Lawmakers file hundreds of proposals for '06 session

~ Bills range from increasing criminal penalties for child predators to the creation of a "Tax Me More" fund.

Bills prefiled for the Missouri Legislature's upcoming session range from the serious to the silly.

As of Friday, lawmakers in both chambers had filed 288 proposals to modify state laws and 15 changes in the Missouri Constitution. Ideas among the proposals include tougher penalties for predators who sexually victimize children, a ban on protest demonstrations at funerals and naming soybeans as the state farm crop.

Among the 197 lawmakers, Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, has the second-highest number of bills, with 22 bills filed for the session that begins Jan. 4. Other area lawmakers so far aren't the primary sponsors of any bills.

Among the ideas Crowell will push next year would double to $4,000 annually the stipend under the "Bright Flight" scholarship for top students, require voters to have a photo ID, allow public schools to teach classes on the Bible and bar the use of photographic or automated systems to enforce traffic laws.

"I've got many ideas I am pushing forward to start discussions, and most come as a result of direct constituent contact," Crowell said.

The crackdown on sex offenders includes language that would prevent creative defendants from avoiding punishment, said Sen. John Loudon, R-St. Louis County. One provision among many in his proposal would modify the language governing the criminal intent that must be proven to gain a conviction under state sodomy laws.

Under current state law, sodomy must be done for sexual gratification to be illegal under the forcible sodomy or statutory sodomy provisions. Loudon wants to add the intent to terrorize a victim to the law.

Loudon's proposal would require lifetime electronic monitoring of anyone convicted of forcible rape, forcible sodomy, statutory rape or sodomy in the first degree. Anyone convicted of those crimes would be barred from receiving probation and, when the victim is under 12, would be required to serve a prison term of 25 years.

"The goal most people are after and I am after is that we are only going to give these people one chance to victimize a child," Loudon said.

Another part of Loudon's proposal that is not directly aimed at sex offenders would make it easier to send juvenile offenders to adult courts for some crimes. Anyone 12 to 17 who commits crimes ranging from selling drugs to murder would be sent to adult court unless there was a strong reason not to do so.

A Kansas City-area lawmaker wants to place a code on sex offenders' driver's licenses identifying them. State Rep. Gary Dusenberg, R-Blue Springs, said it give law enforcement officers an immediate warning about someone they stop on the road.

"It would send up a red flag for someone police officers would stop who had a child in the car," Dusenberg said. "I was in the highway patrol for 27 years, and I know you can't depend on the computers working all the time."

The proposals to give longer terms for some crimes, tag sex offenders and send juveniles to adult courts are ill-considered attempts to prove lawmakers are tough on crime, said Albert Lowes, a Cape Girardeau lawyer who handles numerous criminal cases.

"That is the scarlet letter we got away from a few hundred years ago," Lowes said of the driver's license codes. Some sex offender laws catch young people with a few years' difference in age for consensual acts, he noted.

And sending more juveniles to adult courts and prisons won't help reduce crime, Lowes said. "How much Gestapo can we have?"

The proposal to ban demonstrations at funerals is a reaction to a fringe Kansas minister who has sent small groups across the country to protest at services for members of the armed forces killed in Iraq. The demonstrators claim the United States is under the control of homosexuals and praise Iraqi insurgents for killing service members.

Loudon, who has a strong libertarian streak in his political philosophy, said he's troubled both by the demonstrations and the attempt to stifle speech contained in the proposed ban.

"Our free speech rights are absolutely critical and foundational to who we are," Loudon said. "Any time we want to limit that we have to be extremely deliberative."

In addition to his more serious proposals, Crowell has one idea that he says should quiet people who contend Missouri should raise taxes. If passed, it would create the "Tax Me More" fund in the state treasury and anyone who feels they don't pay enough could contribute.

"This way we can quantify things and see how many Missourians don't feel they are taxed enough," Crowell said. "I believe it will end a lot of arguments."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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