A law that could reduce the number of weeks Missourians can collect unemployment benefits has survived its first court challenge.
Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem last week ruled against a challenge to the Senate's Sept. 16 vote overriding Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of the bill passed last spring.
Questions surrounding the bill were raised at the end of the regular session, after the House of Representatives overrode Nixon's veto and the Senate adjourned before taking it up. Some claimed the Senate should have taken up the bill during the regular session, making it dead upon arrival during the September veto session, and causing the Senate's 24-8 override vote to be unconstitutional.
Anticipated litigation over the constitutionality followed. The AFL-CIO, which represents various unions, filed a lawsuit challenging the override vote, six days after veto session.
Deputy Solicitor General Jeremiah Morgan defended the state in written briefs and at a mid-October hearing.
Nanci Gonder, spokesperson for Attorney General Chris Koster, said Monday afternoon the state did not have a comment on Beetem's ruling. The AFL-CIO did not respond Monday to the News Tribune's request for comment.
Beetem declared the override vote constitutional because the Missouri Constitution does not prohibit the Senate from taking the vote in a veto session, months after the House had voted.
"This Court will not infer a limitation on the General Assembly's plenary power to conduct legislative action when a limitation does not expressly exist in the Missouri Constitution," Beetem wrote in his nine-page judgment, "particularly, when it is contrary to the plain language of the Missouri Constitution."
The bill established three changes to unemployment regulations in Missouri, which go into effect Jan. 1, 2016.
A major controversial factor of the bill is the decreasing number of weeks the unemployed can collect benefits - down to as little as 13 weeks, one of the lowest in the nation. The weeks are correlated to the statewide average unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted based on a time period of Jan. 1-March 31 and July 1-Sept. 30 each year.
Employer contributions to the state's Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund, which financially supports benefits for the unemployed who must have lost their jobs "at no fault of their own," are adjusted, as stated in the bill, based on the fund's balance.
If the average balance is currently between $600-$750 million, employers' contribution rate is reduced by 7 percent the following year. That average balance increases to between $720-$870 million, pursuant to the bill. If the total balance exceeds $750 million, the employer contribution rate is decreased by 12 percent the following year, unless the employer's rate is 6 percent or higher, then its lessened by no more than 10 percent.
Under the new law, the unemployed also face a benefits cut if they receive severance packages.