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Today's Poll!Mo. Black Caucus urges Nixon to veto legislation
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Legislative Black Caucus is urging Gov. Jay Nixon to veto a workplace discrimination bill.
In a letter to Nixon released Wednesday, the caucus said the legislation would reverse important legal protections and roll back decades of progress on civil rights. The letter was signed by most caucus members.
The Legislature passed the workplace discrimination bill last week. Nixon’s office has said it will give the bill a comprehensive review.
Supporters say the bill makes Missouri laws match federal civil rights laws. They say the legislation encourages job creation and was a priority of business groups.
The bill would create a higher legal standard for people who file lawsuits over being fired. It also limits how much money could be collected.
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Employment discrimination bill is SB188
Online:
http://www.moga.mo.gov
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Comments
asb 2 years, 1 month ago
Tort reform again, complete with a comfy name and "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" chanted by business groups; perportedly to "raise litigation standards," but actually meant to limit the liability of corporations in instances of inexcusible behavior. More pro-business, anti-worker legislation brought to you by the Missouri Assembly, a substantially owned subsidiary of Missouri Corp. More than those of the Black Caucus need to oppose this transfer of wealth from the workers who actually create it to those who increasingly control it.
JCLifer 2 years, 1 month ago
Corporate Welfare! We have the best lawmakers that money can buy!
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
I put this in line with medical tort reform in missouri. insurance rates didn't go down and we have a influx of horrible doctors to the state. so bad I would rather go out of state. how much did these people donate to the people sponsoring these bills? Is the missouri house and senate just another whor/e/house like washington dc is these days?
wow 2 years, 1 month ago
Punish the people who shout "Wolf" or "Fire' just to get money or make the news....but there is no "good" reason to make the victims of a discrimination prove 1st they were a victim and 2nd the motivation of the criminal was a bias and 3rd limit how much the criminal can be punished. This type of legislation is going backwards not forwards......and it has nothing to with creating jobs.
America...specifically Missouri has already gone down this path before and it hurt a whole lot of innocent people. Missouri Compromise, Dred Scott, Lloyd Baines (He's still missing by the way)...time and space won't allow me to list all the incidents...but there are many more.
The presenters of this bill say Mo. has lost companies because companies won't come here because our current discrimination laws are to hash? Which companies said that and do you want employers who are looking for ways to skirt treating people fairly? I don't, nor do I think the presenters reasons for pushing this bill are truly honorable. In the past when these type of laws were passed by the Gov't it made people think it was legal to treat people unfairly and without dignity. Therefore society openly accepted segregationist rules based on race and placed women subordinate to men. It took generations to correct that and we're still trying to finish making those corrections today.........therefore I say Gov. Nixon please don't pass this legislation, because it will send our state and nation backwards!
asb 2 years, 1 month ago
The present system requires proof of discrimination, but this bill allows the defendent to say "I didn't mean anything bad" and get away with it And even when found guilty, the bill limits his punishment enough that the bad behavior is more likely to continue.
asb 2 years, 1 month ago
Bad behavior is NOT assumed, that's the courts' job to decide. You've just suggested that discrimination suits are all ill-aimed, and that's not true either. If a court finds the defendent's reasons valid, cool. Bad behavior, and working the system, are both inevitable and each instance of them is unique and needs to be decided by the court, without restrictions.
BiggDeal 2 years, 1 month ago
How about this idea instead....Let's change the legal system so that there are no limits placed on punitive damages, but let's also change it so that the plaintiffs and their lawyers don't receive those punitive damages. Instead, let's set up a system where 50% of the punitive damages would go to a charity of the plaintiffs choice, and the other 50% would go to a charity of the defendants choice. The plaintiffs would only receive the actual damages that are required to 'make them whole'. This would keep defendants on the hook for negligence, malpractice, discrimination, etc., but it would also lead to fewer frivolous lawsuits by people hoping to get rich off of the punitive damage awards .
asb 2 years, 1 month ago
Good thought. However, the awards are, and have been in most western countries for over 1,000 years, the court's job. Either a judge, a jury or a tribunal listen to both sides and make judgements. It is a cornerstone of our system and gets abused constantly for sure. But, your suggestion on punitive damages, while very well worth considering, is not in any tort reform bill I've ever heard of . . . because "tort reform" is ALWAYS designed to limit liabiltiy and to take the decision away from the court/judge/jury and save criminals money. Get your idea into a bill and watch it rot away in a committee on Whoatheresport, chaired by Senator Fatwallet.
