One bill was yanked. Another was watered down with amendments. Others languished in committee, and some didn't get even that far.
The Missouri Department of Conservation this year faced the most hostile legislative climate in recent memory. Lawmakers complained the agency, which oversees the state's wildlife, is arrogant and overreaches; more than a dozen bills proposed to gut its funding and temper its autonomy.
Over the past five months, though, the department and its allies have tamped down much of the anti-Conservation momentum by marshaling public support from outdoorsmen while also quietly - yet aggressively - courting opposing legislators.
The Conservation Department made it through the legislative session without a single hostile bill crossing the governor's desk - but it's not out of the woods yet.
Regulatory hangover
Many of the department's political troubles began last year, when it tightened regulations of deer farms and private hunting reserves in the name of combating chronic wasting disease - a degenerative illness that's like mad cow disease for deer, elk and moose, and spreads through abnormal proteins, has no vaccine or cure, and can linger on surfaces and soil for an undetermined length of time.
In 2010, officials confirmed the first Missouri case of chronic wasting in a fenced hunting reserve in Linn County, and it since has spread into the wild deer population; 35 cases have been confirmed, with 14 of those discovered during the most recent hunting season.
Last year, the Conservation Department proposed rules banning the import of out-of-state deer, enrolling all deer farms in chronic wasting monitoring programs and mandating a double fence around farms.
That aggravated many rural lawmakers, who last May passed a bill transferring captive deer authority from the Conservation Department to the Agriculture Department (which would, among other things, clear the way for Missouri to begin processing venison for commercial consumption). Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed that bill, citing the chronic wasting threat; an effort to override his veto failed in the House by a single vote.
Although Conservation eventually dropped the double fencing requirement, several lawmakers saw the department's approach as too high-handed; periodic complaints about the department - it owns too much land, it's removed from oversight, it stonewalls legislators' requests for information - threatened to snowball into a broader political movement.
"They're not accountable to the people, and they don't feel they have to answer to anybody," Rep. Bryan Spencer, R-Wentzville, said in February. "They're trying to create a crisis (over chronic wasting) that doesn't exist ... they're making it out to be like some type of plague."
Tim Ripperger, a department deputy director involved with legislative outreach, said he's heard two main complaints from lawmakers: the department's arrogant and it's not transparent.
"Those two have confused me somewhat," he said, "because I have not been able to find a situation, specifically, where the department has acted with arrogance - other than occasionally we might disagree with someone. But disagreement on an issue is not arrogance, obviously."
Press through the press
Brandon Butler was a columnist long before he came to Jefferson City as a lobbyist. Last March, he became executive director of the Conservation Federation of Missouri - which represents more than 60 outdoors groups such as the Audubon Society of Missouri, Missouri Taxidermist Association and the Missouri Bowhunters Association - after serving as president of Missouri Outdoor Communicators, a group of hunting and fishing columnists.
So when it became clear this year would be a tough one for the Conservation Department, he got the gang back together. In late January, he met with 17 outdoors writers at Lilleys' Landing, a fishing resort in Branson. In the unseasonably warm weather, they planned a media blitz to raise awareness about the largely Republican efforts to rein in the department.
Since the beginning of the year, the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Springfield News-Leader, the Joplin Globe and Outdoor Guide Magazine have published original opinion pieces defending the department; the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has run at least five. The Jefferson City News Tribune and the Columbia Missourian each have republished at least one of those editorials or one of Butler's columns.
"Please, do your part," Butler wrote in the News Tribune and the Columbia Daily Tribune, urging readers to resist the "ever-encroaching attempts of certain industry-influenced legislators who are determined to undermine what most American conservationists refer to as the greatest state game agency to ever exist."
He rolled out a page on the Conservation Federation's website that allows members to email their state representatives with a few clicks.
"Every representative and senator, they're counting those emails that come in," Butler said. "They might not read them all, but they know how many came in."
Other environmental groups latched onto the issue, too: The Sierra Club organized four rallies at the Capitol, arranged for members to meet with their representatives at about a dozen constituent meetings from Springfield to Kirksville, and led hikes in conservation areas around the state.
"Last year, we had to go through the fire once on this," said John Hickey, the director of the Sierra Club's Missouri chapter, explaining that this time the group wanted to be ahead of the curve.
Hickey and Butler didn't coordinate efforts, but they both said the public response left a mark.
Spencer said he got 11 "hateful" phone calls attacking him for his bills, and Rep. Craig Redmon, R-Canton, who sponsored a bill to ask voters to end the conservation sales tax (the source of more than 60 percent of the department's money), said he got emails from all over the state.
