Local legislators reflect on accomplishments
MOHELA and higher education funding are big priorities this legislative session.
Published May 5, 2006
As the 2005-2006 legislative session draws to a close, The Maneater asked Columbia-area legislators and their staffs whether they feel they have accomplished their goals and what they want to do with the few remaining days of the session.
Senator Chuck Graham
D-Columbia
19th Senate District
Source: Chief of Staff Ted Farnen
Sen. Chuck Graham's Chief of Staff Ted Farnen said with Democrats in the minority in the Missouri Senate, it was one of Graham's main goals and accomplishments for the session to keep Republicans from enacting "bad" laws.
"Sometimes you accomplish something by preventing bad things from happening, and he had a hand in some things like that," Farnen said.
Farnen said Graham had legislative goals other than just stopping the Republican agenda.
"Senator Graham always wants to help higher education," Farnen said. "The economy is getting better, and this year's budget is better than last year's."
Farnen said one of Graham's major goals this year was to help students.
"Senator Graham introduced the student curator voting and tried to get that passed," Farnen said. "MOHELA decided on its own to sell some of its assets. Senator Graham has tried to ensure that if that's what they're going to do, it should be done legally, and everyone acknowledged that Senator Graham's bill was the best way to do that."
Representative Jeff Harris
House Minority Floor Leader
D-Columbia
23rd House District
As the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Rep. Jeff Harris said he didn't just focus on the needs of his district but on the entire Democratic agenda as well.
"I had a multitude of goals," Harris said. "I wanted to raise the profile of some important issues in the 21st century, like access to higher education, lowering tuition and finding and creating new jobs."
Harris said many of his accomplishments involved pushing Democratic ideas for cleaning up the government.
"I've been championing good government reform and cleaning up how business is done in Jefferson City," he said. "It was an issue brought up after the election, and we've continued to put forward ideas since then. All of a sudden in the headlines, it's a big issue now of how we do campaigns and how we do business, and we've been a leader on that issue."
Lowering tuition and helping to keep vouchers out of the state education system were Harris' goals. Harris said defeating the voucher bill is also one of his biggest goals before the session ends in six days.
"One way I've helped students is that we now have a discussion started on how to lower the burden of tuition," Harris said.
Representative Ed Robb
R-Columbia
24th House District
Rep. Ed Robb said his priorities for this session changed after Gov. Matt Blunt announced his plan to sell a portion of MOHELA's assets to gain funding for public higher education.
"After the governor's MOHELA plan was announced, that particular piece of legislation jumped much higher up on my radar screen," Robb said. "The voter ID bill that we passed wasn't mine and mine was a better one than the one we're going to pass. We need that to ensure the integrity of our voting process."
Robb said his biggest accomplishment this session was being appointed vice chairman of the Budget Committee. He said securing more funding for financial aid was a way he helped students.
"I've tried to get additional money for Bright Flight, but I didn't get the level of support I would have liked for that," he said. "We did increase the appropriations for public colleges and universities by 2 percent, which will take some of the press off potential tuition increases."
For the rest of the session, Robb said bills he has introduced to lower taxes would be his priority.
"I have a couple tax credit programs that I think would be very beneficial," he said. "I'm in favor of the film production tax credit, which would be beneficial for students at the University of Missouri and Stephens College with their joint film production program."
Representative Judy Baker
D-Columbia
25th House District
Rep. Judy Baker, who has a background in health care, said her primary objectives throughout the legisltive session were mainly health oriented.
"My main goals were to advance a few health care bills, and I would have liked to have done more in reversing some of the Medicaid cuts," she said.
Baker said she thinks the rest of the session will help dictate what her major accomplishments will be because she still has some major goals to accomplish.
"We still have a week to go, so unless I get jinxed or something, I hope to have two of my bills get passed into law before the end of the session," she said.
Helping to keep caps on spending from passing on higher education was one of the ways Baker said she had helped students during the session.
"I stood up pretty strongly in opposition to the bill that included the caps on state appropriations for higher education," she said. "I'm hoping that only the scholarships will come out of that bill, and the caps will go away in the end."
Before the session ends, Baker hopes to help kill a proposal that would require voters to show photo identification before voting.
"I think that will disrupt the election process for 2006 and will cause a lot of confusion and dismay at the polls in November," Baker said. "We just passed that out of the House, but we'll keep trying to get that bill improved or defeated in conference."