BiggDeal 2 years, 1 month ago
I agree that the odds of this kind of true tort reform being passed into law would be very remote due to the lobbying that the tort lawyers would do, and businesses would do, and probably even groups who advocate for 'victims rights'. But the fact that all three of these groups have something to lose suggests to me that this solution is the right one. The only people who have anything to gain from it are the average citizens who aren't the ones suing to get rich, aren't the business owners who could face higher punative damages, and aren't the lawyers who win no matter who loses.
asb 2 years, 1 month ago
I'd bet the tort lawyers would be OK in principle with the idea of diverting the awards away from plantiff and defendent, because they'd still get their cut of any particular dispute, although there'd be a slimmer market. Make no mistake, there's no greater predator than an experienced tort lawyer, on either side of a dispute.
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
there should be some change in the Tort Laws. ie an admin. judge sues a ma and pop dry cleaners for $65 million for losing a pair of pants. he lost the case and was not reappointed as judge. there should more protection for innocent people from frivolous litigation
asb 2 years, 1 month ago
The system can be brutal, and there aren't many folks who don't remember McDonalds paying out the woohoo for a cup of spilled hot coffee. Look, fix tort. Make it harder to cheat without limiting consumer protection and our ancient recourse to bad actors, and protection of good actors from predators. Do that and we'll all pay less for everything. Nobody has put forth a sellable means to protect both sides. Tort is what it is, a running argument about who did what to who and who should pay for it and be punished for it. It's like love, it hurts so good.
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
i vaguely remember the coffee case. its one thing to sue a mult-million dollar company (they have lots highly paid lawyers and resources) its another to sue a ma and pa store for $65 million, i am glad the judge lost the case. he should have known better.
JMO 2 years, 1 month ago
You know, the coffee case wasn't as ridiculous as everyone makes it out to be. It's held out as the shining example of frivolous lawsuites, but the woman suffered a 3rd degree burn. She actually had to have a skin graft. So...really, not too frivolous.
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
that makes sense, the guy trying to sue for $65 million for a pair of pants is the defintion of frivolous lawsuit.
JMO 2 years, 1 month ago
Oh absolutely. And I'm not saying the coffee lady should have won lots of money, but she was actually injured. The pants guy? He should have been ordered to shine the defendant's sho e s for a year just for the trouble he put them through.
**Apparently s h o e s is a naughty word - Really News-Tribune?
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
does not mean $65 million for a pair paints, btw the plaintiff, who was a judge, lost the case and did not get reappointed. just google: judge sues laundry for 65 million
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
no, you are illustrating how much you don't know about me, you assume. btw, is Gov going to veto this or sign it?
gofish 2 years, 1 month ago
Voting in elections for the MO Legislature is a complete sham and a waste of time. The mantra of every one of them is the same. They promise everything good for "the people" and once elected DO everything pro-business and anti-people. Then they spew that it's "for our own good", it will "save money", "cut government", and "create jobs". The reality is pro-business legislation does nothing but fatten the pockets of the upper 10% that fund the misleading campaigns that get these liars elected. Come on...the will of the people speaks through Prop B and other iniative petitions, and the legislature and governor co-perpetrate circumventing the will of the people that elected them. Politics are a waste of time...unless you are pro-business and/or live in the top 10%.
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
This can't be true. FOX news and the Tea Party say the rich pay all the taxes and are suffering horribly. I almost cried. Can't the Koch brothers get food stamps or something ? I hear they are down to their last 18 billion. Maybe we can hold a Telethon for rich ? We could possibly reduce the their tax burden if those greedy teachers/policeman/fireman would just take a pay cut ( my god they make 30-50k a year - outrageous !!! )
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
you are correct. It's time the wealthy start paying taxes. They seem to think they are entitled to a tax free world. and from the looks of this youtube.com/watch?v=h5kgnE1Xvec americans are fed up of the rich feeding on the middle class.
bluesfan13 2 years, 1 month ago
Do you know if those figures include Earned Income Tax Credit? I'm guessing not, so the bottom 50 percent pay even less than 3 percent because of the massive EIC amounts paid to them.
bluesfan13 2 years, 1 month ago
EIC-"At the most basic level, federal revenues are decreased by the lower, and often negative, tax burden on the working poor for which the EITC is responsible. In this basic sense, the cost of the EITC to the Federal Government was more than $36 billion in 2004." TARP-"Originally expected to cost the U.S. taxpayers as much as $300 billion,[1] by 16 December, 2010 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the total cost would be $25 billion" Yes, I'd call EIC massive. If the bottom 50 percent wage earners are paying less than 3% of the total income tax, but they're getting credits of about 1% of the total tax, I would call that paying "even less than 3%".
bluesfan13 2 years, 1 month ago
How much of that did they get back?
