AREA SENATORS' VIEWS DIFFER ON SUCCESS OF JUST-ENDED SESSION

Sen. John Dennis rates the recently completed legislative session as "a little above average," while Sen. Jerry Howard says it was not as productive as it could have been.

Howard, a Democrat from Dexter who is completing his first Senate session after seven years in the House, says the session was dominated by such time-consuming major issues as the education tax increase, congressional reapportionment, and ethics.

"We end up saying it has or has not been a productive session, but productive in whose eyes?" asked Howard. "If this education bill benefits a large part of the state, then we were productive. Your measure is not readily available to you at the moment. I'm hopeful that we will be able to look back in a year or so and say we did something significant for the state of Missouri."

Dennis, a Benton Democrat winding up his 15th session, praised the General Assembly for its efforts at tackling major issues of importance to the state. "We got some real important bills through this year, and overall I think we did our job well," said the senator.

Sending an education tax and reform package to voters was a major achievement along with passing an improved ethics bill, re-drawing Missouri's nine congressional districts, and creating a new Department of Insurance, Dennis said.

Said Dennis: "I think this year we worked together more than we ever have as members of the Senate, and I think the leadership of the Senate had a lot to do with that. The president pro tem (Jim Mathewson, D-Sedalia) and minority floor leader (Tom McCarthy, R-Chesterfield) got along pretty well."

That cooperation in the Senate carried over to the House as well, and that enabled tough issues to be dealt with, said Dennis.

The senator said he was pleased with the general revenue and capital appropriations that were earmarked for Southeast Missouri State University. "I would like to have seen more money, but with our financial situation like it is, Southeast came out in good shape," said Dennis.

Both senators voted for the tax bill for education, which goes before Missouri voters on Nov. 5.

Howard said he believes there are adequate safeguards in the bill to protect taxpayers and insure reforms are made.

"The average citizen does not want a tax increase, but part of that is because they have been told for 10 years we don't need a tax increase," said Howard. "But we need additional revenues to keep up with increased costs caused by inflation; otherwise services decline.

Having reforms tied to the additional revenue "gives some stability to the overall package," said Howard. "The public is convinced there needs to be some reforms in education."

At one time, Howard said he was skeptical voters would approve higher taxes, but now he thinks most people are at least receptive to hearing the case presented. "I think all in all this will get aired very well, and when it all shakes out, I believe the people who are promoting this package are going to be successful. If they prove their case, it will pass."

Dennis said he has never supported a tax increase unless there was an emergency situation and there is an emergency in education and more funds are needed. The senator said he likes having equal funding between higher education and elementary and secondary and an emphasis on increasing vocational training.

While more money will help education, Dennis said: "You can't buy education. There is much more to it than simply money; you need to have parents involved and teach kids so they can develop a trade and get a job when they are out of school."

Like Howard, Dennis said he is optimistic about the chances of the tax increase passing. "I think this is a package that voters will at least take a serious look at," he said. "Regardless of the outcome, we will at least know how people feel about investing more in education."

Ethics was another big issue, particularly for Howard, who was on a House-Senate conference committee that met together over 50 hours during the final two weeks of the session to reach agreement on a final bill.

"It was frustrating to me to some extent because I felt like we were gnashing our teeth and haggling over bits and pieces of the draft that didn't amount to much," said Howard. "But anytime you get four lawyers around the table together, you are always going to haggle about some nit-picky items."

Howard said the objectives of the conferees was to correct some of the flaws in last year's bill, to better define who is required to report and to establish an enforcement commission. If things don't work right, Howard said the law can be amended later.

"All in all, this is as good of a compromise as we could work out between the House and the Senate," said Howard.

Dennis, chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, said he has some doubts as to how badly the law is needed, but what was approved this year is a big improvement over last. He said the ethics commission will make the law better.

Dennis said he thinks a stricter law against driving while intoxicated, which provides for an automatic 30-day suspension of the license of anyone driving while drunk, is good. He said people will think twice now about drinking and driving.

"People will drink; I don't care if you give the death penalty for DWI," said Dennis. "Hopefully, this will provide a deterrent."

The senator said stronger action needs to be taken against second-time DWI offenders.

Howard said he has doubts about the measure and wonders whether it will create more criminals, with no place to put them. "You can take driving privileges away, but ultimately, to solve the problem, they have to receive treatment," he said.

"It is not politically popular to oppose any kind of change, other than downward in alcoholic content, but anytime you begin to make things tougher like this you are going to create other problems. This will burst another seam somewhere. We will end up putting people in jail for minor offenses, when you don't have enough room for hardened criminals now. I'd rather see a rapist in jail any day than someone who drinks too much."

One bill handled by Dennis this year, to give the highway patrol limited search-and-seizure authority, failed. This was the second year the effort failed, but Dennis said "we'll try again next year."

Last year the authority was part of a larger bill that failed, so this time Dennis had the authority contained in a page-and-a-half bill. It passed the Senate and went to the House, where it was amended with a number of other provisions, and came back 55 pages long. Eventually it became part of a big drug enforcement measure that ran out of time on the last day of the session.

One of the bills handled by Howard that passed requires the Department of Natural Resources to have legislators and farmers represented on its advisory board that deals with maintaining wetlands in the state.

The bill also includes the creation of a joint, interim legislative committee to study wetlands in Missouri and federal requirements that every acre taken out of wetlands, needs to be replaced with a new acre of wetland.

Howard said there is some concern that agricultural interests need to be involved to protect prime farmland in the state.