Big challenges face Jefferson City leaders

With Tuesday's elections, Southeast Missouri legislators have taken a bigger grasp on legislative leadership in Jefferson City.

Leadership will be a critical factor in the years to come aas Missouri faces some of the biggest challenges of its 181-year history. Even when Democrats controlled both the legislature and the governor's office during the years Mel Carnahan was the state's chief executive, many major problems went unresolved. His successor, Bob Holden, inherited a state government that had bloated on spending as a strong economy pushed state revenue to all-time highs.

Now Holden and Republican leaders, who control both houses of the Missouri Legislature for the first time since Harry Truman was in the White House, must find ways to solve problems and give Missourians good government with fewer dollars. This won't be accomplished by political bickering. As expected in the days immediately following an election of such sea-change proportions, leaders of both political parties are promising cooperation and vowing to put partisanship aside.

The reality, of course, is that when the legislature begins its session next January, politics will infect just about everything else. Because of this, it will be a challenge for legislative Republicans, who have a half-century of experience of criticizing the Democratic majority, to demonstrate that they have both the leadership ability and the kind of practical and commonsense ideas to provide needed government services to deserving taxpayers without crushing tax increases.

As the transition to GOP leadership in the Senate last year demonstrated, there will likely be a brief period next year of adjustment on the part of state representatives on both sides of the aisle. But, as the Senate under President Pro Tem Peter Kinder has shown, bipartisan cooperation is not only possible, it is essential to the smooth workings of the legislative process.

State Rep. Rod Jetton of Marble Hill and state Rep. Jason Crowell of Cape Girardeau have been picked by their Republican colleagues for the No. 2 and No. 3 leadership posts in the Missouri House, which will have, for the first time ever, a woman as speaker, state Rep. Catherine Hanaway of Warson Woods. Jetton is slated to become speaker pro tem, and Crowell has assumed his new duties as majority floor leader for the Republican caucus.

With Kinder in the Senate and Crowell and Jetton in the House all representing Southeast Missouri districts, this part of the state will have significant prominence in the halls of the Capitol. Jetton said -- after he was nominated for the speaker pro tem post Wednesday -- that this part of the state hasn't received its fair share from state government in the past. He and other Republican leaders will quickly learn that folks in Maryville, Bolivar, Hannibal and Sedalia don't think they've been treated fairly either.

First and foremost on everyone's agenda, however, is the state budget. For the first time in more than a decade, state spending isn't going up this year, but the current spending level was made possible only by drastic cuts in some areas and by using pools of money that are available only on a one-time basis.

Next year's state budget promises to be not just a challenge, but a true test of the ability of a Republican-controlled legislature and a Democratic governor to work together.

Missourians, as usual, will be saying, "Show me."