FRESHMEN LAWMAKERS LEARN ABOUT UNIVERSITY

A group of 24 newly elected members of the Missouri House of Representatives got an insight into Southeast Missouri State University during a stopover here Tuesday night.

The group is on a tour of the state as a part of the freshmen lawmakers' exposure to the diverse problems they will be dealing with as voting members of the legislative body next month.

The university president, Dr. Dale F. Nitzschke, used the opportunity of having so many members of the House on hand to advertise the university and some of the initiatives that will be addressed by the Missouri General Assembly next year.

Nitzschke hopes to get approval of a $2.1 million mission enhancement packet that would add university programs and improve the way Southeast delivers those programs to students. He also hopes the House will pass a $12.5 million request for renovations to Academic Hall.

Southeast administrators who addressed the freshmen representatives on behalf of the university were conscious of the amount of time they could spend on each subject and limited their talks to just over five minutes. The reason is because the tour is designed to saturate the lawmakers with as much information as it can over a two-week period.

"We're doing a lot of different things," House Budget Chairperson Sheila Lumpe, who is one of the directors of the tour, said. "We're doing a lot of procedural types of things that we probably would not have done in the past. But with term limitations you can't sit there two years and learn these things through osmosis."

Instead, the new representatives were given a crash course on committees, the legislative process and the issues they will be dealing with over the course of their political careers.

"If you only have eight years you don't have two to waste," Lumpe said. "It's a different climate and a different set of skills that they'll need to be effective right away."

At least one new lawmaker said he could have done without the presentations and dinners during the tour.

"I've said that the first agency director that comes up and hands me all the information on a disk and mails me whatever T-shirts and hats they have -- and I don't have to take it home with me -- I'm going to vote for everything on their appropriations," Rep. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, said. "We get literally six or seven packets a day. The bus is getting a little crowded right now, and we've got another three days."

The tour is an annual event for incoming representatives. This year's tour is not only more intense because of how much more information the lawmakers need but it has also been shortened from three weeks to two.

"That's very beneficial. We're not paid while we're here," Graham said. "You go into the Christmas season with my property tax bill and my auto insurance due, and I'm taking a pay cut to go into the legislature. So financially it is very difficult to even spend the two weeks. Three weeks would have been almost impossible."

Pay is an issue the legislature will be dealing with almost immediately when the session opens. The House will have to vote against a pay raise before Feb. 1 or the raise will automatically go into effect. One new member of the House said she feels a little awkward about voting herself a raise right off the bat.

"I think we definitely need a per-diem increase," Joan Barry, D-Oakville, said. "The pay raise, I think that might be a bit much. I guess we all wish this matter would go away. But it's impossible to live on the per diem that they give us now."