Mo. lawmakers pass immigration, property tax bills

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri lawmakers targeted illegal immigrants and rising property taxes with new restrictions Friday as they capped a slow-moving session with a flurry of final-day activity.

Passage of the immigration and taxation measures assured lawmakers and Gov. Matt Blunt of accomplishing a pair of their highest priorities. Had the measures not passed, Blunt had threatened to call lawmakers back for a special session.

Lawmakers face a mandatory 6 p.m. Friday adjournment.

The immigration legislation would deny public benefits to people who can't prove they are in the country legally and would penalize businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

It also would penalize employers for misclassifying workers as "contractors" instead of employees -- a distinction that, among other things, can shield employers from responsibility if the workers are illegal immigrants.

The taxation 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.

Blunt described the property tax measure as "important legislation to help protect Missouri homeowners from a system that has become the shadowy path to higher taxes in our state."

The Missouri Constitution already stipulates that if assessed property values rise by more than inflation -- excluding new construction and improvements -- then local governments are supposed to reduce their maximum allowed tax rate so that the total amount of taxes they collect remains roughly the same.

But some local governments have avoided rolling back tax rates by voluntarily setting them below the maximum amount approved by local voters. The legislation requires the tax rate reductions to occur anyway.

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 final 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 the law 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. The House passed and sent the bill to the governor a few hours later.