MOHELA plan passes Senate
Democrats upset with the passage of the higher-education bill.
April 20, 2007
Republicans "dropped the atomic bomb" on Jefferson City Wednesday night in a political maneuver to block a Democratic filibuster.
Sen. Joan Bray, D-St. Louis County, said the Republicans used their majority to extreme measures in order to pass the comprehensive higher education bill in the Senate. The bill includes language on tuition caps, scholarship programs and the controversial sale of assets of the state student loan agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.
"When you have to detonate a bomb, there's got to be something wrong," Bray said.
The largest change in regard to MU is the absence of the $31 million Ellis Fischel Cancer Hospital as a capital funding project. MU has experienced a steady decline in capital funding since Gov. Matt Blunt introduced his plan at MU in January 2006, including the loss of an $85 million Life Sciences Research Center and a $2 million business incubator.
"Stripping projects from the UM system simply because two senators want to make policy is a bad precedent," Sen. Jolie Justice, D-Kansas City, said.
The omnibus higher education bill has experienced debate about stem-cell research, capital funding projects and the accountability and viability of the plan to sell student loans. But the deliberation hit its apex Wednesday when the two versions of the bill featured together more than 30 amendments. The bill was discussed on the Senate floor for more than 10 hours.
"I'm obviously pleased that we were able to perfect the legislation and move it forward," said Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, who is the sponsor of the bill.
Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, was the main opponent of the bill as he has criticized the plan since its conception.
Graham proposed nine amendments throughout the evening, but most were rejected, including amendments that would have given the student representative to the UM system Board of Curators a vote and another that would have allowed universities to register students to vote upon enrollment.
One amendment that was adopted was a version of the Bright Flight Scholarship bill that has circulated in the House this session. The version expanded the scholarship to Missouri students from the top 3 percent of their class to the top 5 percent. Those in the top 3 percent would receive $4,000, which is twice the existing amount, and students in the fourth and fifth percentile would receive $1,000, effective fiscal year 2011.
Nodler said he liked some of the amendments and didn't like others, but the legislative process always results in a compromise.
Graham and Bray expressed the most concern over another section of the bill, which would allow bond rating as an alternative for funding.
"It could impinge on our ability to help ourselves through our own bonding power," Graham said. "I don't want to have anyone infringe anymore when the state doesn't step up and do its job to take care of the state universities. It's kind of a double-whammy."
Bray discussed the lack of state support for capital projects in recent years, and she said that was a reason the colleges and universities are making a poor choice in supporting the legislation.
"They just want some bricks and mortar, and that's why they're irrationally grabbing hold on this very bad idea," Bray said.
Bray, along with many other Senate Democrats, accused the legislation of becoming a way to appeal to voters by passing legislation beneficial to a Senators' constituents.
"What we have here is just a big pile of pork," Bray said. "It's just turned into slop for the pigs."
Graham accused Blunt of stripping projects that would benefit MU and said he was using this bill as a "carrot to get the stick."
"These plans are going to fall apart and all we're going to have left is this stick, but we won't have the carrots we were promised," he said. "And I don't think these bright, shiny buildings that everybody's distracted by are ever going to come to fruition."
Bray said it would be irresponsible to use MOHELA to sell student loans, especially in lieu of the growing controversy surrounding national student lenders.
"We need to make sure that students can go to college and get low-interest loans," she said. "For us to be messing with our solid loan agency creates problems. There are other ways to build buildings, but not by raiding the student loan authority."
The process was nearly repeated after Nodler introduced a substitute to the bill midway through the night. More amendments were proposed, and eventually, Graham and Sen. Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis, said they were upset with how Republicans were voting and reading amendments.
Graham accused Republicans of failing to read and pay attention to the amendments proposed and said they were simply voting along party lines.
"I'd like to go back and read each line of the bill at this point," he said during the debate on the Senate floor. "It's going to shock you, but every once in a while, senators try to slip something in."
Nodler said he thought everyone was playing fair on the floor.
The Senate sat at ease for nearly an hour, and when they returned to debate, the "nuclear option" was unveiled by Republicans to block a possible filibuster. The Republicans used a call to previous question to move to a vote, in which the bill passed mostly along party lines.
"Anytime legislation is crammed down senators' throats, it leaves a bad taste," Coleman said.
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