Missouri lawmakers plan to target about 50 budget vetoes

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri legislators plan to try to override about 50 line-item budget vetoes made by Gov. Jay Nixon, despite newly raised doubts from the attorney general's office about their legal authority to do so.

Lawmakers are to convene today in an annual veto session to see if they can muster the two-thirds majority necessary in each chamber to overrule Nixon's vetoes on a variety of issues.

The Democratic governor vetoed 136 budget sections, amounting to $276 million of spending, and rejected 33 other bills, including ones tripling the state's abortion-waiting period and creating a new training program for teachers to carry guns in the classroom.

Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Kurt Schaefer and House Budget chairman Rick Stream said Tuesday they plan to pursue override votes on about 50 line-item budget vetoes containing about $40 million in general revenue spending plus additional federal dollars.

They gave a few examples: $2.5 million for reading instruction in struggling school districts; $1.5 million for forensic exams on abused children; $500,000 for services to sexual assault victims; $191,400 for additional newborn screening services; and $160,000 to equip water patrol boats with defibrillators.

"These are programs that are very, very important and needed by Missourians," said Schaefer, R-Columbia.

Nixon has acknowledged some of his vetoes affect worthwhile initiatives but has said the state cannot afford the additional spending.

Schaefer said Nixon's vetoes reflect poor priorities, noting the governor has spent more on his own airplane travels -- $321,604 last fiscal year -- than the total amount sought this year for the water patrol defibrillators.

Schaefer and Stream said they intend to take votes on each of the line-item vetoes they want to override, which could take several hours.

Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey had asked Attorney General Chris Koster's office for advice on the proper procedure for veto overrides. In a written response, Solicitor General James Layton said a strict reading of the Missouri Constitution would not allow legislators to override vetoes during their September session.

But Layton acknowledged legislators have done so in recent decades. He said the state constitution would require lawmakers to take votes on each item that was vetoed -- not simply on each budget bill that contains vetoes.

Schaefer, a lawyer who is campaigning to succeed Koster as attorney general in the 2016 elections, said he agreed "there is some ambiguity" over the Legislature's authority to override line-item budget vetoes during a September session. But he said lawmakers planned to press forward and do so, based on their recent precedent.

Last year, the Legislature overrode a line-item budget veto of $1 million to help rebuild a burned-down vocational education school in northeast Missouri. The attorney general's office said the only other successful override of a line-item budget veto occurred in 1980 on a funding allotment for a new state office building.

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