MOScout Daily Update: Onder Reacts to FRA Compromise - Freshman Tour Still On - COVID Case Jump - Digital Divide Map and more...
FRA Watch
Here how some of the players reacted to news of the FRA compromise and expected special session next week…
· Sen. Bob Onder on Twitter telegraphs that he’s going to push for his language on the Senate floor. “Funding of abortion providers will definitely be part of the discussion. We’ve done this every yr in the budget, but in 6/20 MoS.Ct. sd we could not do in budget. So we must do in statute.”
· Senate Dems have reacted negatively to the proposed language, but haven’t issued a statement vowing opposition or indicating they’d filibuster the bill. It’s important to remember they’re still smarting from the final days of session when they felt Senate leadership didn’t uphold their end of promises.
· House Republicans won’t change their plans for the Freshman Tour to happen next week. Sources say Senate leadership and the Gov’s office have not been in conversation with House leadership. The person I am told that has been specifically left out of the conversation is Floor Leader Dean Plocher. Regardless of a when a special session call comes from the governor, Plocher has no incentive to call the House to action until the Senate can prove they have a path forward on a bill that the House majority can also agree with.
And
There’s still the other healthcare battle that going on as well. The Medicaid Expansion lawsuit trial starts tomorrow…
Delta Variant Hitting UnVaxed Missourians
· A swath of southern Missouri is seeing a big rise in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations at just the wrong time — as tourists eager to get out after being cooped up for a year make their way to popular destinations such as Branson and Lake of the Ozarks.
· Data from the state health department’s COVID-19 dashboard on Wednesday showed 206 people hospitalized with the virus in southwestern Missouri — nearly double the 111 hospitalizations from that region at the start of May. The number of people in intensive care units in the region has tripled — from 22 a month-and-a-half ago to 65 now. Meanwhile, statewide hospitalizations have remained steady since March.
· Health experts cite two factors driving the surge: The presence of the faster-spreading Delta variant, and a reluctance among residents to get vaccinated.
· While 52.6% of Americans have initiated vaccination, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most southern Missouri counties are well short of 40%. Branson sits in Taney and Stone counties, where the vaccination rates as of Wednesday were 27.4% and 28.4% respectively. Miller County, at Lake of the Ozarks, had a vaccination rate of 22.9%.
· New restrictions are unlikely. Political leaders, business operators and residents in Branson and the Lake of the Ozarks region were overwhelmingly opposed to mask mandates and other measures last year, even at the height of the pandemic.
Feds Wag Finger on Gun Law
AP reports on fallout from SAPA. Read it here.
· The Justice Department is warning Missouri officials that the state can’t ignore federal law, after the governor signed a bill last week that bans police from enforcing federal gun rules.
· In a letter sent Wednesday night and obtained by The Associated Press, Justice officials said the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause outweighs the measure that Gov. Mike Parson signed into law Saturday. The new rules penalize local police departments if their officers enforce federal gun laws.
· Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton said the law threatens to disrupt the working relationship between federal and local authorities, they said in the letter, noting that Missouri receives federal grants and technical assistance.
Digital Divide
Axios reports that the “Biden administration Thursday unveiled a new mapping tool that shows much greater gaps in use of high-speed internet service across the U.S. than the government's previous maps reported… The White House is pushing for big spending to provide more, better broadband service to underserved areas after the pandemic made Americans more dependent than ever on their internet connections.”
See the interactive map here. You can zoom in on Missouri.
It looks to me like McDonald County has the highest percentage of households without internet access (36.1%) followed by Oregon County (35.1%)
Gubby Appts
Governor Mike Parson filled five county office vacancies.
· Densil Allen Jr., of Knob Noster, was appointed as the Johnson County Presiding Commissioner.
· Sonja Childers, of Rolla, was appointed as the Phelps County Circuit Clerk.
· Jamie Kaylor, of Ewing, was appointed as the Lewis County Circuit Clerk.
· Carla Markt, of Oregon, was appointed as the Holt County First District Commissioner.
· David Stubblefield, of Alton, was appointed as the Oregon County Presiding Commissioner.
We’ve All Met These Folks
We’ve all met these folks who don’t know the difference between their state representatives and their congressional representatives. See it here.
eMailbag
Unless Patch Adams has switched careers to become a crackerjack white collar criminal defense attorney, can't see how his appearance will make a difference in Rep. Derges' situation. And his agenda of free medical care for all doesn't exactly square with the GOP message.
Lobbyist Registrations
Jason Zamkus added ADP Inc.; and deleted Missouri Agribusiness Association.
$5K+ Contributions
Local 41 Political Action Fund - $15,858 from DRIVE Committee.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Sen. Lincoln Hough, Rep. Michael O’Donnell, Sam Licklider, and Barbara Fraser.