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Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
The Missouri House Thursday gave first round approval to a measure to ban children from riding in the back of pickup trucks.
Before approving the measure, the Senate tacked on an amendment that would remove, for adults, the current requirement that one wear a helmet when riding or operating a motorcycle.
For more information, see:
The Missouri Senate passed Thursday a package of bills to implement federal requirements on welfare.
The provisions would impose a fivee-year life-time limit on any person receiving welfare, require welfare recipients to be seeking jobs and grant the state sweeping powers to go after deadbeat parents.
Part of the deadbeat-parent bill would provide that a deadbeat parent automatically would lose every type of license granted by the state (driver's license, hunting & fishing licenses, occupation license) -- expect a law license.
There was no "nay" vote for either bill. For the roll-call votes, see:
Missouri's Senate began Thursday what could be a long and emotional debate over abortion.
Before the Senate is a measure to ban partial-birth abortions -- a measure similar to the bill passed by Congress and vetoed by Pres. Clinton.
For more information, see our radio story on the opening day of Senate debate.
The Missouri House effectively voted to repeal legal limits on the size of war chests that incumbent public officials can retain.
Before the House Wednesday was a bill covering several issues involved with campaign financing and lobbyists.
One of the provisions in the bill would repeal the current law that puts a limit on how much money can be campaign in a campaign fund after the election.
By an overwhelming margin, the House rejected an amendment to remove that repeal provision in the bill. See the roll-call vote.
The House rejected an effort to toughen enforcement of the state's seat-belt law by giving police power to issue tickets for not wearing belts.
The effort was made as an amendment to a bill to outlaw children riding in the back of pickup trucks.
Under current law, a person cannot be given a ticket for not using a seat belt unless the driver has been stopped for some other reason.
The Missouri Senate gave first round approval to a bill that would legalize research into industrial production of hemp.
Passage came despite the warning of Sen. John Russell, R-Lebanon, that the bill was the first step in efforts to legalize marijuana.
Bill spporters argue, however, that the concentrations of the drug pot smokers seek in industrial hemp is too low to have any effect.
The Democrats' razor-thin margin in the Missouri House just got a touch thinner.
Tuesday, the Democratic candidate to fill an open district in southeast Missouri was defeated by an independent candidate, Denny Merideth, for the 162 "bootheel" district.
The state GOP party immediately issued a release calling the election result "a sunning upset."
Unless Merideth agrees to support the Democratic leadership, a switch of five votes could hand control to the Republicans.
Currently, the House has 87 Democrats, 75 Republicans and 1, now, independent.
St. Louis city will have a new mayor. He's the city's former police chief, Clarence Harmon.
Harmon had defeated incumbent mayor Freeman Bosley for the Democratic nomination. Harmon had been the city's police chief under Bosely.
Associated Industries of Missouri, one of the state's largest and most powerful business associations, has renewed its opposition to the bill to regulate managed health care plans in the state.
The orgnization warns that the bill, given overwhelming approval by the House, would drive up the cost for the business to provide health care coverage for their workers.
For more information, see our radio story.