Rob Mayer

Charles Jaco lets 'er rip: "It's a darn good thing there's almost no unemployment in Missouri that our schools are the nations best, our roads are in superb shape and none of our children live in poverty. Because, if none of that were true, you'd have to wonder why the Missouri legislature is wasting its time on nonsense. But since things are perfect, I guess they can get away with it."

Q: What do Lt. Gov Peter Kinder, Sen Pro Tem Rob Mayer and State Rep Shane Schoeller have in common?

A: Um, all of them are not running for Governor?

Well, that's true too, but moving on.

Unless you spent all day yesterday reading about Deidre Pujols or a certain $10,000 gaffe, you likely heard about the scathing editorial written about Schoeller and his colleagues jumping on the opportunity to undermine prevailing wage laws in rebuilding tornado-torn Joplin. But as the PD points out, this is not only downright mean - it's a little preplanned.

Over three months after Rob Mayer and Steve Tilley stood up and said they had a deal, the special session ends not with a bang but a whimper.

“We adjourned sine die because obviously, the House and Senate are miles apart on the different versions of the economic development bill, and it would be fruitless to continue onward and waste the taxpayers’ money,” said Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer a Republican.

As you may recall, God chose Rob Mayer over Kevin Engler when Senate Republicans drew lots to pick their leader last winter.  (No joke.)  Well, Sen. Engler is not impressed with the work of the Chosen One:

There was little accomplished this special session, a session that probably shouldn’t have been called in the first place. It was all good and well for legislative leaders to tour the state in July, promising the passage of an economic development bill, but they failed to let the rest of the General Assembly in on their plan.

When we convened in early September, we were presented with a massive bill few of us were familiar with that would have serious consequences for the future of our state. This led to weeks of debate in the beginning of the special session, where from most perspectives it probably looked like we were accomplishing nothing in the Capitol. It was a slow and painful process to watch, and even more so for those of us who participated in it...

Steve Tilley and Rob Mayer in Kansas City on their pre-session media tour

Missourinet's Bob Priddy reacts to the effective end of this year's special session: 

The special legislative session crashed and burned about 7 p.m., Monday, October 17, in frustration and deadlock. There will be some heavy finger-pointing.  There will be some disagreements about whether the House or the Senate was the cause of an excruciatingly slow and painful downward spiral from September 6th, the day of the session’s already-flawed launch. One-hundred ninety-seven people, members of the House and Senate, were injured but are expected to recover by January....

This was something none of us had ever seen before.  An absolute, total, failure.  And dispirited lawmakers were voicing only faint hopes at the end that things will be appreciably better for the regular session in January. In a perverse way, though, the collapse is instructive...

Rob Mayer and Steve Tilley in happier times.

July 20 - Steve Tilley: "We finally reached an agreement."

July 20 - KMOX: "The announcement featured Mo Senate Leader Robert Mayer, R-Dexter and Mo House Speaker Steve Tilley, R-Perryville — both saying they are ready to pass a wide ranging jobs package that goes beyond China Hub."

July 26 - Rob Mayer: Governor Jay Nixon "'was somewhat cautious or hesitant...'He had concerns about opposition in either chamber. He wanted to make certain that we had a degree of certainty' that the economic development bill would pass."

September 23- Steve Tilley on Rob Mayer: "The House has done every single thing that we said we were going to do...I assume that when Rob Mayer told me this is the deal that they could get this done -- It's not my job to micromanage the Senate.  I assumed he could get it done. It's clear that he couldn't. I'm not necessarily blaming him, because I think he's trying to get it done.  But obviously he wasn't successful..."

September 22 - Rob Mayer: "I’m not optimistic at all."

September 23 - Steve Tilley: "I think Brad Lager says one thing and does another."

September 23 - Steve Tilley: "Functionally, The Senate's Broke"

September 23 - Bob Priddy: "We agree that we’ve never seen a special legislative session that is such a mess as this one."

September 24 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The man most responsible for delaying, and possibly killing, the bill you care about is named Steve Tilley, a Republican from Perryville who is speaker of the Missouri House."