Spencer and Redmon said they hadn't intended to move forward with their bills; rather, they were a message to the department.
Butler wasn't so sure.
"If they'd gotten support instead of getting hammered, would they have pulled these bills? I don't know," Butler said. "But the fact of the matter is, people got involved, citizens got outraged, and those bills lost steam."
The inside game
As he was bashing them in public, though, Butler also was meeting with influential Republicans who would determine which Conservation bills, if any, progressed through the General Assembly.
To that end, Butler hired lobbyist Andy Blunt, the brother of former Gov. Matt Blunt and perennial campaign manager for his father, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt.
Blunt - who also lobbies for 35 other clients, including Ameren Missouri, General Motors and Philip Morris USA, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission - brought onto the job Mark Schwartz, former chief of staff to Sen. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City. Schwartz has taken on most of the day-to-day lobbying, Butler said. Christopher Moody and Jay Reichard, two other lobbyists associated with Blunt's firm, also list the Conservation Federation among their clients, according to the Ethics Commission.
Those lobbyists, Butler said, have gotten him face time with then-House Majority Leader Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff (who became speaker of the House on the session's last day, after Rep. John Diehl resigned); Sen. Brian Munzlinger, R-Williamstown, a Republican whip and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Natural Resources; and several members of the House committee in charge of conservation issues.
"I had two meetings with Brian Munzlinger yesterday, and they both went excellently," Butler said in March. "Two months ago, I wouldn't have had that."
Munzlinger has been a driving force behind captive deer and some Conservation Department legislation. He sponsored a bill to eliminate hunting, fishing and trapping fees for Missourians (which would have sapped 20 percent of the department's funding), calling the fees a "double taxation," since citizens already pay the conservation sales tax. He said early in the session that the department does some good work but also some things that are "a little mind-boggling."
"I don't think you would see all the bills filed this year by both ... chambers without there being an issue," Munzlinger said in January. "And actually, I had Conservation in my office last week, and I don't think they recognize there is an issue."
In late February, though, Munzlinger overhauled his bill to cover only non-residents who owned more than 75 acres in Missouri - something the department considered in the 1990s. He explained the change by saying he learned certain federal grants were tied to permit sales.
How did he work out the new bill?
"I worked with the Conservation Federation," he said. "I also took some input from the department."
Blunt said building those sorts of relationships with lawmakers, while also emphasizing the federation's independence from the Conservation Department, has been crucial for shaping that sort of legislation.
"On numerous occasions this session, as things have come up, (lawmakers) have said, "Hey, the guy we met, the guy from the federation ... we need to get his opinion on this, we need to call him and get him back over here,'" Blunt said.
Butler also has worked to build a broad coalition of Conservation support among less conventional allies.
For instance, even though the Conservation Federation didn't coordinate with the Sierra Club, Butler said he has partnered with the Missouri Petroleum Council, the Missouri Corn Growers Association and the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives.
"We don't want to shy away from reality," he said, adding that cooperating on issues where there's agreement will make compromise easier when they disagree.
The Conservation Department's staff and leadership also have assuaged some lawmakers. For instance, when Redmon, the Republican chair of the House committee that oversees the department's budget, filed a bill that proposed a referendum on ending the Conservation sales tax, he said Conservation Department Director Bob Ziehmer reached out to him.
"We've visited several times after this (bill), as you can imagine," Redmon said in January. "Those guys are talking to me on a constant basis."
A week later, Redmon withdrew his bill.
What happens next?
The issue of captive deer regulations remains unsettled. The unending spread of chronic wasting disease, coupled with efforts to open deer farms to mass-marketed meat production, sets the stage for more showdowns in the future.
And some lawmakers still are displeased the department contracts Conservation work with nonprofits, such as Ducks Unlimited, that also lobby state lawmakers. Bills on both those issues moved through committees this session - and although they didn't make it to Nixon's desk this year, their sponsors will be back next year.
Rep. Rocky Miller, R-Lake Ozark, who chairs the House committee on energy and the environment in addition to sitting on the conservation committee, said the department has backed off a bit on captive deer.
"After last year's close deer vote, a couple of (Conservation) commissioners went, "Oh, OK, now we get it,'" he said. "The writing's on the wall ... and them not engaging us so hard on that has been great."
Several lawmakers interviewed for this article said the department has become more forthcoming with them as the session progressed.
"I'm starting to get answers. They're slowly coming in," Spencer said. "And they're in my office on a regular basis."
Butler said: "A lot of representatives and senators, whether it's true or not, feel the department isn't listening. And I think the department's gotten the message.
"They're doing a better job, and the waters are starting to really calm down. I think both sides are making some concessions and people are starting to really work together."