WITH THE BILLIONS OF TOBACCO MONEY AT STAKE, EVERYONE WANTS A PUFF

In all the history of Missouri, there probably never has been a food fight quite like the one now under way over what to do with Missouri's stake in the tobacco litigation, said to begin flowing in over the next 25 years in the amount of $6.7 billion. (Recently, experts have informed us that the actual amount will likely be far less.) Every spending constituency you can imagine has emerged with ideas for how to spend this unlegislated windfall. From our two great metropolitan areas come spokesmen for our great centers of medical education and biomedical research. In telling us what can be done, they have stopped just short of promising to cure cancer. From the same urban centers come advocates for the life sciences, plant research and more. The March of Dimes folks were in Jefferson City this past week to offer their ideas, along with staffers from the American Cancer Society. As things heat up, this is just the beginning.

In the midst of all this, we hear from friends at the hospitals. A recent conversation with a hospital executive I greatly respect brought home to me the seriousness of their situation as it relates to uncompensated care for the indigent. He informed me that his institution has had an indigent admitted since last August. The bill for his care, for which the hospital is receiving no compensation, is well north of $300,000 and rising. They must have some of this tobacco money, he stresses. The hospitals had earlier filed a lawsuit seeking to intervene in the original tobacco litigation for a piece of the pie. At the trial level a St. Louis judge ruled against the hospitals. So did the court of appeals. An appeal is pending before the Missouri Supreme Court, and we will know by the 15th of April whether the Supremes will take the case. If they do, any legislative action this year is mooted while we await the high court's ruling.

One key moment in the Senate debate will come when an amendment is offered that will put the choice starkly before us. This amendment would dedicate 50 percent of the tobacco money to property tax relief. How many politicians would you guess will vote against that?

This is precisely the kind of amendment that House Speaker Steve Gaw, D-Moberly, knew he didn't dare give his members a chance to vote on. So the speaker cracked the whip for Gov. Mel Carnahan, who knew this baby must be strangled in the cradle, but also didn't want his fingerprints on the corpse. Gaw got his Democrats in line and gaveled debate to an end, invoking a procedure known in the trade as "calling the previous question," or "P-Q." If this motion carries (as it did and usually does in the House on a party-line vote), no more amendments can be offered and the main bill is before the body for a final vote. This is how majority Democrats rammed through their heavy-on-spending version on behalf of the governor.

Fortunately, in the more deliberative Senate, calling the previous question is done only very rarely -- say, once every 10 or 20 years -- and then only after lots of debate and agonizing, and with an awareness of the extreme gravity of the moment. Discussion and debate and the offering of Senate amendments will be protracted. Lengthy debate, with any senator's amendments, is a check on majority rule and a cherished protection of minorities built into our constitutional system.

Will a Supreme Court ruling short-circuit this debate for now? Or will the Senate pass a version of the House measure soon to come before us? Stay tuned.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.