MOScout Daily Update: Trump v Reagan on Senate Floor - Anti-IVF PAC - JP on Clay Site - Kehoe on Head Start - Byrne on DESE and more…

Trump Versus Reagan on Senate Floor

Yesterday the Senate passed HB 595 which prohibited local governments from requiring private property owners to accept Section 8 vouchers.  While most Dems opposed the bill and voted against it, the most interesting part of the discussion occurred between Republicans.

Sen. Joe Nicola introduced an amendment which he hoped would prevent private equity firms from purchasing residential homes. “We have quite a problem with these corporate hedge funds coming in, especially in my district. I've seen it. They're buying houses up really fast. They're raising the prices up, which makes property taxes go higher, makes it more difficult for first-time buyers to purchase because the prices are really high.”

Nicola was giving voice to a powerful new part of the Republican coalition – the anti-corporate Right, the Trump populist economic agenda. 

Opposing this view is the traditional Republican advocacy for business interests, the old-line Reagan free market perspective.  Sen. Curtis Trent spoke up for this wing of the Republican Party: I'm a free market guy. I believe that free people making economic decisions in a free market with the minimum government regulations, minimum taxes, those are the things that unleash prosperity, not trying to use the heavy hand of government to come in and force an outcome that we might particularly want to see, because typically when you do that, it makes us all poorer. Political decisions instead of economic decisions and those cost money to society. They cost productivity and they hurt our economy.

The debate was scuttled when other senators prevailed on Nicola to pull his amendment back due to possible unintended consequences.  But they promised to work with him on a fix in the future.  It would have been interesting to see a vote on the amendment and see how the Republican Caucus breaks on this economic philosophical divide.

At the Capitol Today

·       LG David Wasinger hosts Buy Missouri Day in the 1st floor of the rotunda.

·       70 degree weather looks perfect today for the Annual Local Electric Cooperative Fish Fry out on the capitol lawn.

Anti-IVF PAC Formed

Abolish Abortion Missouri was formed.  It’s a political action committee.  According to its paperwork (see it here), Wesley Scroggins is the executive director of the organization.  He’s been a vocal force in the capitol against in vitro fertilization.

·       From KFVS: “We are against that IVF simply because it basically results in the killing of those children,” said Wesley Scroggins with Abolish Abortion Missouri. “We believe that that is sinful in the eyes of God. So, we are definitely against that.” The group is advocating for a controversial bill that would impose murder charges on any person who gets an abortion in the state, a policy that other anti-abortion organizations like Campaign Life Missouri have denounced. The group is also encouraging lawmakers to ban in vitro fertilization, believing that any fertilized egg should have full legal rights that supersede those of the pregnant person, and should be recognized as a live person.

JP Endorses Clay County as Royals Site

On the Pete Mundo show on Monday, Speaker Jon Patterson gives an update on the Royals situation.  Listen to it here.

I do think that the Clay County site is attractive for a lot of reasons.  Number one being that it would take off half of the load for Jackson County tax payers and let Clay Countians take over that… Some people are trying to form a sports authority up there that I’d be in favor of. Let Clay Countians take the Royals.

Kehoe on Head Start

Post-Dispatch reports that Governor Mike Kehoe “might tap into the state’s robust budget surplus if President Donald Trump’s administration moves forward on a threat to cut funding for Head Start programs for young children.”

·       As part of a preliminary budget memo, the Trump administration asked Congress to eliminate the 60-year-old child care program for low-income families as part of a massive downsizing of the federal government. In Missouri, Head Start is a $208 million program…

·       “You want to always be ready for something, but you hope you don’t have to use the tools that you have to use,” Kehoe said. “One of the reasons I think it's important that we leave money on the bottom line in our budget is in case some of these things shift to us.”

·       The House budget plan left nearly $2 billion of that unspent, giving Kehoe a possible pool of money to offset federal reductions.

What It Means

There are likely some tough budget decisions in the years ahead for Kehoe.

·       The state budget is already on track to spend down that substantial cash pile in the coming years.

·       The economic slowdown is going to be showing up later this year in state tax revenues, and it’s not going to be pretty.

·       While I assume the doomsday scenario of the feds banning FRA tax doesn’t come to fruition, there might not be much budgetary wiggle room for Kehoe soon.

More on Byrne

One MOScouter points to an op/ed by Mary Byrne last year about the SB 727 education bill as an indication of her views on ESA (“state-sanctioned money laundering system”) and DESE.  Byrne recently joined the Joint Committee on Education as its new executive director.  Read the op/ed here.

·       DESE’s record for making policies and accreditation standards for public schools demonstrates its idea of “education” is social reconstruction by shrinking parent authority over children’s education. DESE is the enforcer of the Woke agenda, DEI, SEL and a comprehensive sex education program that imposes dogma and propaganda in matters and topics determined by non-profits and the state, not parents…

·       SB 727 does not provide choice. It shifts tax money from public schools to private entities under the direction of a department that has overseen the demise of Missouri’s public education. Missouri taxpayers deserve transparency, accountability and authentic education reform starting with reforming the State Board of Education. The legislature should represent the public’s interest and override the Governor’s signing of SB 727 at veto session.

Fearful Clerks

In the Senate Local Government, Elections and Pensions committee yesterday, the hearing on Rep. Peggy McGaugh’s HB 507 led to a discussion whether new laws are needed to protect election officials.  With the rise of election-deniers, conspiracy theories about voting machines, there’s more stress and hostility toward election officials.

·       Some senators are nervous to create a “new protected class.”  Sen. Mike Henderson: “I want to protect [the election official] too. But I had my hospital come to me and said, we wish you would try to do that for nurses. And, where do we stop protecting classes? I think we have laws on the books if we just enforced them…  probably do most of this already.”

eMailbag on SOS Budget Cuts

·       Maybe the inability to fill the positions at SoS has to do with pay. They cut 25 positions and only $684,000?! That makes the average pay $27,360!

·       From a former Republican staffer: Cierpiot’s proposed SOS budget cut is likely personal, but this happens all the time in the private sector.  Positions are routinely cut if you can’t fill them.  As I see it, a fiscal conservative should look at this as the low hanging fruit or a starting point for further cuts. 

Lobbyist Registrations

Katie Renee Dunlap added Upwards, Inc.

Andy Foley and Craig Redmon added Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems.

Eapen Thampy added AST Genetics; and deleted Slaphappy Hemp.

Gamble & Schlemeier deleted Fox Smith, LLC.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Gina Walsh and Jeff Pogue.