MOScout Daily Update: Oral Arguments - Moon Contra Ceres - $$$ to Beer Cave? - Senate Witness System and more....

Driving the Day

Oral arguments at the Missouri Supreme Court this morning have Department of Social Services appealing a circuit court ruling that an appropriations bill which targeted abortion facilities was unconstitutional. 

Planned Parenthood of St. Louis is represented by Stinson attorneys Chuck Hatfield, Alix Cossette, and Alexander Barrett.

Their brief argues that the appropriations bill “violates two independent constitutional restrictions on the legislature’s appropriation authority. First, Article IV, § 23 requires an appropriations bill to ‘distinctly specify the amount and purpose of the appropriation without reference to any other law to fix the amount or purpose.’ HouseBill2011does not comply with that requirement. It explicitly references another statute (§ 188.015, RSMo)…

House Bill 2011 also violates the Constitution’s single-subject requirement. Mo. Const. art. III, § 23. While appropriations bills can “embrace the various subjects and accounts for which moneys are appropriated,” id., they cannot constitutionally include or amend general laws in the process of appropriating funds….”

State’s reply brief (see it here) calls this “a novel, aggressive interpretation of the single-subject rule for appropriation bills that has no basis in the plain language of the Constitution and lacks support in this Court’s case law.”

Listen to arguments here.  (9:30AM)

Moon Contra Ceres

Even though we’re in mid-December, I’ll admit my first reaction was to check the calendar and make sure it wasn’t April 1.  It’s not.

Here is Rep. Mike Moon’s open letter to Governor Mike Parson….

God commanded the Israelites to “have no gods other than Him.” He also said, “Do not ... make metal gods for yourselves. I am the Lord your God.”

Governor Parson, you and I have placed our trust in the same Lord, the God of the Bible. As such, I appeal to your good judgment, as a follower of Jesus Christ, to direct the Capitol Commission to not return the false god Ceres, the Roman goddess, to the top of the Capitol dome…

We serve a mighty God and we have need for no other god(s)…

I, and many others, will stand with you as you lead the effort to keep the Capitol dome as it currently is - idol-free.

And

Attorney General Eric Schmitt is cc-ed.

Coming Soon: Senate Witness Registration System

Looks like the Senate is implementing a paperless system for witnesses in committee hearings.  See it here.

Audit Finds CID $$$ Diverted to Beer Cave

The press release: Several former board members of a community improvement district (CID) in south central Missouri used almost $300,000 in taxpayer funds to pay their private business debts and for private business improvements and construction, State Auditor Nicole Galloway said. The findings are in an audit she released today of the Black Mountain CID in Van Buren, located in Carter County.

“We discovered several members of the initial Black Mountain CID board used taxpayer money for their own benefit,” Auditor Galloway said…. The audit found $296,937 in CID monies was spent for purposes not allowed by state law. That included more than $100,000 in private business loans used to purchase equipment, and inventory for resale; provide cash flows for operational expenses; and perform repairs and maintenance to the Black Mountain Convenience Store, which was owned at the time by CID board members Donald Black, Curtis Black and Jacob Black.

In 2013 and 2014, CID funds were used to make $125,972 worth of improvements to the convenience store. Those improvements included new fuel pumps ($52,324), a new canopy over the pumps ($25,866), and a new walk-in beer cave ($9,960), as well as remodeling of restrooms, new wallpaper and painting, and electrical work. Six months after the work was completed, the convenience store was sold to new owners…

Auditor Galloway said her office has sent the audit findings to state and federal law enforcement authorities...

See the audit here.

Van Buren is represented by Sen. Doug Libla and Rep. Jeff Shawan.

Memo to Kids: Stay in School

Wall Street Journal reports that “[w]ithin the next three years, American manufacturers are, for the first time, on track to employ more college graduates than workers with a high-school education or less, part of a shift toward automation that has increased factory output, opened the door to more women and reduced prospects for lower-skilled workers.”

See it here.

Bullet Points

·         “You used to do stuff by hand,” said Erik Hurst, an economics professor at the University of Chicago. “Now, we need workers who can manage the machines.”

·         U.S. manufacturers have added more than a million jobs since the recession, with the growth going to men and women with degrees, the Journal analysis found. Over the same time, manufacturers employed fewer people with at most a high-school diploma.

·         Employment in manufacturing jobs that require the most complex problem-solving skills, such as industrial engineers, grew 10% between 2012 and 2018; jobs requiring the least declined 3%, the Journal analysis found.

·         The new, more advanced manufacturing jobs pay more but don’t help workers who stopped schooling early. More than 40% of manufacturing workers have a college degree, up from 22% in 1991.

·         Looking ahead, investments in automation will continue to expand factory production with relatively fewer employees. Jobs that remain are expected to be increasingly filled by workers from colleges and technical schools, leaving high-school graduates and dropouts with fewer opportunities.

Bits

·         Tonight (5:30PM – 7:30PM) at Tani Bistro in Clayton (7726 Forsyth Blvd.) is a joint fundraiser for Rep. Jeff Shawan and Sen. Andrew Koenig.

·         The 31st Circuit Judicial Commission released the name of applicants for the associate circuit judge vacancy in the 31st Judicial Circuit.  They are: Douglas Fredrick, Ginger Gooch, Christopher Hoeman, Jason Johnson, David Mercer, Todd Myers, Brian Risley, Josephine Stockard, and Todd Thornhill.

·         WSJ reports that vaping deaths appear to have peaked and is waning.  See it here.

Lobbyists Registrations

Heath Clarkston, Doug Nelson and Kurt Schaefer added Missouri Soybean Association.

Lowell Francis Mohler deleted Missouri State Fair.

$5K+ Contributions

MO-DSV PAC - $54,692 from Missouri Health Care Association.

RQC PAC - $45,596 from Missouri Health Care Association.

Health Care Issues Committee of the Missouri Hospital Association - $16,500 from Capital Region Medical Center.

Health Care Issues Committee of the Missouri Hospital Association - $44,055 from Truman Medical Centers.

Health Care Issues Committee of the Missouri Hospital Association - $8,415 from Missouri Delta Medical Center.

Catalyst PAC - $15,000 from             American Legal Finance Association, Inc.