The Hits Keep On Coming …
Well, new and returning legislators spent the first days of December pre-filing about 400 bills and resolutions.
Not counting the many proposals to implement Right To Work and curtail or kill Prevailing Wage, my top five from the first week are…
1. House Bill 27 Phil Christofanelli (R – St. Charles)
Primary elections would only be open to registered Democrats or Republicans.
This is a direct response to labor leaders telling their St. Charles area members to take Republican ballots last August and support state senate candidate Anne Zerr. Even though that ploy didn’t work, future primaries would only allow registered Democrats and registered Republicans to vote. Since most Missourians don’t want to be publically identified as a “D” or an “R” this will speed up the voting lines but will result in many, many fewer votes.
2. HB 96 Nick Shroer (R – O’Fallon)
If an establishment bans concealed guns, the owner assumes all liability if a patron is injured by a weapon-wielding criminal.
I asked a security company what it would cost to provide armed security to protect a food pantry (using Circle Of Concern as an example) during regular business hours. The ballpark price was $50,000 a year. This bill is a large rock to use beating-down businesses which don’t want guns on their property. If passed there will be a lot of collateral damage.
3. HB 101 Kathryn Swan (R – Cape)
All tax credits subject to annual appropriation.
Counting and controlling the proliferation of tax credits sounds good: what happens with a multi-year building project? Or, what happens if the lege deems to not ‘fund’ the food pantry tax credit in mid-calendar year?
4. HB 154 Kevin Corlew (R – KC)
Property of seniors and disabled could only increase in assessed value at rate of Social Security benefit increase.
In other words, the home of every senior with an annual income of less than $68,000 per couple (or $60,000 for an individual) could only see their 2017 taxable home value increase by .03% – even if the identical home next door had a 15% increase in value. Oh, don’t worry, there is a safety valve. The ‘county commission’ (in St. Louis County the County Council) would vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to allow the tax relief. So, the Republican council majority in St. Louis County would get to decide whether to court votes from seniors or fund schools.
5. SB 17 Will Krauss (R – Jackson Co.)
Phases out corporate income tax in three years.
Now, corporate income tax collections have been declining for a long time, due in part to earlier gifts from the legislature’s Republican majority. For Fiscal Year 2016 the governor’s budget projected just $495 million from corporate tax collections, down from $541 million in FY 14 [https://oa.mo.gov/sites/default/files/FY_2016_Executive_Budget_Download.pdf ]. Still, a half billion is real money. Giving it away when one of the governor’s most frequent jobs is cutting budgets doesn’t seem smart.
New bills can be enrolled till after the Dogwoods bloom. Expect even more bad ideas to be proposed. And, expect many of them to become law.
House Bills: http://www.house.mo.gov/Bill.aspx?bill=HB44&year=2017&code=R
Senate Bills: http://www.senate.mo.gov/17info/BTS_Web/BillList.aspx?SessionType=R
Submitted by Glenn Koenen