Budget wrangling may prompt look at constitution

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- With the prolonged political showdown on the state budget at an end, legal challenges to clarify untested provisions of the Missouri Constitution relevant to the process likely have been avoided.

However, numerous constitutional questions raised in recent weeks still lack definitive answers amid conflicting interpretations.

While those issues merit legislative review, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, said lawmakers should take a cautious approach with any constitutional tinkering.

"The business of attempting to pass constitutional amendments is arduous, as it should be," Kinder said. "We know we have time for the dust to settle and see what should be proposed."

Gov. Bob Holden's unprecedented vetoes of two-thirds of the state operating budget -- including education spending -- generated much constitutional debate in the June special legislative session called to again pass the budget. The questions included:

Does the governor actually have the authority to veto funding for free public schools?

Is the remaining budget still valid if the education appropriation isn't in place by the start of the fiscal year?

Can the governor limit the scope of what lawmakers may consider in a special session once it is under way?

Are temporary spending measures constitutional or must appropriations be for at least one year?

Since a Missouri governor had never before vetoed entire budget bills, the state Supreme Court hasn't had an opportunity to offer guidance on those matters. With Holden's agreement Friday to sign revised versions of the vetoed bills into law before the new fiscal year begins on Tuesday, those issues will likely remain academic for now.

But the recent events could prompt a move to clarify the constitution and avoid future problems.

House Majority Floor Leader Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, said the document could stand some tweaking but, like Kinder, urged restraint.

"What we have just seen is something that hasn't happened in the past," Crowell said. "But I don't think we need to go willy nilly into changing a process that has served us so well until this year."

Taxes that aren't

One proposed amendment the House is likely to pursue next year would bar the governor, when crafting his annual budget recommendation, from using revenue generated by taxes that haven't yet received the required voter approved. Crowell co-sponsored such a measure this year in response to Holden's January budget proposal.

The constitution presently requires the governor to submit to lawmakers a balanced budget, including any laws necessary to cover suggested spending.

Holden's budget plan included $500 million in new taxes, most requiring voter action.

Republicans said building a budget on such questionable revenue wasn't fiscally responsible. The proposed amendment preventing unapproved funds from being appropriated was filed too late in the legislative year for serious consideration, but Crowell said a push will be made next year.

"It is kind of difficult to put a concrete budget together on tax increases that voters may or may not approve," Crowell said.

Missouri voters would ultimately decide any proposed constitutional changes.

Senate Minority Floor Leader Ken Jacob, D-Columbia, said a debate is needed on the legislature's now-restricted power to tax without voter approval.

Voters largely stripped lawmakers of their taxing authority with the 1996 passage of the Farmahan Amendment, so dubbed because it was pushed by Missouri Farm Bureau and then-Gov. Mel Carnahan.

Because of that change, the legislature can raise no more than $75 million in new revenue without a statewide vote.

Jacob said the legislature should at least have some method to reinstate taxes it has chosen to cut.

In the late 1990s, lawmakers reduced taxes to slow the growth of state revenue under another constitutional provision, the Hancock Amendment. The state is now more than $1.2 billion under the Hancock cap, and many experts believe that because of Farmahan the state will never again come close to hitting it.

Jacob said the revenue lawmakers had eliminated would have helped the state avoid its financial problems were it still being collected.

"We cut $800 million in taxes, but we are not able to bring it back," Jacob said.

mpowers@semissourian.com

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