Jason Kander

Reps. Jason Kander (D-Kansas City) and Tim Flook (R-Liberty) met with the press at the Capitol this morning to talk about their bipartisan ethics reform bill, intended to limit the use of political committees to obscure campaign donation trails. Their multi-part proposal makes it a felony to "transfer funds through political committees with the intent of masking the original source of money, would prohibit individuals from serving as the treasurer or deputy treasurer of multiple committees, and create disclosure requirements for "de facto lobbyists." 

From the presser:

At the press conference, Flook indicated that Speaker Ron Richard is at least somewhat supportive of the effort, and Kander said Minority Leader Paul LeVota may become a co-sponsore.

More coverage can be found here and here.

 I've been wondering a bit in recent days what sort of ethics legislation might develop in the coming months in response to stories like those in last week's Star. Based on the obvious reluctance from legislative leaders to move any meaningful measures, it's hard to be overly optimistic. Steve Kraske expressed similar sentiments in his most recent column, quoting Rep. Brian Yates (R-Lee's Summit), who's unsuccessfully tried to convince his own party's leaders to move on some basic reforms in recent legislative sessions.

That said, I was encouraged to see a tweet from Rep. Jason Kander (D-Kansas City) on Friday, in which he said he'd "had some very encouraging discussions with Republican colleagues" about the ethics reform proposals he first distributed in early September.

The Turner Report posted details of Kander's September 9 Dear Colleague memo last week, which can be distilled down to a few new ideas and a few oldies but goodies. 

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: