(Missourinet) – Legislation preventing the city of St. Louis from raising its minimum wage is racing through the Missouri legislature.

After the state Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling which favored state laws against local pay hikes, the House marched a bill to passage in four days.

The legislation drafted by members of the chamber’s Republican supermajority nullifies local ordinances that establish a minimum wage.  Richard Von Glaun with Missouri Jobs with Justice said the GOP is exercising a double standard because they often complain about federal overreach into state business.

“Right now, we are seeing the heavy hand of the state government coming in and retroactively telling a city what it can and can’t do to meet the needs of their community.”

House Republican Paul Curtman of Union counters that a local government would overstep its bounds and bring harm to people by hiking minimum pay.

“If the local government is robbing people of their security, of their liberty, or their economic freedom, then as political subdivisions it’s incumbent on the state to step in and reign them in, because even big government can come in the form of local government.”

The Supreme Court action overturns the lower court’s ruling in a lawsuit brought on by businesses seeking to overturn a St. Louis ordinance to gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2017, and $11 by 2018.

The circuit court sided with the businesses in determining that the local ordinance was preempted by the state’s minimum wage law, which is $7.70 an hour.  The city of St. Louis appealed to the Supreme Court.

The high bench determined that laws in place since the late 1990s only set a floor for minimum pay.  Legislation passed in 2015 also sought to prevent local wage hikes.  Lawmakers overrode then Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of the measure, and it became law.

A clause in the measure allowed local municipalities to keep wage increases so long as they were in place by August 28th. This is a provision St. Louis complied with, making the city’s ordinance currently valid, which is what the legislature is now trying to overturn.

Glaun with Missouri Jobs with Justice said lawmakers are attempting to override their own work.

“This is actually a question about local control, and the process that they themselves created and put into state statute, and the city followed,” said Glaun.  “And now they are attempting to nullify the very process that they established.”

The current legislation has already moved from the House to the Senate and passed out of committee. Republican Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard says it could see floor action there when the legislature returns to session from its annual spring break Monday.

House GOP member Shamed Dogan of Ballwin mirrors some arguments made by business interests when he says raising the minimum wage would have unintended negative consequences.

“We have teenagers who don’t get a job opportunity, we have business owners who might not start a business, because the minimum wage impacts their ability to hire employees” said Dogan.  “There are all kinds unseen detriments to minimum wage increases.”

(Missourinet) – The Missouri House Majority Floor Leader says budget discussions will take center stage when House members return to Jefferson City next week.

House Majority Leader Mike Cierpiot (R-Lee’s Summit) briefed the Capitol Press Corps, just before lawmakers left for spring break.

“The budget, we have to deal with it when we get back,” Cierpiot said. “Once we see the lay of the land, REAL ID will be coming forward I think, and then prevailing wage is going to take some time over there too.”

The House Budget Committee meets Tuesday morning at 8:15 for markup of budget bills. Committee chair Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) tells Missourinet it’s an opportunity for committee members to offer amendments. The committee could then vote on the 13 House budget bills on Tuesday.

The Missouri Constitution requires the Legislature to approve a balanced budget by early May. Governor Eric Greitens (R) has proposed a $27 billion state operating budget, which includes $572 million in cuts.

The Missouri House is also expected to tackle the issue of REAL ID when lawmakers return to Jefferson City. House Speaker Todd Richardson (R-Poplar Bluff) said the votes are there to pass it in the House.

“We’ve got that bill on the calendar, I think there’s substantial support for it in the House,” Richardson said. “It’s obviously a difficult issue for some, but I think the votes will be there, I don’t think that’s the issue.”

State Rep. Kevin Corlew’s (R-Kansas City) bill would allow the Department of Revenue to issue REAL ID compliant driver’s licenses and identification cards. House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty (D-Kansas City) is calling on her House colleagues to update state driver’s license requirements to comply with federal law.

Cierpiot also said State Rep. Holly Rehder’s (R-Sikeston) prescription drug monitoring legislation is on the House calendar, adding that “we’ll be dealing with that shortly, I think.”

Missouri is the only state in the nation without a prescription drug monitoring program.

As for the Senate, Assistant Majority Leader Bob Onder (R-Lake St. Louis) also addressed the Capitol Press Corps, just before the spring break.

“As always, we have unfinished business,” Onder said. “On the labor reform front, there are tort reform bills crossing from one chamber to the other.”

Onder said the Senate will debate charter school legislation and education savings accounts. He also said he hopes for passage of his course access legislation, which involves virtual education.

Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard (R-Joplin) said 2017 has been an “outstanding” session.

“We’ve done some labor reforms and tort reform and some other legislation I thought we’d never pass in my lifetime,” Richard said, referring to right-to-work.

Richard expects REAL ID to come up after the spring break. Beatty and other bill supporters say passage is necessary, so Missourians won’t be barred from getting on planes next year.

The Pro Tem also tells reporters that he meets regularly with Gov. Greitens and Speaker Richardson.

(Missourinet) – The Missouri legislature is considering a move to join other states in asking to rein in the federal government.

Lawmakers are looking at two resolutions calling for a “convention of states,” which is a meeting to form proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution.

The organization behind the resolutions, itself known as Convention of States or COS, has three priorities. It wants to restrain federal spending, reduce the jurisdictional reach of Congress and impose term limits on many federal officials, including Supreme Court Justices.

COS Missouri organizer Keith Carmichael said the effort is intended to use the constitution, to amend the constitution, as envisioned by the founding fathers.

“We talk about the election that we had just a few months ago being a peaceful, constitutional transfer of power,” Carmichael said. “Well this is too. It’s one the framers gave us in which it’s a peaceful constitutional transfer of power, but it’s from the federal government back to the states.”

As stipulated by the constitution, 34 state legislatures would have to pass largely the same resolution to legally call for a convention of states.  So far, nine have done so, all of which are under Republican control. Arizona’s legislature was the last state to join the movement when it passed the resolution earlier this month.

Any proposals drawn up at a convention of states would have to be approved by 38 states to become federal law.

Two other groups in addition to COS have formed with similar, but not the same, intentions. The organization Term Limits is focused on the singular topic of imposing a limit on the length of time members of the U.S. Congress can serve.  The group Americans for a Balanced Budget Amendment (ABBA) wants to assemble a convention of states for the purpose of passing a balanced budget amendment.

The resolutions drafted by COS were introduced in 37 state legislatures Thursday. Carmichael notes the Supreme Court has determined that the documents must “aggregate”, or agree, and call for the same meeting.

Such agreement may have alluded Arkansas however, which floated two resolutions in the past several weeks. One included language seeking a constitutional amendment to redefine marriage as between one man and one woman, while the other called for a declaration that life begins at conception.

State sponsors are allowed to make contributions to the COS resolution.

The power to organize a convention of states falls under Article V of the constitution. The two pieces of legislation in front of Missouri lawmakers are Senate Concurrent Resolution 4 and House Concurrent Resolution 5, which are almost identical.

They include the verbiage, ”WHEREAS, the federal government has created a crushing national debt through improper and imprudent spending.”

Carmichael offered his thoughts supporting the passage.

“The money that we’re borrowing to pay back, and pay the interest, we’re still borrowing over $4.5 billion dollars a day just to pay the bills every night.”

Although Carmichael vehemently claims the COS movement is bipartisan, conservatives have long been much more focused on the national debt than other ideological groups. Carmichael also said the organization has strong ties to former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), a noted conservative lawmaker.

The Republican dominated Missouri legislature has come close to passing a COS backed resolution in the recent past. Both chambers have given approval, just not in the same year. The House passed the resolution in 2015 while the Senate approved it in 2016.

Carmichael says COS, which currently has 2.1 million members, has risen quickly in its four years in existence.

“Our organization is actually on a trend, and on track, to be at 5 million grass roots volunteers, or supporters by the end of next year.  That’s a trend I think will continue.”

