MISSOURI WATCH: LEGISLATIVE LOVE NOTES

How do Missourians view the record set by this year's First Regular Session of the 89th General Assembly? As might be expected in a world that simultaneously produces a Strom Thurmond and a Jesse Jackson, as well as a John Ashcroft and a Bill Clay, the reviews of the four and a half months of our state Legislature in Jefferson City are decidedly mixed. Here's a sample of what various Missourians have said, or might have said, about the 1997 session:

Governor of Missouri: "Cutting the sales tax on food was the defining issue of this session...the success or failure of the session depended on passage of the food sales tax cut."

House minority leader: "Missouri has a Democrat Senate, a Democrat House and a Democrat Governor and for the first time in anyone's memory, we failed to pass a timely budget. It's just an embarrassing lack of leadership."

Yogi Berra: "I will be glad when this session is over. Now I'm glad it's over. In fact, I was ready for it to be over before it ever got over."

Outstate senator: "We paid entirely too much attention to the needs of St. Louis and Kansas City and gave little or no notice to the more imperative issues facing the residents of the rural portion of Missouri."

Urban senator: "All we did throughout the session just ended was spend time and effort to resolve problems facing the outstate area, while almost totally neglecting the critical needs of our largest cities and their residents."

Democratic representative: "As a member of the House Budget Committee, I believe we struck a fair balance between higher revenue and lower taxes. By voting an end to the sales tax on food, we provided tax relief to the neediest Missourians, while preserving the state's revenue base in order to maintain badly needed programs for all citizens."

Republican senator: "We could have done much more in the way of tax relief than this Democratically controlled Legislature was willing to go. We must begin to provide greater freedom from double taxation for those Missourians who are receiving no credit for their investment in educating their children in private and parochial schools and who are making investments in our state that pay real dividends with more jobs and higher wages."

Mark Twain: "No citizen's wallet is entirely safe until the Legislature goes home."

Veteran senator: "I forget. Did we agree to build a football stadium in St. Louis or not? These sessions all run together and somehow the business of one gets all mixed up in what we accomplished this year. I wonder if Governor Teasdale will veto that riverboat gambling thing?"

First-term representative: "Is the session over? Nobody tells me anything. The other day I came in here and everyone had gone home for spring break. I don't think we've done anything this session, or at least anything I am aware of. I wanted to introduce a bill and they told me the deadline had passed a month before. Why are they keeping everything so secret? That's what I want to know. When did we adjourn?"

Capitol press correspondent: "Same old, same old. Nothing changes. The same old dirty politicians are always here, the same old stupid people are still doing stupid things. What difference does it make, anyway? Nobody reads my stuff except the people I write about. Boy, this old stuff is boring."

Pro-choice legislator: "I will never understand why the Missouri Legislature continues to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of the citizens of this state and continues to approve punitive measures that deprive women of the right to determine their own destinies?."

Pro-life legislator: "I can never understand why the Legislature continues to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of the citizens of this state and continues to approve punitive measures that deprive unborn children of the right to live."

NRA lobbyist: "Guns don't kill people, legislators who fail to approve a concealed weapons law are the ones who kill people. Too many lawmakers are ignoring the facts in the case for concealed carry: in states where such laws have been approved, the crime rates have gone down. Of course they have gone down in states where their constitutional right to bear arms is still being denied them, but crime rates in these states have dropped for a different reason altogether. I don't know why these dumb Missourians can't understand this, do you?"

Tobacco lobbyist: "Well, we got through this session without a new cigarette tax being (cough) laid on us, and we kept loose rules on (cough) teen smoking so altogether I would say this has been a good session. Care to go outside and (cough) have a cigarette? I try not to smoke in crowded rooms because I'm afraid someone will attack me with a concealed .38."

State employee: "Who knows whether this session did anything or not? You can't believe what the politicians say or what the press writes. I just wish these people would go home and let us run the state the way we're supposed to. They come here to meet no more than a hundred or so hours and think they know everything. Anybody who knows anything knows who runs this state, and, believe me when I say, it's ain't the governor, baby!"

David Letterman: "Want to hear my Top Ten List of Why the Missouri General Assembly Sucks?"

Jefferson City bar owner: "Don't bother me. I'm in mourning. I've got to live on bare essentials between now and next January. I have nearly five months of profit and seven months of starvation. It's enough to drive me to drink."

Legislative chaplain: "Let us give thanks for the small favors which are granted within these hallowed chambers each year."

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