Jeff Roorda

Tempers flared this morning on the House Floor as members wrapped up the budget debate.  A few stories from around the state about the dust-up:

• KC Star: "House decorum devolves -- briefly -- in budget debate"
• Post-Dispatch: "Mo. House lawmakers engage in heated budget altercation"
• AP: "2 Mo. House members separated during budget debate"

Here's what things sounded like to the folks at home. The first voice you hear is Rep. Jeff Roorda (D- Barnhart).  Rep. Tim Jones (R-Eureka) can be heard yelling in the background at around the 3:15 mark.  The photo above was probably taken shortly after that point. 

KRCG's Kermit Miller captured this video:

With a few weeks to reflect on the craziness that was the House Budget process, I'm still impressed by the dramatic shifts in direction and willingness to spend millions on pet projects, while simultaneously refusing to budge on a bipartisan plan to help 35,000 working poor parents gain access to health care (without costing the state a dime).

As the session wrapped up, I spoke with a number of House members to get their takes on the legislature's recent work. In most all of the discussions, the revised stimulus spending bill (HB22) came up as key example of the dangerous and foolish ideological stands by House leaders, the shameless violations of House rules to push through bad legislation, and inconsistent and confusing leadership from Speaker Ron Richard and Floor Leader Steve Tilley. 

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: