Legislation Reported to the Senate

*House Bill 457, a bill that protects the conscience rights of medical service providers, was reported to the Senate Tuesday, March 12. It has a lengthy summary which I encourage you to read on the Missouri House of Representatives website. I have listed below a few of its many provisions:

1) Any medical professional or health care institution that provides medical services has the right not to participate in and cannot be required to participate in any phase of patient medical care, treatment, or procedure that violates his or her conscience including his or her religious, moral, or ethical principles that are adherent to a sincere and meaningful belief in God or in relation to a supreme being.

2) No medical professional or health care institution can be civilly, criminally, or administratively liable for declining to participate, provide, or perform any specified medical procedure or research that violates his or her conscience.

3) Reasonable notice must be provided by an employee asserting a right not to participate in a specific medical procedure or research.

4) The provisions of the substitute do not authorize a health care professional or institution to withhold lifesaving emergency medical treatment or services or alleviate a medical professional from the duty to inform a patient of his or her condition, risks, prognosis, and available options and resources; however, a medical professional cannot be forced to participate in, refer for, or promote specified procedures or research.

5) The General Assembly may, by concurrent resolution, appoint one or more of its members who sponsored or co-sponsored this legislation in his or her official capacity to intervene as a matter of right in any case in which the constitutionality of the law is challenge.

*House Bill 409, commonly called prevailing wage, contains the following provisions:

1) It revises the definition of "construction" as it relates to prevailing wages on public works projects by removing improvements, alterations, major repairs, or maintenance. Currently, it includes construction, reconstruction, improvement, enlargement, alteration, painting and decorating, or major repair.

2) Revises the definition of "maintenance work" to include repairs that restore existing facilities to a previous state or condition or improve the utility or enhance the appearance of an existing facility provided that the size, type, or extent of the existing facility is not changed. Maintenance work will not include "major repairs" that is defined as any work that exceeds the replacement cost of existing facilities.

3) It also changes the way the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations determines the prevailing hourly rate of wages on public work projects.

4) For the City of St. Louis and the counties of Cass, Clay, Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles, and St. Louis, the prevailing hourly rate of wages will continue to be determined by consideration of the applicable wage rates established by collective bargaining agreements, if any, and the rates paid generally within those counties and city. The applicable wage rates paid by members of a tax-exempt trade organization as defined in the bill also can be considered.

5) For all other counties, the prevailing hourly rate of wages will be the state average weekly wage as determined by the MO Department of Labor.

*House Bill 64 -"allows a labor organization to obtain contributions for a candidate, campaign committee, continuing committee, legislative campaign fund, political party, or person making disbursements to pay the direct costs of electioneering communications on an automatic basis through a payroll deduction only if the employee or organization member consents to the contribution each year in writing. These provisions do not apply to voluntary member-owned trade associations operating only in this state or to first responders, unless an employee is required to be a member or pay dues, fees, assessments, or any other similar charges however denominated to the association. These provisions must not be interpreted as denying a labor organization the right to receive and use dues for any legal purpose."

*House Concurrent Resolution 9 is a House Concurrent Resolution that "Strongly urges the U.S. Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2013 to require a complete audit of the Federal Reserve Bank."