Fisher, Pearce analyze jobs proposal

There's usually not much predictable about a legislature and that held double true as lawmakers grappled with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon's special session charge to boost economic development and revise a social media communications law for teachers and students.

Jefferson City political writers reported consternation among solons when the General Assembly recessed Wednesday, but Rep. Barney Fisher, R-Horton, and Sen. David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, cast a more positive light the next day.

Predicting the two-week-old session will end this week, Fisher said, "We will pass some things, but we won't get everything passed because these are huge subjects and some are loaded with controversy." The session picks up again this coming Wednesday.

Fisher backs Nixon's bids to extend tax credits provided in the Quality Jobs Act and develop high-tech data storage centers in locations like Carthage and Kansas City. "We looked at the Facebook law as being as much protection for teachers as it was for students," he said.

"It moved through the House and Senate in an open fashion and now all of a sudden the ACLU and educators' groups have a problem. Where were they during the regular session?"

Fisher said the Assembly appears ready to move the deadline for school boards to enact relevant policies from January to March.

Reviewing other issues, he said representatives persuaded House leaders to have senators deep six a measure to eliminate "circuit breaker" tax credits that homeowners and renters claim in state income tax returns, saving more than $300 per year.

"The public administrators in Vernon and Bates counties, Tammy Bond and Sharon Cumpton, said their elderly clients would have less money to live on because now they can claim protection against increases," said Fisher. "They live on fairly meager incomes anyway."

He criticized Nixon's veto last spring of a transportation bill to bring the Missouri Department of Transportation $40 million in federal green and said he regretted his party's inability to muster enough bipartisan support to overturn that and some other vetoes.

"We essentially threw away $40 million," Fisher said, explaining Nixon disliked a billboard provision he felt would abrogate local control.

Fisher will probably back moving the state's February presidential primary to March in cooperation with the national GOP, which threatens to halve Missouri's number of delegates to the Republican National Convention if the primary isn't moved -- a dictum senators including Pearce dislike.

He noted the Senate "pared way down," from $300 million to $60 million, St. Louis' "Aerotropolis" plan to build an import-export center near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for trade with the People's Republic of China.

However, Fisher said the state's supervision of the Metropolitan St. Louis Police Department, in effect since the Civil War, may finally end with control returned to the city. "It has the potential of bad ramifications," he said.

"Their pension plan is underfunded and a court could say, 'OK, State of Missouri, you own it, you fund it for tens of millions.'"

Pearce was pleased with the Facebook law's revision to let teachers text their children and allow those volunteering at churches to communicate with those students. "These policies need to be done on a local basis," he said.

"The jobs bill, Senate Bill 8, passed the Senate 26-8 and the House will take a look at it Wednesday. There'll be a lot of investment with the Compete Missouri program for various tax credit reforms, job training and incentives for employers.

"Utilizing this bill will save taxpayers roughly $950 million over the next 15 years."

Pearce defended the Senate's decision to scale down Aerotropolis by focusing on exports to China, not imports.

"The data centers will not provide a lot of jobs, but there will be investment," he said.

"These centers were not controversial in the Senate. They were in the omnibus jobs bill sent to the House and I assume they'll be included if the entire bill passes.

"The plan to move the primary was debated yesterday and tabled until next week. It's almost a state's right. Why should we let somebody from another state dictate to us when we should do something? We could go back to a caucus and save the state $6 million. That's very much in play."

Pearce said SB 8's tax credit reforms would decrease credits for low-income housing from $110 million to $70 million and historic preservation credits from $90 million to $80 million.

"These programs are not eliminated, they are simply capped to certain limits based on recommendations by the Missouri Tax Credit Review Commission," he said.