In politics, widespread support doesn't always translate into enactment.
On a 33-0 vote Thursday, the state Senate advanced to the House a bill to allow local governments to ask the state-operated Local Government Employees Retirement System (LAGERS) to take over older retirement plans.
The unanimous vote mirrored the Senate vote on a similar proposal during last year's session.
Despite support from lawmakers and LAGERS officials, last year's bill was vetoed by Gov. Jay Nixon. The governor objected to the bill, he said, because it "would place the authority to exercise the (transfer) option solely in the hands of the political subdivision employer, even if the transfer was opposed by the plan trustees."
Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, told his colleagues during Wednesday's debate that "we worked with the governor's office to address his concerns."
Kehoe said the bill "affects about 600 folks across the state, and it's a big savings for the municipalities and city entities that want to take advantage of it."
Among them are some of Kehoe's constituents; the Jefferson City's Firefighters Pension Board is among the groups interested in transferring a plan to LAGERS.
Norm Robinson, the board's vice chairman, said although other city employees, including active firefighters, are part of LAGERS, "we have this separate group of ... 49 retired firefighters and 10 surviving spouses that we administer and, for some time, we've wanted to move those folks into the LAGERS system."
And LAGERS officials would like to have them. Director Keith Hughes told a Senate panel last month the LAGERS board unanimously supports the bill. "It is voluntary in nature, and requires the local government and LAGERS to enter into an agreement," he said.
In this forum in March 2014, we wrote: "The proposal creates no mandates, adds little or no burden to LAGERS and could ease the workload for local governments."
The virtues of the proposal and its widespread support remain. We applaud Kehoe for working with the governor's staff to clear the final hurdle on the path to approval.