(Missourinet) – With congress set to vote on the Republican replacement for Obamacare, a Missouri health economist said he thinks the GOP is in a shaky position.

Washington University Professor Tim McBride contends President Trump and the party have promised too much for the plan to be functional.

Taken together, Trump and House Republicans have said the plan would do several things including: allow people who secured insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to maintain coverage; replace the expansion and lower the costs of Medicaid; eliminate the individual mandate; leave in place popular provisions; eliminate all or nearly all tax increases enacted to pay for the ACA.

“By now, most, if not all of the GOP members of Congress realize that achieving all of these goals is impossible,” said McBride.

He says the problem started when Trump and some Republicans said no one would lose coverage.

“Basic problem there is, if you’re going to do that, you have to put in place Medicaid expansion and marketplace reforms to keep the same number of people covered as there currently are. But that’s going to cost money and they want this to cost a lot less money.”

McBride says it’s impossible to repeal the taxes which pay for Obamacare and cover the same number of people because the subsidies in the plan are what allow poor people to afford coverage. Repeal of Obamacare taxes removes $900 billion from health care spending over 10 years.

McBride notes Republicans spent many years vowing to repeal Obamacare, but failed to find a replacement they could all agree on.

“There were always proposals out there to do this, that and the other thing,” said McBride. “But they never got together and put all their members together to agree on one approach.  And that’s turning out to be a lot harder than they thought.”

House Republicans can’t find a consensus on what to do. The conservative Freedom Caucus is focused on repealing the plan and reducing government spending, while GOP leadership favors a replacement which includes element from Obamacare.

McBride says he hopes the party will adopt his approach of repealing and repairing the plan, rather than repealing and replacing it.

“What hopefully would happen is they would go in there and change the things that aren’t working and come to a bipartisan agreement.  That’s what I hope happens.  That would be the best thing to do.”

McBride, who’s been following legislation for many years, contends sweeping measures such as the ACA are never perfectly drafted.

But because of the partisan divide in Congress, he says changes to fix the health plan could never be made and it’s largely in its original form seven years later.

McBride said he thinks the current Republican plan will squeak through the House, but hit a roadblock in the Senate. At least four GOP Senators have said they will not support the House bill as drafted. The measure would die if three of them aren’t somehow persuaded to vote for it.

Figures from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office show that with the plan, 24 million fewer people will be covered over 10 years while the ongoing rise in the cost of insurance premiums will be reduced by 10% over the same time period.

Republican House leadership has been planning to vote on the measure Thursday.

In addition to his position as a professor at Washington University, McBride also heads Missouri’s Medicaid Oversight Committee.

(Missourinet) – The Missouri Republican Party’s new executive director says the U.S. House vote Thursday on the GOP health care plan proposed to replace the Affordable Care Act is going to be a tough fight.

Missourinet asked Austin Stukins how important replacing Obamacare is to ensure Republicans are successful in 2018.

“There are going to be many different approaches to health care and how we fix the broken system that has become this albatross around the neck of Americans known as Obamacare. It’s not going to be come overnight,” says Stukins. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work. It’s absolutely imperative that our Republican elected officials in Washington never forget the heart of which they were sent to Washington and the trust of voters gave them to get it right.”

Democrats say healthcare costs for people age 50 to 64 would dramatically increase under the plan. They also say the bill includes hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Congressional Budget Office says the proposal would cut about 14 million people off of insurance next year and 24 million over ten years.

Stukins also says he is confident a Republican will beat Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) in 2018. Stukins says the seats gained by the GOP in 2016 show that Missourians have had enough of the liberal agenda.

“I don’t see how Senator McCaskill can continue on the path that she’s led down several years now and continue to identify with the direction that Missouri has taken over the past several years. I think that the Senator has a lot of an uphill battle to climb based on her record,” says Stukins.

No Republicans have announced yet their plans to run against McCaskill in 2018. McCaskill is seeking her third Senate term in Washington.

