"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
All of state government observed Martin Luther King Day early last week. Dr. King's efforts and his legacy are worthy of remembering, and his vision for America is worthy of continued pursuit.
Though a short week, both houses of the Legislature continued to move quickly on several important pieces of legislation. I was particularly pleased that the first bill the Senate passed was a tort reform bill relating to expert witnesses. I tip my hat to Sen. Mike Parson for shepherding this legislation through the Senate so quickly, particularly after it stalled here last year.
Tort reform is critical to Missouri's business climate and economic future, and SB591 is one of several reasonable and needed improvements. As was the case last year, the trial attorney association represented this bill as calamitous to the judicial system. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
SB591 ensures that individuals who testify as experts in court do in fact have the expertise they claim. Currently in Missouri, unscrupulous trial attorneys pay big bucks to stack the deck with expert witnesses who often have no expertise whatsoever and who testify in strict accordance with the wishes of the attorneys who hire them. This is not the way the courts are supposed to work, and with the passage of SB591 Missouri will adopt a standard for expert witnesses that mirrors 40 other states and the federal court system.
On Wednesday evening, the House and the Senate gathered for the State of the State Address. Not surprisingly, the governor peppered the twitter-verse with fancy statistics and fictional claims to set the stage for his last address. As has been the case in years past, the governor did well in the actual delivery but the content left much to be desired. The governor spent a lot of time in his speech talking about how Missouri has cut costs, but the governor failed to mention he submitted a supplemental budget of nearly a half-a-billion dollars for just the remainder of 2016.
The governor talked about making tough choices to fund priorities like education, but he failed to mention that he has withheld money the General Assembly has appropriated for these purposes and used those dollars to dramatically increase entitlement spending in Missouri, evidenced in the state's Medicaid rolls increasing by 100,000 in the last year. These entitlement increases have not been part of the budget the General Assembly has passed, but rather they result from the governor deliberately redirecting budgeted funds and the effects of Obamacare.
The most disconcerting part of the governor's speech was his lecturing the General Assembly about ethics reform even as his office is equally in need of an ethical over-haul. The governor never misses an opportunity to talk about how badly campaign finance limits are needed in order to restore the public's trust and confidence, yet he took a $50,000 donation from the UAW just 48 hours after vetoing Right to Work legislation. The governor decries legislators who leave office to work in government or lobby, but members of his cabinet have done the exact same.
Missourians want leadership and deserve elected officials who behave ethically. This is why the Legislature is moving quickly on ethics legislation, beginning well before the governor brought it up in his speech. However, it is not just the legislative branch that needs to have its house cleaned. Every elected official in every branch of government needs to ensure that their walk matches their talk. If it does not, they ought to think twice before they lecture those who see and know the real truth of their actions.
Thursday evening marked the first Rock Island Trail town-hall meeting. I want to thank the Owensville VFW for allowing us to use their building, as well as the nearly 100 people who showed up to hear updates on the project and have their questions answered. I felt that the meeting was very productive, and I am grateful to Rep. Hurst, Bill Bryan and Clint Barnett from DNR, and Warren Wood from Ameren for their open and candid responses. The second of three meetings will be 6:30 p.m. Feb. 11 at the VFW Hall in Freeburg.
My purpose and my intent is to serve the constituents of the 6th Senatorial District. If you are in the State Capitol during the coming weeks and months, please stop by your office in Room 321.
State Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, represents the 6th District.