The last days of the 95th Missouri General Assembly signal the beginning of the 2011 legislative session, the 96th General Assembly.

About one-third of the members of the legislature who return to the Capitol on September 15 will be spending the last days of their lives as Representatives or Senators.  Term limits have denied their constituents the chance to re-elect many of them.  Others lost primaries or did not run for another office.

But in the brief time they’ll be in Jefferson City for the veto session, some of those lawmakers will be discussing issues their successors will take up next year.  Several legislative committees will be meeting on the 14th and the 15th.

The Joint Committee on Education meets Tuesday afternoon, the 14th.  The Joint Committee on Public Employee Retirement, meets later that afternoon.  And later still, the Joint Committee on Tax Policy gathers to talk about Streamlined Sales and Use Taxes—a phrase often used to refer to collection of sales taxes on interstate sales.

Lawmakers decide on Wednesday the 15th if any of the Governor’s vetoes will be overridden. There weren’t many bills passed in the regular session and few vetoes, so the sessions in the House and the Senate are likely to be dominated by farewell speeches and ceremonies.

Once all of that is done, the Senate Committee on Educated Citizenry 2020 meets and the Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight gathers to talk about the search for a new state transportation director and some other things.

The committee meetings during the veto session are generally the kickoff to the committee season, if you will, that will increasingly focus on developing legislation for 2011, giving us an idea of some of the key issues for the next session and some of the positions lawmakers will take on them.

Days after the November elections, present and future lawmakers will be in the Capitol to pick the new leaders of the chambers for 2011-2012.  A few more committee meetings in November and December and then we’re back in the sausage-making business in January.

It will be cold then.  We can’t play outside.   So we might as well go indoors for a few months and watch the legislature make some new laws and see then what and who the November voters hath wrought.

Crossed posted from Missourinet blog. Written by Bob Priddy

Two weeks ago, after the Chairman of the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee had abruptly adjourned his committee without any discussion about the so-called Ford bill, we asked him if he thought his action might cost him his committee chairmanship. “It really doesn’t matter at the moment,” he told us, “I’m going to do what I think is right for the longterm direction of the state.”

Bob Priddy’s post –with link to audio »

“The non-progress report on the legislature’s special session we issued at mid-week needs a quick update because it appears progress has been made. To hear legislative leaders talk, you’d think two busy days will polish off all problems and lawmakers can go back to their summer pursuits. So here’s a progress report at the end of the week.”

Read Bob Priddy’s full report here »

“A second full week of the special legislative session is non-history. Thoughts a week ago that some kind of compromise could be reached by now that would clear the way for movement on the two pieces of legislation have proven decidedly optimistic. And so a special legislative session that some are calling “bizarre” will ooze into a third week.

At this point the House and the Senate don’t even know when they’ll come back into session. The House staff was supposed to meet yesterday to talk about scheduling. But the meeting was cancelled. The staff can’t even meet to talk about when to have a meeting. Therefore we are offering today a non-progress report.”

Read Bob Priddy’s full post here »

Monday, June 28th

• 10:00 a.m. – House technical session convenes
• 10:00 a.m. – House Economic Development Committee HHR7
• 01:00 p.m. – House Retirement Committee, HHR
• 03:00 p.m. – Senate Veterans Affairs, Pensions, Urban Affairs Committee, Senate Lounge
• 04:00 p.m. – House Rules Committee, HHR3

Tuesday, June 29th

• 10:00 a.m. – House convenes in special session;  Upon morning adjournment: House Fiscal Review Committee, HHR7
• 01:00 p.m. – Senate technical session convenes
• ??:?? p.m. – House returns to 3rd Read bills

Wednesday, June 30th

• 10:00 a.m. – Senate convenes in special session

“Special sessions of the legislature have somewhat different rules from regular sessions and this might be a good time to review some of the basics, now that our lawmakers are returning to the Capitol on Thursday to work on two issues. The Ford bill allows the (auto) company to keep some of the income withholding taxes of employees who will build the next generation of vehicle replacing the current Escape an Mercury Mariner small SUVs

We went back to our recordings of the last day of the session when things fell apart for both bills and dug out our recording of Senate Debate on the automobile manufacturing bill. The voices you’ll hear are Senator Lu Ann Ridgeway, whose district includes Claycomo, Senator Matt Bartle of Lee’s Summit, who is strongly opposed to the whole subsidy plan, Jack Goodman of Nevada who leans away from favoring the idea, Tim Green of St. Louis who favors it, and Jim Lembke of St. Louis and Chuck Purgason of Caulfield who are philosophically opposed to the idea. At the end, sponsor Tom Dempsey of St. Charles puts his bill on the shelf with about three hours left in the session, not enough time to get things worked out enough to get the bill to a vote.”

