LEGISLATIVE BREAK

This Thursday, lawmakers will depart Jefferson City for their annual spring break (March 8-18), which marks the halfway point for the 1996 session of the General Assembly that began Jan. 3. Unless the pace picks up dramatically in the latter half, this year will see the fewest pieces of major legislation passed of any session in recent years. This isn't by any means necessarily bad.

Lawmakers too often judge productivity by the number of bills passed, when Missourians would dearly love to have less done to them and, in fact, yearn for just one session devoted to repeal of noxious laws that have found their way into the six volumes of Missouri statutes. It is just as important for lawmakers to stop bad legislation as it is to be in a hurry to enact new laws.

Late last year, lawmakers were facing a request by the state highway and transportation commission for authority to issue $500 million in bonds for highway construction and maintenance. However, with little support from lawmakers and no commitment from the governor, this proposal was quietly shelved. Scratch one major issue.

Then there was the issue of speed limits, which sponsors thought unlikely to generate much controversy. They were wrong. A House bill made it through that chamber easily, only to run into determined opposition from Sen. Harold Caskey, D-Butler, who filibustered the measure on the Senate floor. Caskey wanted higher limits than the House bill allowed, including 70 miles per hour on four-lane divided highways that aren't interstates. Sen. Caskey ultimately agreed to a Senate-brokered compromise that was subsequently rejected by House members indignant at his stalling tactics.

If, as currently appears likely, no bill is passed, then speed limits revert to their 1973 versions: Basically, 70 daytime and 65 at night on nearly all Missouri highways, divided and undivided. The state's highway commission could decide to establish slower speeds where that body deemed them necessary. There is no differential between trucks and cars in the bill currently stalled in the Legislature and none in the 1973 versions to which Missouri currently seems likely to revert.

Both chambers have rejected Gov. Mel Carnahan's proposed quarter-cent reduction in the sales tax in favor of dramatic reduction in the sales tax on food. This is good, but while they're at it, lawmakers should go ahead and eliminate this tax altogether.

Other measures are languishing on House and Senate calendars or in committees that don't seem in much of a hurry to move them. On all but a handful of items, any push from the leadership is lacking. A telecommunications reform bill came out of committee just this week, but it is getting late to act on so complicated a measure. Yet to receive floor debate are measures certain to be time-consuming, especially the abortion caregiver bill and the conceal-carry bill to permit Missourians to apply to authorities for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Ethics bills have received some floor consideration but are far from finished in either house. The same can be said for a measure that would restore railroad and utility tax money to local districts, rather than funneling that money into the state foundation formula for distributing aid to local school districts across Missouri. This is a $700,000 item for Cape Girardeau public schools and therefore a high priority for the local district and for many other districts similarly situated. The Senate has passed and sent to the House a bill toughening sentencing on sexual predators. Workers' compensation reform legislation isn't even out of committee.

When all is said and done at 6 p.m. on May 11, legislators will have passed the 13 appropriations bills that fund state government. It isn't clear whether much else will have been accomplished in this year's session.