Perspective: Sir Thomas More and Gov. Nixon, legislators and Mark Twain

Jay Barnes
Jay Barnes

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Most years, I call the second to last week of session "moving week." It's when bills are moved into conference committees via amendments or die unreported deaths. This year was the same. The House passed dozens of Senate bills loaded with House amendments. We decorated several "Christmas trees," then shuttled them off to their conference committees.
This week could have also been called override week - as the House overrode a gubernatorial veto on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

SCR 46 override; upholding the rule of law

On Tuesday, we overrode Gov. Nixon's veto of Senate Concurrent Resolution 46, which disapproves an administrative rule that purported to require certain government contractors to pay a higher minimum wage than required by state law.
This resolution came out of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, of which I am the chairman. The committee's role is to review new administrative rules to determine whether they comply with existing state laws. Statutes create administrative agencies. To create any new rule, an administrative agency must be able to point to a statute that grants them authority.
For SCR 46, the Department of Health and Senior Services proposed a rule that would have raised the minimum wage for home health care workers to $10.15 an hour. Whether this is good policy is not the issue. The question for SCR 46 was whether the department had the authority to promulgate the rule. In the hearing before JCAR, the department conceded it had not taken the steps required to promulgate a rule.
At the start of the debate last week I made a prediction: that the opposition would never argue that the department actually had the authority to promulgate the rule. Instead, they would argue the policy's merits.
The opposition did not disappoint. For over an hour, they avoided the actual question under debate. To his credit, Rep. Michael Butler, D-St. Louis, made the first attempt all session to defend the rule on its legal merits, arguing that the statutes were vague enough that the department could do this. Then he concisely summarized the lawless argument his side has made on this all session, "We're going to turn away a wage increase on something technical. The minority party is standing against this bill for the sake of the people. We're caring about people. Forget the technical. We're caring about people. And the majority party is saying, 'You know what? The people don't matter as much as the rule of law.'"
Rep. Butler misses the point of the rule of law - and confuses the American and the French Revolutions. The American Revolution focused on principles of freedom protected by a Constitution. The French Revolution focused on the people. The American Revolution led to the greatest nation on earth. The French Revolution led to blood-shed. Its early leaders ended in the guillotine.
There's nothing technical about upholding the rule of law. A lawless society is a society where no one is protected, and it's the rule of law itself that is the greatest protector of the people. Perhaps there's no greater depiction of this than in the movie, "A Man for All Seasons," in which St. Thomas More is asked why he would give his worst enemy the benefit of the rule of law:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Paycheck protection override

On Wednesday, the House overrode Gov. Nixon's veto of the paycheck protection bill. This bill gives public employees in unions two new rights.
The first is the right to information. Under federal law, every private union in the country must publicly disclose information about the finances of their union and the financial interests of elected union leadership. However, because of the Tenth Amendment, this federal law does not apply to public sector unions. House Bill 1891 applies the same rules to public sector unions that already apply to every other.
The second is the right to refuse withholding of union dues or political contributions from their paycheck without annual written or electronic authorization.
I have voted no on this bill in sessions past because the previous bills required pen-and-paper written authorization every year. I believed that was a ridiculous red-tape requirement in the modern world. This year I amended the bill to allow public sector unions and their members to use modern technology for authorization.

Foundation Formula override

On Thursday, the House overrode Gov. Nixon's veto of Senate Bill 586, an education bill that does two things. First, it modifies the target number for the Foundation Formula used to determine how education funds are distributed.
This formula was created in 2004 by politicians who wanted to say they were increasing education funding in the future. The inflated goals of the 2004 Foundation Formula have never been met - and would never have been met. Second, the bill expands funding for early childhood education to charter schools.

Five long days left

The joke around the Capitol is that halftime of the legislative session happens on Tuesday or Wednesday of the last week. That's the time when every bill that's going to get out of a conference committee is likely already out. The fatigue and fast-looming deadlines of the last week also make it the most likely time for honest mistakes to be made and for dishonest tricks to be slipped into bills.
Earlier in my service, I joined the rush. "We've got to get this done now!" In my sixth year, my thought now is that there's always next year. Better that a flawed bill die in the last days than to pass it and have to come back next year to fix it.
I'm looking forward to next Friday's closing gavel, when, in the words of our own Mark Twain, your life, liberty and property will be safe - at least until next January.
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