randy Scherr, lobbyist for the Missouri Concrete Association, made the point that while the gas tax has unchanged for over twenty years the cost of maintaining the roads has steadily increased.
Scherr explained that the cost of a cubic yard of concrete has increased from $58 to $128 in the period since 1996.
At the current 17 cent gas tax rate that doublings means that the amount of gas that number of miles that needs to be driven has risen from 6,479 miles (in 1996) to 14,305 miles (in 2019) just to pay for a cubic yard of concrete.
Scherr notes: 1.04 Cubic yards of concrete will build an “8’ x 10’ x 4” patio in your back yard” or more crucially… 32 inches of a single lane 12-foot wide, full depth highway pavement. And Missouri has 2,145,116,160 inches of state highways.
Also
Schatz indicated there’d be a rebate component added to the bill as it makes its way through the process. This would help sell the tax increase to voters.
Moon Shakes Fist
Yesterday on the Senate floor, Sen. Mike Moon railed against Governor Mike Parson’s recent appointment of David Cole to a judgeship. Moon defeated Cole in a close primary last summer. He criticized the governor for not reaching out beforehand to get input.
The Post-Dispatch quotes Moon saying, “Mr. Governor, this will not be forgotten anytime soon.”
But honestly Moon doesn’t strike me as someone who would hold a vendetta against the governor. He strikes me as too principled to get caught up in the tit-for-tat politics.
But we’ll see…
The Road to the Super Bowl
Governor Mike Parson tweeted that he made a friendly bet with Governor Ron DeSantis on the Superbowl.
There’s been talk that Parson will likely attend the Superbowl. If that scuttlebutt is true the question is: how will he get there?
I don’t think there’s a problem with him being there in an official capacity as governor, but the optics of a taxpayer-funded airline ticket probably make that a no-go. Calling it a campaign expense doesn’t seem kosher. So, if he goes, I suppose he’ll either pay his own way, or perhaps he’ll be gifted a plane trip by a donor?
We’ll see…
Gubby Appts
Press release: Governor Mike Parson appointed Christopher K. Limbaugh as Associate Circuit Judge for the 19th Judicial Circuit. He will fill the vacancy created by the election of the Honorable Cotton Walker to Circuit Judge. Mr. Limbaugh, of Jefferson City, currently serves as General Counsel – Chief Legal Officer for Governor Parson. He started his career in private practice in his hometown of Cape Girardeau. Mr. Limbaugh then served as the elected prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County trying a wide variety of criminal cases. He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law.
And
Parson also appointed Judge Thomas C. Clark II to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District.
Lobbyists Registrations
Guy Black added CGB Enterprises Inc.
Kari Edwards, and Dennis Sison added Indivior.
Shlomo Soroka added Agudath Israel of Illinois.
$5K+ Contributions
Friends of Randy Minchew - $10,000 from Gregory A Deline.
MO Cable PAC - $5,568 from Comcast.
MO Cable PAC - $6,327 from Mediacom.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Justin Alferman, Jason Crowell, Dave Hinson, Kent Hampton, and Warren Love.