A recently introduced bill would give state lawmakers more say over what happens to the Capitol building and state-occupied spaces near it.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, R-Shell Knob, establishes the State Capitol Complex Committee, which he proposes would include the governor, speaker of the House and Senate president pro tem. Missouri currently has a similar committee, the Board of Public Buildings, on which the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general sit.
Unlike the proposed committee, the Board of Public Buildings has the authority to approve revenue bonds for state building construction in Jefferson City.
Fitzpatrick's proposal would not replace the Board of Public Buildings but create a new committee of the same purpose with General Assembly presence.
"The House and the Senate, being the two largest occupants of this building, don't have any representation on (the Board of Public Buildings)," Fitzpatrick said to the Emerging Issues Committee on Monday.
He said lawmakers want to provide input on space allocations for the Capitol buildings and those the state owns or leases within its vicinity. Specific conversations, Fitzpatrick said, surround relocating staff of statewide officeholders, "who don't need to be in the Capitol," to the newly renovated upper floors of the U.S. Post Office as well as relocating employees to the MoDOT building and moving that personnel to another space.
"That's been a discussion with the Office of Administration and MoDOT over the past couple of years," he said.
Certain lawmakers' offices, he added, are not American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.
"There are a lot of members, especially on the House side, who are not in ADA-accessible offices," Fitzpatrick said. "If you go up to the first floor, you have the mezzanines, and so a lot of members of the minority party - and now the majority party - are stuck in those mezzanines, which are not handicap accessible. If somebody from a district comes to see their representative, we feel it's important they can access the office of their representative."
Fitzpatrick would also like to see a decrease in the number of Capitol entrances and exits for security measures. Fewer ways in and out of the building, he said, would make security more manageable for the Capitol Police.
"I think it's nice that we have an open Capitol and people can just come and go," he said. "It's one of the things that makes Missouri's Capitol great, but I do think security precautions in place to prevent some sort of a disaster would be good. And, I think the people who occupy the majority of the building ought to have some representation in that decision-making process."
Similar legislation passed through the House in 2015 but failed to receive a Senate vote.