Mo. legislative session slows over village law, immigration

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's Republican House leader was getting help Thursday from a pair of minority-party Senate Democrats to slow down a bill repealing a 2007 land-use law that has angered some rural residents.

The posturing over the repeal of the village law tied up other top issues -- namely restrictions on illegal immigrants and restraints on property tax increases -- as the 2008 legislative session crawled toward its mandatory adjournment at 6 p.m. today.

By dinner time, lawmakers hadn't passed and sent a single bill to the governor on their next-to-last workday.

At issue was a law quietly passed last year with House Speaker Rod Jetton's support that made it easier for landowners to incorporate their properties as villages -- thus avoiding county planning and zoning regulations.

Immediately upon the law's effective date, a southwest Missouri developer who has supported Jetton sought to turn his land near Table Rock Lake into a village against the wishes of county officials and some neighbors. Since then, other landowners have made similar attempts to become villages in Franklin and Camden counties.

A majority of lawmakers -- some feeling duped by last year's bill -- have supported a repeal of the 2007 law. But Jetton has fought it.

On Wednesday, Jetton successfully urged House members to attach new restrictions on sexually oriented businesses to the village-law repeal. On Thursday, Democratic Sens. Victor Callahan, of Independence, and Chris Koster, of Harrisonville, filibustered the combined bill.

That led supporters to regroup, remove the provisions about sexually oriented businesses, and present a revised bill focused solely on the village-law repeal.

But Callahan and Koster, who is running for attorney general, resumed their filibuster.

Callahan said he supported the rights of a few residents to get together and form their own village. But he and Koster also claimed that allowing the Senate to vote on the village law and sending it to the House could result in the demise of a provision affecting employers in a separate illegal immigration bill.

Jockeying between House and Senate members over their favored bills is fairly common in the final days of a legislative session. The unusual twist on this year's tension was that the Republican House leader, whose position was at odds with most of his own members, was getting help from senators who might normally be expected to be his political opponents.

Among the other bills hanging in the balance was one attempting to restrain increases in property taxes. That bill has overwhelming support from both Republicans and Democrats. Senators passed it Wednesday night, meaning it needs only a final House vote to go to the governor. But the House had not taken it up Thursday, as the dispute raged over the village law and immigration bills.

Republican Party Chairman Doug Russell sought to intervene in the dispute that has turned some Republicans against others. He issued a statement Thursday urging Republicans and Democrats alike to work together to repeal the village law.

"Laws often have unintended consequences," Russell said. "Now is the time to fix a mistake in law that passed last year. I hope that partisan and personal differences will be put aside and that the village law will be repealed before the end of session."