REPRESENTATIVES DROPPED BALL ON VETO EFFORT

Senate Bill 335 is the sentencing-reform bill that passed both houses of the Legislature this year, only to meet with Gov. Mel Carnahan's veto pen. The bill was sponsored by state Sen. Harold Caskey, D-Butler, one of Carnahan's closest allies during his tenure as governor. So incensed was Caskey by the veto that earlier this month that the veteran senator led a rare attempt to override it.

Caskey succeeded in the Senate by a vote of 24-8, or one more than the two-thirds majority needed for an override. Then it was on to the House, where prospects were never so bright. Still, Caskey had relied on the bill's floor handler in the House, state Rep. Kelly Parker, D-Salem, and secondarily on state Rep. Phil Britt, D-Kennett. Both representatives had given firm assurances that the override motion would be made when the speaker called the bill. The only problem was when the speaker did call the bill there was -- dead silence. Nobody made the motion.

Parker and Britt feebly offer that they had canvassed their colleagues and discovered that they were about 20 votes short of enough to override. Therefore, they say, the astonishing silence. The problem with this is that both gave their word to Caskey. He and other senators who went on record on the bill have a right to be upset.

As a practical matter, overrides of a governor's veto are rare in Missouri, with only three this century and seven in all our history. Moreover, Carnahan successfully appealed to members of his party that they were giving him one black eye on his veto of the bill banning partial-birth infanticide and should decline to give him a second one. Still, House members should have gone on record as did the senators. The inaction of Parker and Britt was shameful, especially having given their word, and they deserved all the rebukes heaped on them by Caskey and other senators.