Kevin Wilson

Randy Turner has Rep. John Burnett's (D-Kansas City) latest constituent report. In it, Burnett has praise for Rep. Kevin Wilson (R-Neosho), chairman of the House's special ethics committee, but is critical of Majority Floor Leader Steve Tilley's (R-Perry) involvement in the process.

This week we had a committee meeting and had been discussing the limit issue for over an hour when Steve Tilley, the Majority Floor Leader, and one of the dozen who filed bills just popped into the meeting and joined the discussion. Now he has that right as a member of the leadership but this is the first time in 7 years I have seen such a thing happen. He makes no pretense he will do all he can to stop limits.

Oh. It is his job to raise big bucks for the Republican House candidates and he is doing a very good job at it and limits would make his job more difficult. I understand. I just do not agree. 74% of the Missouri citizens voted for campaign limits in Proposition A a few years ago. Beyond me how they can keep a straight face in this argument.

Good news:

While there is still considerable disagreement on the amount, one thing was made clear during the special House committee on ethics reform’s discussion this morning: There will be campaign finance limits in the bill the committee passes.

I might be reading too much into this, but this seems like pretty silly way for Rep. Kevin Wilson (R-Neosho) to start work for the new Special Standing Committee on Government Accountability and Ethics Reform.

Wilson said the committee’s first job will be to define the meaning of ethics, which he said was not an easy task as the word means different things to different people.

"You can’t legislate morality, but you can have a set of guidelines that everybody has to live by," he said. "If you go outside of those guidelines, you break the code of ethical conduct. One person may think something is ethical, while another may not think it’s ethical."

First, the notion that Republicans aren't interested in legislating morality is brand new information to me.

One of the happier moments of Friday's madness was the legislature's decision to enable more out-of-work Missourians to collect unemployment benefits, and for a longer period. Facing 25-year-high unemployment numbers, the about-face from legislative leaders didn't come a moment too soon. 

Under the legislation passed Friday, unemployed workers can collect additional weeks of benefits when the state unemployment rate exceeds 6.5% through December, and workers can also receive benefits if they lose their jobs due to a "compelling family reason." The state is eligible for $133 million in federal stimulus money to fund the benefits.

The legislature's change of heart is particularly interesting because of the vociferous opposition from Lt. Governor Peter Kinder to any kind of extension or expansion of unemployment benefits with federal recovery dollars. Kinder, you may recall, even described the stimulus money for said benefits as a "bribe."

This morning, about 200 people descended on the Capitol to yell and wave signs of anger about deficit spending in Washington at the Jefferson City Tea Party.  It was a far cry from the "thousands" predicted last week, but was a decent crowd for a cold morning at the Capitol.

I was really curious to see how the event would be set up to look like a "grassroots" movement, but was pleasantly surprised to see that lobbyist Carl Bearden didn't even bother with creating that illusion. Bearden orchestrated the whole event on behalf of Americans for Prosperity, and emceed the hour-long program -- it was his Tea Party, start to finish. 

Missourinet's Steve Walsh described the roster of speakers as "primarily Republicans" -- by which he means "entirely Republican" -- none of whom could credibly be called regular dudes.

Rep. Kevin Wilson (R-Neosho): "Things are better than they used to be but if somebody is going to go rogue and do things like this they should be investigated and action should be taken."

We can reasonably infer from his statement that Wilson believed the pay-to-play situation to be bad at some point in the recent past.

He has served in the General Assembly since 2003.