MISSOURI WATCH: LEGISLATION ISN'T CHEAP

The high cost of a democratic government is never more obvious than when the expenses of keeping the Missouri General Assembly in the style to which it has long been accustomed are tabulated.

When the General Assembly goes home following a four-and-a-half-month session, Missourians are always told how many bills their elected representatives and senators enacted, but there are other details of the session that no one seems to believe have any interest to the citizen-taxpayers of this state. Some of the omissions are most interesting.

In the session just ended, we were told that our legislators had passed 168 bills and four proposed amendments to the Missouri Constitution. That figure represents less than 14 percent of the total number actually introduced, which in this year's session reached 1,242. House members, numbering 163 men and women, accounted for 764 of this total, while the 34 members of the Senate dropped 478 proposed statutes into the bill hopper.

Of the total number of bills and amendments approved, 82 came from the House side, and 90 came from the chamber on the other side of the Capitol. More Senate bills than House bills were finally agreed to by both chambers by a margin of 8 percentage points.

Before readers get bogged down in numbers, let's note that, in view of the bills introduced, this first regular session of the 88th General Assembly wasn't a particularly spectacular one. That doesn't mean, by any stretch, that our legislators didn't do anything, but quantity is one measure of a session. And in that department this year's session was better than wasted effort but far from exceptional.

OK. So legislators didn't get around to 86 percent of their workload. So what's the big deal? We'll survive, and whoever claimed that our part-time legislators had to be so compulsive that it had to consider every hare-brained idea of some wild-eyed liberal or conservative? No one, that's who.

But the truth is the General Assembly this year was a disappointment not because it didn't get through its calendar but because it left untouched a number of important measures that deserved more attention than they received. And by attention, I don't mean passage of the bill but thoughtful consideration which leaves the option of approval or rejection.

The Legislature ran out of time when it came to several important pieces of legislation, and it might be well to note that legislators who were critical of the sluggish agenda can't have their cake and eat it too, for some of the critics were responsible for some of the problems. No one is more dishonest than a lawmaker who contributes to unnecessary delays and then is critical of a session's short list of accomplishments. Members who display a mean-spirited attitude on the floor and in committee hearings and then are critical of the absence of cooperation are also guilty of duplicity. This session seemed to have an abundance of both categories, which may do wonders for the self-esteem of these men and women but does little to nothing for the overall welfare of the state and its citizens.

Let's take another look, statistically speaking, at this session. More than 10 percent of the approved bills dealt with the budget for fiscal 1996, which begins July 1. These are essential bills, representing a vast number of member and staff hours, but when more than 10 percent of a session's total agenda is prepared, heard and approved by less than 10 percent of the total membership of both chambers, then someone is bearing an inordinate amount of the workload. This is especially true of the appropriation and budget chairs and their subcommittee chairs. These people, if they're used to the job, work long, hard hours on the budget and become, some them in a brief period, the assembly's experts on fiscal matters.

The second largest category of approved measures deals with licensing and commercial regulations bills, and again the number enacted was greater than 10 percent of the session's total. As a matter of fact, the budget and licensing bills in this session represented nearly 22 percent of the total measures finally agreed to.

As might be expected, school and education bills ranked third in number, with 10 finally agreed to, which is the same number of bills approved that dealt with state and/or county employees as well as the state's criminal code.

Measures dealing exclusively with problems or conditions in St. Louis and Kansas City are constant matters of concern in every legislative session, and this year there were nine for St. Louis and four for Kansas City. The state exercises an excessive degree of control over its two large urban areas, far too much as far as the cities are concerned, but the responsibility for this must be mutually shared. If the state exercises too much regulatory control, the cities are responsible for seeking more than their share of financial assistance from Jefferson City. Hometown projects that lack full local support often wind up on the floor of the General Assembly. The problem probably can't be resolved until the 1945 Constitution is rewritten, which ought to be sooner than later.

There is a political tendency for any session to spend too many hours on trivial or inconsequential items, while ignoring the more important items. This session spent more time on redesigning auto license plates than on providing improved health care for uninsured children. A majority argued against less control over citizens by permitting concealed weapons, while arguing for more control over the reproductive rights of women. No one should try to claim our legislators are intellectually consistent.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.