Missouri's special session was a bust
After sputtering along for seven weeks and costing nearly $281,000, Missouri’s 2011 special session will be remembered as one of the legislature’s greatest busts.
Lawmakers promised a sweeping job-creating package. Instead, they were nearly paralyzed by distrust, egos, conflicting agendas and adherence to arcane customs.
For the sake of the institution and the citizens it serves, House and Senate leaders must spend the next few months repairing fractured relationships with each other and within their chambers, and mapping out a new road forward.
The purpose of the special session was to scale back some of Missouri’s old and overly used tax credits, while offering new incentives for promising industries and projects.
But Senate Republicans wouldn’t agree to some of the terms their leaders had promised to the House. So House leaders reneged on some of the things they’d agreed to. As a result, almost nothing got done.
Not only could lawmakers not come to terms on an economic development plan, they even failed to resolve a convoluted situation involving the date of Missouri’s presidential primary.
The most substantive accomplishment of the session was a long-needed bill creating an incentive fund for high-tech and science-based industries. Unfortunately, it contains a caveat saying it can’t take effect unless the larger economic development bill also passed. Gov. Jay Nixon’s office is right to challenge that provision, in court if necessary.
The legislature’s actions created created deep doubts about its ability to devise a sound economic development policy or solve other pressing problems. The task ahead is to repair the damage.
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