Legislature '07: MOHELA bill has challenges ahead
Published Jan. 23, 2007
The political gauntlet the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative has faced in the capitol for nearly a year might not reach a swift resolution.
As Missouri lawmakers returned to the General Assembly earlier this month, Missouri Right to Life sent letters to legislators warning that funds provided to Missouri colleges from the measure might be used for embryonic stem cell research.
The proposal would provide Missouri colleges with $350 million through the sale of assets from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. MU would receive $94 million of the funds.
In the letters, the anti-abortion rights group said the proposal will "provide just the type of life-destructive funding that the cloners have been seeking from state government for seven years or more."
Right to Life's resistance against the MOHELA sale is just one of the latest roadblocks in Republican Gov. Matt Blunt's proposal. On Jan. 9, Blunt told the Associated Press he dismisses these claims about MOHELA as "superfluous."
State Auditor Susan Montee called for an audit of MOHELA last week, which has never been conducted on the Chesterfield-based loan authority since its establishment in 1981.
Montee, a Democrat, has been accused by Republicans of having political motivations behind her decision to audit.
Montee's spokesman Joe Martin disagreed, saying the audit would provide much-needed information about the agency.
"Our intent is to be able to provide information to members of the legislature," Martin said. "That might help the legislators make their decision."
Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, said that the audit should not effect the legislature's decision.
Robb has been a supporter of the MOHELA sale since it was first proposed last year. He said, if passed, the proposal would not only help Missouri's college students but also the state economy by creating jobs.
"[The proposal] is absolutely essential to the long-term economic viability of Missouri," Robb said.
Rep. Clint Zweifel, D-Florissant, who has introduced legislation in the 2007 session to prevent the passage of the MOHELA sale, said money used by the state to "build buildings" is taking money away from students.
Zweifel said a resolution has not been reached on the proposal because of Blunt's mishandling of the issue.
"He's handled this in an irrational way," Zweifel said.
Although the original Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery faced harsh conditions and less-than-inviting natives, the bill bearing their namesake has braved lawsuits that have challenged its origins, measures that have threatened to derail it and partisan pandering that has attempted to transform it since its proposal in January 2006.
Even more difficult for state legislators has been their attempts to reach a consensus on how much money Missouri colleges will receive from the sale and how it will be distributed.
When the sale of MOHELA's assets was first proposed, $375-$400 million worth of the assets were to be sold and the UM system was set to receive an estimated $304.1 million for capital improvement projects. Blunt made an announcement of the proposal at MU's School of Medicine, which was set to receive an $87.5 million leg-up that it requested to help with the $150 million price tag on a new health sciences research center on the MU campus.
Blunt's proposal to use student loan authority dollars to fund works projects on Missouri campuses is unprecedented in the state and in the nation.
From the estimated value of MOHELA's assets, Blunt proposed that about $300 million be used for capital improvement at Missouri's colleges and $100 million go to scholarships. House Republicans suggested that more of the money go toward scholarships and outlined a plan that would give $190 million for the scholarship fund and $165 million for public works. Blunt said he would work toward a compromise with the House Republicans on how the money would be divided.
Democrats blasted Blunt's plan and claimed his intent was to sell the loan authority to a nationwide lender, namely SLM Corp., which is also known as Sallie Mae, a private, for-profit organization and the nation's largest student lender.
When Sallie Mae proposed a $1 billion takeover bid in 2004 for control of Pennsylvania's student loan authority, MOHELA executive director Michael Cummings rallied behind the organization against the takeover. In a letter dated Dec. 23, 2004, which was obtained last year by the Associated Press, Cummings said that his organization wished "to express our strongest support in efforts to reject" the proposed buyout.
Cummings, who had expressed his apprehension over the loan sale, was fired by MOHELA's Board of Directors soon after Blunt's plan was proposed.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon also expressed some concerns about the loan sale and filed suit against MOHELA's Board of Directors for alleged violations of the Sunshine Law, an open meeting statute which requires governmental bodies to provide the public with the date and time of their meetings, as well as the topics that are discussed while the organization convened.
Blunt said Nixon's suit would not hinder the MOHELA plan.
"Some people are just throwing up roadblocks," Blunt said at a press conference in March.
Blunt's plan met more obstacles as the House and the Senate were unable to come to a consensus about the loan sale before they reached constitutional deadline in May for establishing a state budget. The bill's passage was further slowed by debate, mostly along party lines, on the legality of the use of funds from the loan sale by the state government.
The proposal expired with the conclusion of the 2006 legislative session on May 12, but Blunt continued to pledge his support for the bill.
Blunt met with leaders in the Missouri General Assembly to form a new MOHELA plan and he created a new proposal that would give about $350 million to Missouri colleges. Nixon expressed his disagreement with the new plan in September with a nine-page letter to the MOHELA board of directors.
"More than half of the projects listed in the proposal were never on the coordinating board's list of capital projects in need of financing," Nixon stated in the letter. "The administration's proposal merely makes a down payment on many of the more significant projects listed."
Blunt's new plan, with approval from MOHELA and the Missouri Development Finance Board, could have been passed without approval from the General Assembly.
If the resolution passed, Missouri institutions of higher education would have received benefits from the loan sale as early as Sept. 30.
MOHELA approved the measure in September, despite three members of the board stepping down just days before Blunt's deadline for the board of directors to come to a decision. The board decided that legislative approval would be needed to pass the bill, thereby requiring the bill to return to the General Assembly this session.
MOHELA chairwoman Karen Luebbert, one of the dissenting votes on the measure, stepped down in October.