EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOP SENATE PRESIDENT PRO TEM

Here are excerpts from the remarks of state Sen. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau as he addressed the Missouri Senate last week as the first Republican president pro tem in 54 years:

For me to stand here on this auspicious occasion fills me with an emotion that I hope does not overcome me, but I hope you will understand. No member of my party has stood here since 54 years ago when the same oath was taken by the man who later distinguished himself as Judge M.C. Matthes of Hillsboro in Jefferson County. So it is a historic occasion for that reason among many others.

I really was not fully appreciative of the power of the moment until I saw this ballet -- this minuet, if you will -- between the two floor leaders exercising co-equal powers. There was something, I think something almost magic, in that. And we've already done better than they've done in some other states under the same circumstances. A few years back, in Florida, it took them three days to elect officers when they were tied.

Recently, I came across an Australian proverb that I had never seen before that I thought appropriate for this occasion to remind us, as temporary occupants of these offices and as public servants. The proverb goes: "Today, a rooster is strutting about. Tomorrow, a feather duster."

We are but temporary custodians of these seats. And that leads me to the subject of these inscriptions on the walls of the Capitol. We see two in this chamber that we're always mindful of during debates and floor action where occasionally eyes drift up to those two fine admonitions. But I want you to know my favorite is just outside the rear of the Senate chamber where it is inscribed in gold over those magnificent doors: "Not to be served, but to serve."

Many of you know that last summer it was my family's fate to have happen to us what has happened to other member of the Senate family in recent years. I got the call from the Georgia Highway Patrol on July 1 that my parents were in a very serious car accident. My father was a fatality in that accident. My mother was injured. My father was two months short of his 83rd birthday that morning in July when his life was cut short in that accident. I will never forget the response of the Senate family that threw its arms around me in the ensuing days and weeks.

I will never forget, as a testament to what the Senate family is and what it means, that one the plane originating here in Jefferson City but mainly carrying our colleagues from the western side of the state, were five Democrats and two Republicans, emphasizing how we don't divide by parties in this chamber, but each man and each woman is a senator.

We have many issues that we will obsess over this session. One is transportation. I note that the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission was meeting down the street taking momentous action on the bond money and disbursing proceeds of how we're going to move ahead in transportation in this state. I note that transportation was an issue in the gubernatorial election without, it seems to me, a clear resolution one way or another. I mentioned this to our governor-elect, and he said he will be coming forward with a proposal. I eagerly await that so we can debate it on this floor, and I look forward to working with all of you on that.

Likewise on health-care issues and prescription drugs, another issue that was fought out in the governor's election. I fully expect we will be seeing many proposals in this session.

Now a word about the budget, which we are told will be tight this year. We've had seven or eight straight years in which there was no question we would have a capital-improvement bill. Such were the coffers overflowing that we could have a capital-improvement bill way over $100 million. That may very well not be the case, we're told by the budgetary planners this year. I know Gov.-elect Holden has been hard at work on the budgetary issues that face him. But in the midst of this, our task has been complicated more by the ruling of the Cole County Circuit Court that now in the Supreme Court on the Hancock Amendment issues, saying we owe $244 million in refunds. I not that there have been some in elected office and some in appointive office in our state government who have decried this and have said it's a terrible thing that we have the Hancock Amendment and that the people who brought suit under it are to be deplored and we're to somehow look upon them with disdain. I think it's time we stop decrying those citizens who find they must resort to the legal process to enforce the Constitution, and I think we ought to live by the Constitution and all its articles and amendments.

A word about the tobacco issues that face us. Ideas on how to spend the tobacco money surely are as numerous as members of the House and Senate. I don't stand before you to assert my ideas on how to spend that money. I will trust these budget issues to the two chairmen of the Appropriations Committee as veterans of that process. But I do commend to you the letter (by Sen. Wayne Goode of Normandy, Mo.) in which he identified for us a problem we face with this initiative petition (which would seek voter approval for bypassing the legislative appropriations process in spending funds for the tobacco settlement). It is hard to view the initiative petition as anything other than a direct and sweeping attack on the constitutional powers of the members of the House and Senate to appropriate money and write the budget.

We hear much today about how we are evenly divided as a country, and, indeed, we have an even U.S. Senate at 50-50. We have a very close margin, historically close, in the U.S. House. We have just finished one of the closest presidential elections ever in American history. And the observer will note that much the same is true in the great state of Missouri. We just finished the third-closest governor's election in a century. We have a very close margin in the House of Representatives, and we have a near tie in the Missouri Senate.

What I want to stress is that, although we Americans and we Missourians are very nearly evenly divided, the encouraging thing is that we are not deeply divided. The distinction is crucial. Here is how one writer put it recently: "Many Americans and Missourians have a favorite party and a deeply held belief and, therefore, may find it hard to vote for the other party. However, most Americans do not find themselves actually alienated from their fellow Americans or truly fearful if the other party wins power. Unlike Bosnia or Northern Ireland, competing for power in the U.S. remains largely a debate between people who can work together.