Steve Tilley and Rob Mayer on the air

The Post-Dispatch's take on the struggling special session: "In America, but especially in Missouri, money talks. The man most responsible for delaying, and possibly killing, the bill you care about is named Steve Tilley, a Republican from Perryville who is speaker of the Missouri House. In recent years, Mr. Tilley has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the primary critics of your proposal: retired investor Rex Sinquefield, who also funds the think-tank Show-Me Institute, and developers who get rich from government programs intended to build low-income housing projects. Our suggestion is simple: Next time, put your money on the right horse."

The Star: "What went wrong? The simplest explanation is that Republican legislative leaders failed to do enough groundwork before asking Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon to call a special session. The barriers seen over the last three weeks involve GOP infighting in the Senate and disagreements between the Republican majorities in the Senate and House."

Missourinet's Bob Priddy: "Those of us who have been covering state government for a few decades have done something the legislature hasn’t been able to do.  We have reached a consensus. We agree that we’ve never seen a special legislative session that is such a mess as this one.  There already has been a bunch of finger pointing about who’s to blame.  There is no shortage of suspects."

Video of Speaker Steve Tilley speaking this afternoon after the House adjourned, via Jason Rosenbaum. 

Missouri Speaker of the House Steve Tilley and Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer slapped lots of backs and shook lots of hands on July 20th when they announced a deal to pass an economic development package turning St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport into a major cargo hub. 

On Monday, it was a different story. State Senators like Jason Crowell and Kurt Schaefer raised concerns about job creation projections, making it sounds like less than a done deal in the Senate.

If House Republicans are looking to point fingers (Tim Jones, Ryan Silvey and the HRCC desperately want people to blame the governor) maybe they should ask Steve Tilley and Rob Mayer why their “good agreement” on the economic development bill, presented publicly almost two months ago, is starting to waiver.

As the Star reported Sunday, Senator Rob Schaaf was a vocal opponent of a medical malpractice regulation bill. There is only one problem. Schaaf owns a medical malpractice insurance firm that would be regulated by the bill, and he was  a key voice in an effort to ensure the bill didn't pass. 

Schaaf even serves as Vice Chairman of the committee that did not pass the bill on to the entire State Senate for debate, and his conflict of interest was never disclosed to the public. Read an excerpt from the Star's editorial: 

An unsavory picture of Missouri government is presented by the Senate’s handling of a bill meant to protect the state from a meltdown in the medical malpractice insurance market.

Sen. Rob Schaaf, a St. Joseph Republican, rushed into the office of Senate leader Rob Mayer as soon as he learned of the bill’s existence, The Star reported Sunday.

Schaaf had good reason to be concerned. He owns a medical malpractice insurance firm that would be regulated under the bill’s provisions.

A good-government optimist could hope Schaaf was hurrying to inform his Senate leader of his direct financial interest in the bill and to make sure he wasn’t assigned to play a role in its progress.

But that’s not what happened. Mayer assigned the bill to a committee where the outspoken Schaaf is vice chairman. The malpractice insurance reforms never even got discussed.

It seems that Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer is so worried about Tom Schweich’s cost estimate for the Photo ID Constitutional amendment, that he considered filing a lawsuit. When one Republican is thinking about suing another, you know things are not good for them:

State Auditor Tom Schweich's surprisingly hefty estimate of the annual government cost of Missouri's proposed photo ID requirement for voters has some Republican legislative leaders now fearing that the proposal could be a tougher sell when it hits ballots in 2012.

A spokeswoman for state Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, said he even briefly considered filing suit by today's 5 p.m. deadline in a last-ditch attempt to get the estimate changed.

Mayer (right) has dropped the idea of filing suit himself. But his spokeswoman notes that any Missouri resident can go to court to challenge the cost estimate -- which ranges from $3 million to $6.5 million a year.

"You all voted him in, now you’ll have to vote him out."

Senator Rob Mayer, as quoted by Tom Smith of Washington, MO in a letter to The Missourian, regarding complaints about Brian Nieves' behavior in a meeting with constituents

"Here’s the Missouri Senate’s idea of a compromise: Kill projects that create jobs, and penalize people who will lose jobs in the future, all in order to accept federal money to help the long-term unemployed."

