Missouri House Budget Chairman Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, remains frustrated with what Silvey calls Gov. Jay Nixon's "unconstitutional" decision to withhold more than $170 million from this year's budget bills, so the state has money to help pay for disaster assistance in the wake of the Joplin tornado (and others), flooding and last February's blizzard.
So Silvey this week filed two bills for the special session to consider - appropriating "money for the purpose of matching Federal Emergency Management Agency expenditures" and creating a "Joint (House-Senate) Committee on Disaster Funding" - even though he acknowledges they probably violate the state Constitution, because they cover issues not included in Nixon's call for the special session.
"He flew around the state all summer, on multiple occasions, (and) he promised that disaster funding would be part of the call," Silvey said Wednesday morning. "When it wasn't, we didn't think that we would wait around to see if he wanted to call us back later in the year, or whether he would want to, maybe, change his mind next week and add it to the call."
The governor has said he didn't include disaster funding in the special session, because we don't know what the bills are going to be yet.