Area lawmakers express dismay over lack of action on highway funding

Republican lawmakers from the area voiced dismay Monday the Missouri Legislature failed to address the state's highway funding woes in the just-completed session.

State Reps. Kathy Swan, Donna Lichtenegger and Holly Rehder and state Sen. Wayne Wallingford said lawmakers will have to take up the transportation funding issue again next year.

"We have to do something," said Lichtenegger, adding the state's roads are crumbling.

"Interstate 70 has been patched and repatched so much that there is just nothing left of the original highway," the Jackson lawmaker said.

Wallingford said the unresolved issue was "one of the disappointments" of the 2016 session.

Rep. Donna Lichtenegger

A failed Senate bill would have asked voters to increase the state's fuel tax by nearly 6 cents per gallon. Wallingford said he supported putting the issue before voters.

"My constituents don't want a sales tax or toll roads," the Cape Girardeau Republican said.

Rehder, a Sikeston lawmaker, said she believes the legislature should dip into general revenue to provide added funding for roads and bridges. She suggested lawmakers need to eliminate some tax credits and use the added revenue to help fund the state's transportation needs.

Swan said she and Lichtenegger also want the legislature to take a look at Missouri's tax credits with a view toward eliminating some of them.

Swan, of Cape Girardeau, said she was "thrilled" a number of her measures dealing with education were approved by lawmakers this session. They included measures to screen schoolchildren for dyslexia, establish a system to identify at-risk high-school students and provide remedial services, and require high-school students to pass a civics exam to graduate.

Sen. Wayne Wallingford

While the legislature approved several ethics bills, Swan said her bill never was heard. It would have placed a constitutional amendment before Missouri voters that called for imposing campaign-contribution limits equal to those in effect for federal lawmakers.

Swan said she plans to bring the issue up against next year.

Wallingford also has voiced support for imposing a limit on campaign contributions.

The senator said ethics bills have "always just languished."

This year, the legislature approved measures requiring public officials to wait six months after their terms end before taking lobbyist jobs and barring public officials from engaging in paid political consulting while in office.

Rep. Holly Rehder

Area House members also voiced support for the ethics bills that passed.

Wallingford said he believes the completed session accomplished the most of any of the six sessions he has attended, first as a state representative and the last four years as a state senator.

Lichtenegger said she was pleased her fluoridation notification bill passed. The measure requires public water systems and water supply districts to notify state government and customers at least 90 days in advance of any vote to modify the fluoridation of water in the system.

"This is very important for the dental health of our state," she said.

Lawmakers approved a measure placing a constitutional amendment before voters to require voters to have photo identification to cast a ballot.

"I think it will pass overwhelmingly," Lichtenegger said.

Rehder said she was "extremely disappointed" two of her bills wend down to defeat. One was a bill that would have created a state database to track prescription drug purchases. The other would have required annual permission from most public employees for union fees to be deducted from their paychecks.

The Sikeston lawmaker vowed to bring back both bills in the 2017 session.

Rehder said Missouri is the only state that doesn't have a prescription-drug database. She said it went down to defeat because one senator opposed it.

Rehder said she plans to encourage Missouri counties to set up their own database for now.

As for the union-fees measure, the legislature initially passed the bill before Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed it. The House successfully voted to override the veto, but the Senate rejected it by a single vote.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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