They didn't "give" GS $800 Billion. The Federal Reserve may have made $800 billion in loans to Godman Sachs over a period of time, but GS never had $800 billion in taxpayer money.
Good lord, our total Federal Budget is less than 3.5 Trillion and you seem to think that we gave 20% of it to one single investment bank.
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
I love it when the tea partiers and republicans jump right to "taxes hurt small business" when you mention who doesn't pay taxes. one way to corner them is ask them their definition of small business. Americans have finally caught on to this scam
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
the logic is flawed. don't tax them they will just pass it along? perhaps we should be looking to weed out unresponsible companies. Those that wish to go elsewhere to avoid taxes will not pay them where they move to. we can just tax the heck out of any product they want to import back to the united states.
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
so is the Governer going to veto this or not?
bluesfan13 2 years, 1 month ago
By that logic, those that benefit most from taxes should pay the most.
JCLifer 2 years, 1 month ago
Your anger with outrageous CEO pay has clouded your thoughts about corporations.
The customer pays for everything. Business taxes are merely passed on to the customer. Ever notice all the taxes on your phone bill?
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
so i take it you are against the legislation? your post is longer than the article. that being said, Washington does need an overhaul. people should vote for the other political parties out there. not much difference between a D or an R. they should get rid of the terrorist watch list, its joke that a 10 year old is on it. but thats another topic. people have been too complacent with the gov, especially in the name of security.
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
we need to move this to a new news article as the thread is starting to look like reddit. It took me 5 minutes to find my last post
rmsberengaria 2 years, 1 month ago
No you are right its not the terrorist in the middle east JOEGARDNER its Progressive/Socialist starting with Woodrow Wilson who miss-interpreted words....promote the general Welfare, in the preamble of the Constitution which is not even a Article or an Amendment to the Constitution! FDR who only made the Depression worse through his policies and actually caused a second depression in 1932 and another recession in 1937. With 63 years of Democratic control of the House since 1933 has followed a progressive/socialist agenda with massive entitlement programs, the founders, never in their wildest imagination would have believed possible. But, that is what we have today a semi socialist nation hampered by debts that can't be sustained. We have a President who has actually did nothing to solve the debt or to curb spending and uses platitudes and slogans attacking anyone as greedy for being successful! While his cohorts Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank, McDermit, Bernie Sanders, Schumer, Dicky Durbin along the class envy game, wealth redistribution and that if we only raise tax's on those evil rich everything will be fine. Look at the numbers/facts at 1.6 Trillion deficit this year alone you could tax the rich 100% and only bring in 800 billion that leaves 800 more in the hole! Yes, Republicans made a misstake with spending in 4 years under Bush and they paid for it and have now put down concrete plans to solve our problems long term. What have the Democrats offered but Platitudes and Class envy! And the government does not create jobs unless your talking about 200,000 more Federal employees in two years under Obama! That is just obscene..........
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
Those who pay most for the drilling of the well, should find ways to pay less for it. anyway, this bill makes it harder for fired people to sue and limit the money they could get. from the website itself "Damages awarded for employment cases under the MHRA and whistleblower actions shall not exceed back pay and interest on back pay and $50,000 for employers with between 5 and 100 employees, $100,000 for employers with between 100 and 200 employees, $200,000 for employers with between 200 and 500 employees, or $300,000 for employers with more than 500 employees. Punitive damages shall not be awarded against the state of Missouri or political subdivisions in MHRA cases."
senate.mo.gov/11info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=4095341 i did not see anything about taxes.
3blindmice 2 years, 1 month ago
looks to me like with damages that low it may be benefitial for many companies to go ahead and break the law. fines like that would be no more than a slap on the wrist.
wcywing 2 years, 1 month ago
thats a possiblity. they do a cost benefit analysis and hope no one sues, and if they did, no big deal, at least for the multi-million dollar companies. the damages would still be huge for a small business. but thats part of the risk of starting a business.
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