The state Senate adjourned early today to make time for baseball -- without passing legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support to accept extended unemployment money from the federal government.   Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer promises that he's meeting today with Sen. Jim Lembke today "to make some suggestions to him...so we could free this money up today to get it to those who are unemployed," but I have a hard time believing that much will come from that conversation.  

Here's what the Star's Barb Shelly wrote about the continued insanity:

Shortly before 11:30 a.m., the Missouri Senate adjourned so that lawmakers can attend the Cardinals and Royals opening games, if they so choose. “Drive safely and have a great weekend,” the leader told members as the august body called it a day.

It won’t be a great weekend for the thousands of Missourians described below. They will now lose their unemployment benefits because four senators filibustered a bill accepting federal money, and senate leaders chose not to stop them. Shameful...

This weekend in the Star: "Take cover, Missouri workers, taxpayers and voters. Your state legislature has an agenda, and lawmakers are not about to let you stand in their way. The agenda is called 'fix the six.' It was handed to legislative leaders by a consortium of business groups headed by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The House bought the package wholesale. Now the Senate is also working its way down the list...A Missouri Chamber of Commerce news release says the 'fix the six' agenda would make Missouri 'a more attractive and competitive place to do business.' That’s debatable. But 'fix the six' would surely make Missouri a meaner place to live and work. Shame on those lawmakers who have accepted a special interest agenda so unquestionably."

This afternoon on KMOX, Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer (R-Dexter) said passing his right-to-work-for-less proposal will be "quite the challenge" this year. 

HOST MARK REARDON:  How likely, Senator, do you think that is this something that is going to pass this session?

MAYER:  Well, it's going to take a lot of work to get it passed this session, Mark.  We have -- we've got several senators, we're getting close to eighteen or twenty that I believe would support a right to work law.  But, as most of your listeners are probably aware, in the Senate we have a mechanism called a filibuster that can hold things up.   So, it's going to be quite the challenge...

Speaking Wednesday night at a Webster University forum hosted by former Governor Bob Holden, Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer (R-Dexter) told audience members that he has "a lot of concerns" about Rex Sinquefield's plan to hike sales taxes while inflicting huge damage to the state budget, and said that he does not expect a legislative version of Sinquefield's proposal will pass this session.

Here's video of the relevant exchange from Show Me Progress.  Mayer is on the left, Holden is in the middle and Missouri State Budget Director Linda Luebbering is on the right.

A partial transcript:

MAYER: There's a lot of things that I have concerns about that, that 'fair tax.' And I probably shouldn't be this frank and candid with you, but I can't see us passing that 'fair tax' in this session. Now, I'm just one Senator and I probably shouldn't make that kind of statement, but there's a lot of details in that tax, in that proposal, that concern me. And you make a good, you ask a good question-- how much does the sales tax have to be? You know, they talked about seven and a half percent or eight percent. But just, what, this last year, the realtors I guess, passed, wasn't it some time of petition that would exclude them from that. And then, you know, then you start taxing attorneys and CPA services. And you know, then you get into this issue, well, certain ones want to be exempted out. And then everybody else wants to be exempted out. And before long, you're talking about ten, twelve, thirteen percent. So, I mean, the concept intrigues me, but for me, there's got be be a lot -- I've got to have a lot of answers.

There's a new addition to the staff for Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer: Mark Tucker, the Majority Caucus' new Policy Director.  In Mayer's press release announcing his leadership team, Tucker is blandly described as someone who "comes from the private sector." What the press release doesn't say is that he was a register lobbyist until last week.  For whom?  Two firms with direct ties to Rex Sinquefield, who just happens to have a few wish list items in the hopper for the upcoming session. 

Tucker first joined the Sinquefield team of lobbyists in 2007, and lobbied directly for Sinquefield though July 2010.  When he officially ended his lobbying on Thursday, December 30, his three clients were Sinquefield's Pelopidas, LLC,  the lobby shop of Travis Brown (another Sinquefield lobbyist), and The Avery Group, LLC. 

The Post-Dispatch reports that Sen. Jim Lembke (R-Lemay) will not support so-called "right to work" legislation supporting by incoming Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer (R-Dexter).  "I have a high percentage of union households in my district, and I've always had a very good relationship with labor," Lemke says said. "There's a lot of other things we can do to make Missouri business-friendly."