Bryan Pratt

I guess this new TV ad from Rep. Will Kraus (R-Lee's Summit) attacking Rep. Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) means that he isn't worried about Rep. Gary Dusenberg (R-Blue Springs) in the SD8 primary. 

Note that Kraus and Bill Stouffer are using the same DC media firm, CRAFT | Media / Digital. 

Yesterday afternoon, it was reported that Bryan Pratt was removed from the House Rules Committee by Speaker Ron Richard because Pratt would not commit to supporting the tax incentives bill in the ongoing special sessions. “It is frustrating that because I want to vote against giving Missouri taxpayer dollars to keep large corporations in business, I am no longer allowed to serve on that committee,” Pratt said in a press release.

More from KMBC's Micheal Mahoney: "Speaker Ron Richard continues to rule with an iron hand in the Special Session on the Claycomo Ford plant (see previous post). Jackson County St. Rep and Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt has been yanked off the important rules committee for opposing the bill. Pratt says it happened after he told Speaker Richard he thought the Claycomo measure was a “bail out bill”, and that he and his Eastern Jackson County constituents oppose it."

I'd post an excerpt, but it's best if you just go read his whole post on the Missourinet Blog about last week's "ethics" "debate" in the House.

The Missouri House just approved the Senate's proposal to allow voters to express their feelings about the new federal health care law in the August primary election. If passed, it would add a provision into state statute intended to block the federal government from taxing people who choose not to buy health insurance, though no one seems to know how such a prohibition would work.  Truthfully, it's just a symbolic vote, pushed by the most conservative of legislators to give their tea party supporters a warm and fuzzy feeling.

But just because it may be a meaningless statute doesn't mean it's devoid of political consequences.  Specifically, Republican candidates who have positioned themselves as the 'true conservatives' in their primaries stand to benefit from an excited tea party base.  A few candidates come to mind...

Rep. Will Kraus (R-Lee's Summit) is running against Rep. Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) and Rep. Gary Dusenberg (R-Blue Springs) to be the next State Senator from the 8th District (Matt Bartle is term limited).  Pratt played a key role in last week's shenanigans in the House, and has already been pummeled in the press for his absurd rhetoric and cynical leadership. 

Kraus voted for Thursday's ridiculous legislation, but has distanced himself from the House GOP leadership on the issues of ethics. He was one of three Republicans to sign the discharge petition to force the bipartisan ethics reform bill (opposed by Pratt) onto the House Calendar, bypassing the House Rules Committee (on which Pratt sits). 

Friday, he said he was "disappointed" in Thursday's bill, pointing to three critical components of an effective ethics reform bill" ignored by his leadership:

“While I voted for the bill because I think ethics reform is necessary and important, we in the House could have taken the opportunity to address comprehensive ethics reform, and we failed to do so.”

Missourinet's Brent Martin breaks down yesterday's ethics debate circus in the House :

I’LL SEE YOUR DISCHARGE PETITION AND RAISE YOU ONE MASSIVE, UNCONSTITUTIONAL BILL

Ethics reform has sparked an all out political war in the Missouri House, no small achievement for a measure that stood on the doorstep of passage after clearing a House committee on a unanimous vote.

Debate Thursday on the House floor had nothing to do with ethics. It had everything to do with raw, political power...

The theatre fell flat. The politics were sharp edged...

"We're going to take a vote today on the most comprehensive and sweeping ethics reform bill in the universe."

Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt on today's tomfoolery in the Missouri House

Honest people can disagree about public policy regarding abortion. But yesterday's debate in the Missouri House of Representatives on HB 1327 & HB 2000 from Reps. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) and Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) was ridiculous. 

One of the more controversial portions of the Pratt/Davis proposal would require providers to notify prosecutors if any woman under age 18 seeks an abortion without a court order, in both the woman's home county and the county of the provider. 

During the debate, Rep. Pratt and Rep. Brian Nieves (R-Union) decided that anyone who voted against the bill -- and this provision -- was actively "protecting rapists."

NIEVES: If a person votes against this legislation, to me, it says very clearly and profoundly that they are in favor of increasing the number of abortions and...

PRATT: Protecting rapists.

NIEVES: ...somehow creating this protective category for those who would rape underage girls.

PRATT: You're right gentleman. You're absolutely right.