The state Democratic Party did not respond to Missourinet’s inquiry about Stukins’s comment.

Stukins says the U.S. Democratic Party is going through an identity crisis. He cites Ronald Reagan saying the Democratic Party left him. Stukins also says Democrats have denied the involvement of religion in their platform.

“You have a lot of issues at stake that are very paramount to a lot of beliefs of Missourians,” says Stukins. “For that matter, the heart of America believes in farmland. Yet, the Democratic Party as a whole has just kind of abandoned those issues. Their platform has changed so much to the point that it’s almost egregious in nature to the ideals that the Democratic Party used to at one point stand for.”

Tom Perez has taken over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His message is expected to include fighting for the protection of Medicare and union workers and increasing wages.

(Missourinet) – Measures which add oversight to sales of tickets to big events, such as sporting events and concerts, are moving through the state legislature.

The proposals outlaw the use of software to make purchases, while it requires retailers to offer transferable tickets for all seats.

House Republican Shawn Rhoads of West Plains says the computer programs, known as bots, unfairly inflate the cost of tickets.

“These bot programs, computer programs, buy all the tickets,” said Rhoads.  “The minute they go on sale they buy every one of them. The problem is that obviously they take those tickets and they resell them for a higher value.”

Bots possess algorithms that are able to circumvent online security measures to purchase mass numbers of tickets from retailers.

Rhoads is sponsoring the House version of the measure, which has already received initial approval in the chamber. It could receive final passage as early as Monday, when the legislature returns to session after its annual week-long spring break.

The Senate version, sponsored by Republican Caleb Rowden, has only received a hearing and has yet to receive a vote at the committee level.

As well as banning the use of bot programs for ticket purchases, the measure also would call on retailers to offer transferable tickets for all seats. Rhoads says non-transferable tickets are problematic because the purchaser must present an ID and credit card at the venue.

“I’ve heard several instances of constituents that have already said ‘Grandma bought the grand kids tickets to One Direction,’ or whatever, and didn’t realize that they were restricted tickets. And they (grand kids) went to the concert and weren’t able to get in because they weren’t the person that purchased the tickets.”

Non-transferable tickets are typically reserved for a limited number of higher priced seats. When the bill was presented by Rhoads before a House committee, several groups, including St. Louis ticket broker Metrotix and the Fox Theater, as well as national retailer Ticketmaster, testified against this portion of it.

Rhoads said there was universal support for the measure’s component outlawing the bot software programs. Organizations such as NetChoice and eBay spoke out in its favor.

There’s already been federal rules put in place to ban bots. Then President Barack Obama signed the “Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act of 2016” in December. Rhoads, however, says the state’s legislation would build on efforts at the national level.

“There is federal language for laws restricting bots. I think they’re currently trying to work on more. But if this bill passes, it would be harsher penalties than the federal law.”

Efforts to combat illicit buying of multiple tickets for resale via automated software is also moving through legislative bodies overseas, specifically in Australia and the United Kingdom.

(Missourinet) – The NCAA Midwest regional basketball tournament that gets underway Thursday in Kansas City is projected to bring in more than 50,000 fans and $10 million to the local economy.

That’s according to senior communications manager Derek Klaus with tourism organization Visit KC.

The event begins Thursday and continues through Saturday with Kansas, Michigan, Oregon and Purdue competing to move on to the Final Four in Phoenix.

Klaus tells Missourinet that Kansas City is hosting 57 games during a 16 day period this month – more than anywhere else in the country. Kansas City hosted the MIAA, Big 12 men’s championship and NAIA men’s championship earlier this month.

“We’re kind of the self-appointed college basketball capital of America,” says Klaus.

He says it takes a village to put on this event. More than 100 volunteers are helping with things like team hosting, blocking off streets, welcome buttons and banners and mascot visits.

“It’s really exciting for us, especially when you look at the entire month of basketball. It amounts to about $28.5 million,” says Klaus. “We have a formula that we put all of these figures into that includes the number of hotels being used by fans, officials, teams, as well as what time of year they’re going to be here, what’s the average daily rate during that time frame, the cost of tickets, the average cost of concessions.”