Read Bob’s post and listen to debate audio on the Missourinet blog »

Not as bad as first feared. But the newest budget withholdings announced by Governor Nixon today are bad enough. He’s withholding $280 million from the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. The state budget office had recommended a few weeks ago that he withhold $350 million but Nixon says an uptick in state revenue in May provides some hope that today’s withholdings will be enough.

By withholding the money rather than vetoing the appropriations, Nixon leaves the opportunity open to release funds later if state income perks up even more. [video of opening remarks 7 min]

AUDIO: Nixon’s news conference  (27 min)

School transportation funding takes the biggest hit—$70 million. He’s also withholding $54 million from a couple of state college scholarship programs although he says the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority will be announcing a $30 program in a few days that will ease the pain of those two other scholarship programs.

Nixon is withholding 447 million in tax credits and 414 million each in Mental Health projects and in Medicaid provider reimbursements from the state.

The new fiscal year, FY11, begins in less than two weeks.

This is a cross-post from Missourinet.com. Story by Bob Priddy

Missouri’s budget woes will hit college students, school buses, the state work force, business tax credits and scores of other programs under $301.4 million in cuts announced today by Gov. Jay Nixon. Nixon said the budget passed by the Legislature had to be cut to avoid red ink in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“None of this is easy,” Nixon told reporters at a news conference in his Capitol office. He said this round of belt-tightening had required him to “punch another hole in the belt.”

Among the biggest casualties: the Access Missouri college scholarship program, which provides needs-based grants.  Nixon whacked $50 million from the $82 million appropriation. While details were sketchy, he said $30 million of that cut would be offset by a new scholarship program being set up by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.

Virginia Young has the skinny at Political Fix.

Bob Priddy was on the scene and we hope to post a bunch of audio here shortly.

This post is predicated on the notion that what happens in the General Assembly has as much to do with politics as legislation.

Via Mashable: “Today Google is releasing new tools for politicians using YouTube and Google. The YouTube You Choose 2010 Campaign Toolkit and the Google Campaign Toolkit are both designed to help political candidates better deliver their messages to their audiences.

With YouChoose 2010, federal and state candidates who want to leverage YouTube in their campaigns can apply to have their own YouTube Politician channel. The political offering supports branding, longer videos, custom thumbnails, and includes Google Moderator and YouTube Insight for video analytics.

Candidates on YouTube can also pay for the ability to add call-to-action overlays to videos, run their TV spots as in-stream ads in other YouTube videos and promote select videos as ads for search terms via Promoted Videos.

So what do you think? Can something like this have any impact on the time-honored strategy of carpet bombing the American voting public with 30′s and 60′s? Will older, less web-savvy candiates be at a disadvantage? Will this be a better way to reach younger voters?

If you know of a Missouri pol using the toolkit, give us a shout via comments.

Nice to know our own Sen. Claire McCaskill is one of the cool kids and a member of “Capitol Hill’s iPad Caucus.” This story by Politico’s Erika Lovley (real name?) makes it sound like the iPad is gonna be a Big Deal in DC like everywhere else. And, according to some tech experts and lawmakers, “revolutionize the way Congress does business.”

“Indeed, the iPad may be the ultimate paper saver for an institution that prints millions of pages a year and still piles huge stacks of bills outside the House chamber every day. In the coming years, staffers armed with iPads will be able to send out updates directly from the cloakroom about proceedings on the House floor.”

As soon as we finish ripping off this Politico story, we’re heading for the App Store to download GovWatch, “the first-ever congressional iPhone application that is also compatible with the iPad.” The app –no connection to Missouri’s GovWatch, I assume– “aggregates information about members’ Twitter feeds and legislation while allowing users to submit ideas about how to stop government waste.”

In a reassuring example of digital Darwinism, members of congress who refuse even to carry a BlackBerry are becoming an endangerd species.

Editor: This story has nothing to do with the Missouri legislature but maybe we can start a list of MO lawmakers toting the iPad.

Update: Uh, the GovWatch app might not be as… objective? as we hoped.

“But it is the job of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Republicans to plut a stop to wasteful Washington spending and shine a light into the federal bureucracy.”

“Just as the White House’s iPhone app shows you how they spend other people’s money, GovWatch helps you save it while…” etc etc etc.”

“But it is the job of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Republicans to plut a stop to wasteful Washington spending and shine a light into the federal bureucracy.”
“Just as the White House’s iPhone app shows you how they spend other people’s money, GovWatch helps you save it while…” etc etc etc.”