Listen:

This morning before the House Children and Families Committee, Rep. Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) presented his new informed consent/coercion bill (HB2000) which would, among other things, require providers to notify prosecuting attorneys about any abortions provided to women under the age of 17.

Current law requires providers to notify authorities of any pregnancies/abortions for girls under the age of 14. 

That, however, did not stop Pratt from telling the committee that his law could have helped prevent some of the abuse allegedly committed by five men arrested in Lafayette County in November for sex crimes against children.  The alleged abuse by the men in the Mohler family is incredibly disturbing (you can read more here); among other things, a key witness in the case says she had an abortion at age 11 1/2. 

Pratt told the committee his bill could prevent similar abuse in the future. 

Rep. Gary Dusenberg (R-Blue Springs) breaks the news: "pay to play" exists in the state legislature.

“Whether we admit it or not, it exists,” said Rep. Gary Dusenberg, R-Blue Springs, in an appearance before the House Committee on Government Accountability and Ethics Reform. “When people with lots of money get to say what bills are heard or not, that is not fair. These incidents do not pass the smell test, folks. You can say that they do, but they don’t.” [..]

Dusenberg is unusual in the sense that few Republicans support the restoration of [campaign contribution] limits. He is also one of the few lawmakers speaking out about the “pay to play” accusations.

“It is what it is, and we have to correct it, and if you can’t take a stand on what you believe in, you should not be here in the first place,” Dusenberg said. “It reflects on the people down here in the General Assembly.”

KC Star editorial page columnist Barb Shelly:

[Rod] Jetton's thumbprints will never be removed from House business as long as his team remains in charge. Steve Tilley of Perryville, the majority floor leader; and Bryan Pratt, the speaker pro tem, were Jetton's lieutenants. Pratt is running for the Missouri Senate, but Tilley is in line to become House Speaker.

It's difficult to see how the House can repair the damage that Jetton inflicted on its image and good government unless the membership votes in new leadership.

Like Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, House Republican leaders are going out of their way to ignore the facts and overstate the projected costs of expanded Medicaid edibility as outlined in the House- and Senate-passed health care reform bills.  Today, eight GOP leaders, including Speaker Ron Richard, Floor Leader Steven Tilley and Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt wrote Gov. Jay Nixon and Attorney General Chris Koster to express their disdain for the federal proposals. 

Republicans opposing health care reform en masse isn't news -- but the refusal by Missouri GOP leaders to talk about the proposed legislation should be.  From a story posted today on the Star's Prime Buzz blog:

Republicans contend that could cost the state an additional $450 million a year, based on estimates released by the state Department of Social Services several months ago. Figures reflecting new iterations of the bills haven't been released, they said.

This is false, and you don't have to take my word for it.  As printed in the News-Leader last week:

Kinder's claim that the Medicaid expansion could cost Missouri taxpayers "as high as $450 million per year" is much higher than what Nixon's Department of Social Services claims the House or Senate bills would cost Missouri.

DSS officials estimate the House version of Medicaid expansion would cost the state of Missouri $188 million more each year, while the Senate bill would cost state taxpayers an extra $91 million each year.

Sources close to Rep. Brian Yates (R-Lee's Summit) report that the four-term legislator is expected to resign his seat in the coming days.  Yates is term-limited, and was previously thought to be in the hunt for the 8th District Senate seat, now held by Sen. Matt Bartle (R-Blue Springs).

With Yates' apparent departure, it's unclear who -- if anyone -- will step up to challenge Rep. Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) for the SD8 seat.   Rep. Gary Dusenberg (R-Blue Springs) and Blue Springs Mayor Carson Ross have been floated as possible primary contenders.  The latest news out of Jackson County is that three-term legislator Rep. Will Kraus (R-Lee's Summit) has begun exploring a bid for the 8th District Senate seat.  If Kraus decides to run, who will Yates and Bartle support?

GOP Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt believes that the outrageous politicking we've been experiencing in the Sonia Sotomayor nomination process has really inspired Missourians to add unrestrained partisanship into our own judicial selection process. Pratt spoke on a panel yesterday at the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference with State Sen. Jim Lembke and others about their legislative and ballot-initiative strategies for undermining Missouri's widely-praised process. On the panel, Pratt said the right-wing hysteria about Sotomayor has prompted "a greater grassroots movement'' to push for "dramatic changes" to the Missouri Plan.

