DESPITE SOME SPATS, SESSION WAS PRODUCTIVE

With the end of the Missouri General Assembly session Friday came the instant assessments of success, failures, accomplishments and overlooked needs.

As could be expected, what was good and what was bad depended where you stood in the partisan divide.

Partisanship always plays a role in the legislative process, and Jefferson City has been known for some humdinger sessions in which the political acrimony became the news rather than the substance of lawmaking.

This year was ripe for an even bigger political gulf as Republicans took control of the Missouri Senate for the first time in 52 years.

Yes, there were battles along the usual political lines this year, but in terms of quantity, the just-ended session was one of the most productive in recent memory. A total of 202 bills were sent to the governor's desk for signature (92 Senate bills and 110 pieces of legislation from the House). In the 2000 session, just 82 bills made it through both chambers, and five of those were vetoed.

But the real gauge of a legislative session is the quality of the bills. In that regard, there are some remarkable achievements and some notable failures.

Just two key tasks were mandatory in this year's four-month session: adopt a budget and redraw congressional districts in the wake of last year's census.

For the first time in several years, the budget process ended before the statutory deadline and was marked mainly by cooperation rather than the usual last-minute bickering. State spending will increase -- again, but legislators were constrained by an anticipated slowdown in revenue.

And redrawing the map for Missouri's nine congressional districts resulted in a compromise plan that avoided having the matter settled by a federal judge. In the process, the district lines were adjusted to account for population shifts that have occurred since the 1990 census. Part of the success of the process can be attributed to hands-on involvement by key members of the legislative staffs of U.S. representatives whose districts were affected most.

Although Gov. Bob Holden claimed the session advanced most of his goals, there were two notable items that went nowhere. One was a state transportation plan, and the other was a new prescription plan for elderly Missourians.

Holden would like every Missourian to focus on the Republican-controlled Senate as the reason the transportation plan failed. But the fact is the governor dallied for much of the early weeks of the session and made no proposal of his own.

And even though Holden thinks the prescription plan is important enough to call a special session later this year, his fingerprints on anything worth considering during the regular session were noticeably absent.

Missourians have been saved from potential financial disaster by not getting to vote on the costly transportation plan that finally got Holden's blessing.

As for prescriptions, most legislators have expressed an interest in doing something, which should speed up the special session when it rolls around.