Mo. lawmakers have big issues left on last day

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri lawmakers began their 2008 session with a target on illegal immigrants and rising property taxes. More than four months later, they entered the final day of their session with both issues unresolved.

Perhaps that was fitting for a legislative session that plodded along at a casual pace, interrupted by occasional infighting among Republicans who control the House, Senate and Governor's Mansion.

Sometime before their mandatory 6 p.m. Friday adjournment, legislators still were expected to pass legislation restraining property tax increases when home values rise. There was less certainty surrounding the illegal immigration legislation, though House and Senate members have worked to resolve their differences over penalties for employers.

Senate Majority Leader Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, predicted early Friday that it would be difficult to pass the illegal immigration legislation through both the House and Senate in a single day. If lawmakers fail to do so, Gov. Matt Blunt has pledged to call them back for a special session sometime later this year.

The prospects seemed bleak for several other prominent issues. The governor's Insure Missouri plan to expand government-subsidized health insurance to the working poor fell flat quickly in the House. It ultimately got left out of the state's $22.4 billion budget for next year.

Contentious proposals making it illegal to coerce women into abortions and requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification had yet to make it to the Senate floor, where a single senator threatening a filibuster could easily kill a bill on the final day. But they hadn't been ruled out by Republican legislative leaders.

To pass the voter ID bill, for example, lawmakers would need to either achieve a remarkable harmony or become so angry at each other that majority Republicans would be willing to use a rare procedural motion to shut off Senate debate and force a vote on the issue, said sponsoring Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City.

There was a strong undercurrent of frustration and resentment heading into the last day -- much of it directed at House Speaker Rod Jetton from his fellow Republicans.

Jetton, R-Marble Hill, has rubbed some legislators the wrong way by working as a political consultant for certain lawmakers' campaigns while simultaneously presiding as the top House member. He angered others this week while working against an effort to repeal a contentious 2007 land-use law that had quietly passed with his support.

That law allowed landowners to more easily seek to incorporate as villages, thus bypassing county planning or zoning rules. Immediately after it took effect, a southwest Missouri developer who has backed Jetton sought to create a village of his property near Table Rock Lake.

As Jetton worked against the village-law repeal in the final week of the session, House Republicans caucused in private without him, venting their frustrations amid talk of a coup that never materialized.

Jetton allies helped filibuster the bill in the Senate. But around 4 a.m. Friday, senators finally passed the village-law repeal -- contingent on a deal with Jetton that it would not take effect as law until Aug. 28. That bill still needs final House approval.

Caught in the spat were the property tax bill and the illegal immigration legislation.

The property tax legislation is intended to ensure that local governmental entities reduce their property tax rates when assessed property values rise by more than the rate of inflation. It also would expand tax breaks available to senior and disabled homeowners.

In the immigration bill, Republican House members were reluctant to penalize businesses who misclassify workers as "contractors" instead of employees -- a provision added to the bill in the Senate. When workers are contractors, employees don't have to pay withholding taxes, provide other benefits or take responsibility if the worker is an illegal immigrant.

Sen. Chris Koster, D-Harrisonville, was among those stalling the village-law repeal, which he ultimately voted to pass. Koster said it was more vital to finish the immigration bill first -- with the employer penalties in tact.

"The most important issues of the legislative session have been put in danger" by waiting so long to try to pass them, Koster said.

As the session's final hours ticked down, House and Senate members were scrambling to cut deals that would get their favorite issues to a vote in the opposite chamber in return for consideration of other legislation.

"It's pretty frustrating, all these months doing the people's work, and good legislation gets held up," observed Rep. Jeff Grisamore, R-Lee's Summit.