And why wouldn't we want the same sort of junk here in Missouri?  I mean, who wouldn't love informed and well-reasoned questions about the influence of menstruation on judges' decisions, shameless hypocrisy from partisans on manufactured issues, or weeks of hand-wringing about how sorry politicians are for making outrageous claims about nominees.  Why wouldn't we want more of that? It sounds absolutely fabulous!

To right-wing ideologues, maybe.

I'll confess: I was completely wrong in my predictions of how the House would handle the health care proposal put forward by Gov. Jay Nixon and the Missouri Hospitals Association. It was my assumption that the health care debate would work a lot like the budget debate -- after a lot of hemming and hawing about how awful the plan would be, House GOP leaders would do the right thing and let the plan pass. After all, it would have provided health care to 35,000 working parents and wouldn't have cost the state a dime.  There was all sorts of political cover from business interests like the Associated Industries of Missouri, and strong support from Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.

But I was wrong. House Republicans voted the plan (in HB11) down in a party-line vote.  And when given the chance to do the right thing on the last day of session, Speaker Ron Richard and Floor Leader Steve Tilley wouldn't even let the proposal come up for a vote. They callously left the proposal on the table, putting their extreme ideology before working families that desperately need a hand.

As the session was wrapping up, I spoke with a number of House members about their experiences in the session, and especially about the health care and budget debates. Here are a few of the comments that stand out:

Imagine: it's the end of session, and you're a House Republican trying to finalize your budget. You've done all the ground work. First, you talked a good game on rejecting federal dollars and not using money for ongoing expenses. When that turned out to be a fraud, you decided to spend like crazy. Then you introduced all sorts of impractical, contradictory, half-baked plans for overhauling the state's tax system that were completely divorced from reality.

The good news is that no one takes your promises and commitments seriously anymore, so you can just go ahead and approve a budget that does exactly what you said you would never, ever, ever do.  Of course, you have to show some sort of fiscal conservatism, so you might as well stick it to poor people who don't have health care (even though providing health care for said poor folks wouldn't cost the state a dime). 

Here it is, the big finish!

Page Three from Speaker Richard's Playbook.

To budget like a Republican, you've got to know how to play like a Republican. And that means pivots, rebounds, misdirections and flagrant fouls -- and doing it without shame. Here are the key plays so far:

• Play 1: Promise you're going to have a tough, conservative budget that doesn't use federal dollars for ongoing expenses (or use them at all).
   
• Play 2: Spend like crazy.
   
• Play 3: Distract and confuse your own players (and the public) with all sorts of tax policies!

In April we saw tax policies from House Republicans that were all of over the map -- sales tax increases, sales tax holidays, temporary income tax cuts, permanent income tax cuts, permanent income tax eliminations. There were revolts, refusals, belly-flops and back-flips. And all in the course of a few weeks.

Page Two from Speaker Richard's Playbook.

To budget like a Republican, you've got to know how to play like a Republican. And that means pivots, rebounds, misdirections and flagrant fouls -- and doing it without shame. This is Part Two in our series of How to Budget Like a Republican. Part One is here, and the full timeline is here.

• Step 1: Promise you're going to have a tough, conservative budget that doesn't use federal dollars for ongoing expenses (or use them at all).
   
• Step 2: Spend like crazy.

Once you feel like you've developed sufficient credibility as a budget hawk, you should feel entitled to go back on all of those promises and spend on all of the programs you see fit.  Of course, you're going to have to keep talking a good game (No money for the lazy poor!  No money for slavery!)  Because the goal isn't to be intellectually consistent -- it's just to give you cover to do all the things you said you wouldn't.

A Page Out of Speaker Richard's Playbook.

To budget like a Republican, you've got to know how to play like a Republican. And that means pivots, rebounds, misdirections and flagrant fouls -- and doing it without shame.

Keeping track of the always-changing fiscal philosophies of House Republicans has been a challenge this year, even for the most seasoned of Capitol observers. For your handy reference, we've been compiling a timeline of leaders' many budget plays -- it's a sight to behold. Where appropriate, we've included details from key Senate leaders and the Lieutenant Governor. 

No matter how you come down on how the state should be crafting budgets, or what should be done to kick-start the economy, chances are, you agreed with House leaders at some point in the past couple of months.