Holden's vetoes defy 130 years of history; GOP will have a plan

In the last week of the General Assembly's regular session, staffers in the office of Gov. Bob Holden called two St. Louis institutions to ask if they would host the governor the following week as he announced his veto of House Bill 10, the bill authorizing appropriations for the departments of health and mental health.

Officials at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital politely told the governor's people no.

So on that particular Monday, unlike Tuesday through Thursday of the veto du jour tour, the governor took the advice of this writer to park the plane.

Next to no precedent: Some perspective is needed on just how extraordinary is Holden's act of resorting to the veto of four of the 14 bills that are the state budget. Quick research reveals that with the single exception of 1907, no Missouri chief executive has vetoed an entire budget bill since at least the 1870s, when our state was roiling from the backwash of the Civil War. The 1907 exception involved not substantive differences over the legislation, but rather what amounted to a printing error that had to be -- and was -- promptly corrected by legislative action, whereupon the governor signed the bill.

Significant executive power unused: The reason no governor has done for more than 130 years what Holden is doing now is that Missouri governors have a significant power in their tool box: the line-item veto. Governors have always used this power to police legislative majorities and control spending. Governors have always managed the budget in the fashion Holden so resolutely refuses to do, preferring to demand higher taxes from the people who thrice rejected them just months ago.

Holden's legislative record: It is a fact that when Holden was a state representative in the 1980s, he voted for budget bills that were $500 million out of balance on an $8 billion budget, leaving it to a Republican governor to use his line-item budget veto.

Democrats against the Holden veto: Little-known is the fact that two senior Democratic senators visited privately with Holden on May 14 inside the last 72 hours of the session. The purpose of the visit by Sen. Wayne Goode and Sen. Jim Mathewson was to urge Holden not to veto, but to sign the bills. Mathewson is the longest-serving president pro tem in Missouri Senate history, Goode the 41-year lawmaker and noted budget expert

Democratic media campaign: Hold onto your hats: State and national Democrats are uncorking a major media campaign beginning May 27 -- and costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars -- to sell the governor's position.

We'll have a plan: The governor may think -- flying in the face of overwhelming public opinion -- that calling us back into special session at a cost of $100,000 a week is a prudent use of scarce taxpayer resources. We join many of our Democratic colleagues in taking the contrary view. Rest assured of one thing, however: We in the legislative leadership will have a plan to get our members in early, work late, and send the new budget measure to the governor before adjourning and going home as quickly as possible.

Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.