In its ten years, Klaus says this is the first time the Sprint Center has hosted the men’s regional tournament.

“We’ve hosted some first and second rounds before, but this is kind of the big dog. This is the next best thing to hosting the Final Four,” says Klaus.

Kansas City has about 32,000 hotel rooms and Klaus says there are still some available.

For a list of some of the free tournament related events, click here.

(Missourinet) – Missouri lawmakers are considering measures to repeal most of Missouri’s helmet law for motorcycle riders.

One proposal would allow licensed operators 18 and older to ride without a helmet if they have medical insurance coverage of at least $1 million.

House Republican Shane Roden of Cedar Hill said the insurance requirement isn’t fair to motorcyclists, but is an attempt at compromise.

“We don’t put that burden on anybody else in the state of Missouri, but we do that for motorcycle,” said Roden.  “It’s not really fair, but if that’s the compromise that we have to work on to try to make it a little more palatable for the other side, we’ll work with them and try to get it done that way.”

Roden said the proposals, which are all similar, would impose some of the most restrictive measures in the country while still freeing riders to travel without wearing a helmet.

A Senate bill requires anyone under 18 to wear the gear, and makes the same demand of anyone over 18 who is using an instruction permit to operate a motorcycle.

One of the House measures bumps the age restriction up to 21 and calls for the operator to have completed a motorcycle safety education course, and to have possessed a motorcycle license for at least two years.

The bill specifies that a person 21 years of age or older may not be pulled over by a law enforcement officer solely to determine compliance with helmet requirements.

Motorcycle helmet laws vary widely among the states and experienced massive changes in the 50 years since they were first mandated.

Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia have universal helmet laws requiring all motorcyclists to wear  protective headgear. Twenty-eight states require some motorcyclists to wear a helmet.  Three states, including Missouri neighbors Illinois and Iowa, have no helmet use laws.

Many states adopted helmet laws after the federal government, in 1967, required the statutes as a condition for states to qualify for certain safety programs and highway construction money.

But in 1976, states persuaded Congress to stop the Department of Transportation from assessing financial penalties on states without such laws. Proponents of the measures currently under consideration contend wearing one is a personal choice issue and shouldn’t involve government interference.

Roden also said the law is a drain on tourism dollars for the state.

“Right now we have people riding out of our state,” Roden said. “If we have bike rallies in Branson or the St. Louis area, they go down to Arkansas and ride.  They pop over to Illinois and ride, or one of the other many states.”

He said motorcyclists will navigate around Missouri when traveling through the Midwest just to avoid the helmet law.

Maureen Cunningham with the Brain Injury Association of Missouri said the claim that tourism dollars are being lost is unfounded.

“There is no indication that that is really the case,” said Cunningham. “Because with Nebraska and Tennessee also having also an all rider motorcycle helmet law, riders would have to avoid those states also to not have to put on a helmet.”

Statistics say states with laws allowing riders to travel without protective headgear have vastly higher fatality rates.

According to figures compiled by the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration in 2011, the fatality rate for motorcyclists involved in accidents in Missouri is 13%, while it’s 10% in Nebraska and 15% in Tennessee.  Illinois and Iowa have no helmet laws.  In Illinois the fatality rate is 74%, while it’s 94% in Iowa.

Cunningham claims it’s a public safety issue. She and other opponents of the measures say they would also cost the state in tax dollars because the state ends up paying for people who suffer severe or debilitating injuries when not wearing a motorcycle helmet.

Representative Roden contends the claim that states without helmet laws have high fatality rates from motorcycle accidents is misleading.

“On the realistic side of it is 92% of accidents with fatalities in the state of Missouri, they’re all wearing helmets.”

Proponents’ claim helmets don’t save lives, but are just designed to reduce injury.

Bills to loosen and eliminate Missouri’s protective headgear laws for motorcyclists have been floated for years in the state legislature without success so far.