Ryan Silvey

Missouri Roundtable for Life: "Tim Jones Accpets $10,000 From Cloners, Passes $5,000 To Silvey"

These people know crazy

...It's time to take a good hard look in the mirror.

“I know that we have, a certain, you would probably have to call them fringe, I would probably call them lunatic fringe, in the Senate that is holding up $189 million of education money that’s coming down from the federal government,” [Minority Leader Mike] Talboy stated.

It’s a delicate issue for [House Budget Chairman Ryan] Silvey, who hesitated to criticize fellow Republicans in the Senate, as Talboy worried about the impact on Missouri school districts.

“So catastrophic events for our students, either way,” Talboy suggested.

“Obviously, it’s not something I want to see happen. I think the House took a pretty strong position that we would like to see that money applied the way we asked it to be applied,” Silvey responded. “Use whatever adjective you’re comfortable with. It’s not going to be a good situation.”

Moments ago, the House of Representatives voted 96-61 to pass HB61, a a de facto repeal of the minimum wage passed overwhelmingly by Missouri voters in 2006 that included an annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) to ensure the state’s lowest paid workers don’t fall behind each year.  The 2006 initiative stated that the Missouri minimum wage in a given year  would be the Missouri rate or the federal rate, whichever is higher. With the current state of the national and state economies,  Congressional Budget Office projections state that Missouri’s minimum wage is not expected to exceed the federal rate until 2015.

Eight Republicans refused to go along with their leadership's mean-spirited effort to make life even harder for families who are really struggling to make ends meet: Ryan Silvey of Kansas City, Ann Zerr of St. Charles, Lyle Rowland of Cedar Creek, Don Phillips of Kimberling City, Mike McGhee of Odessa, John McCaherty of High Ridge, Kent Hampton of Malden and Paul Fitzwater of Potosi.

McCaherty actually voted for the bill in committee.  Kudos to him for listening to his constituents instead of the corporate special interests.

Jim Lembke and Brian Nieves

It's (almost) unanimous: nobody likes the plan from Sens. Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis), Jason Crowell (R-Cape Girardeau) and Brian Nieves (R-Washington) to reject $189M in federal funds for Missouri's schools:

Sen. Jim Lembke, R-St. Louis, is one of those who want Missouri to say ‘no’ to [$189 million in] federal education dollars; he contends the money is merely driving up the federal debt.

But budget leaders for the House, Senate and governor all say it makes little sense to reject the federal education money, because it would merely be redistributed to other states — not go toward paying down the federal debt.

“You can make a statement by not taking the money, but by doing that, all you’re doing is penalizing grade-school kids,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia.

H'ray bipartisanship!

House Budget Chairman Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) has also made it clear that he has no appetitite for his colleagues' crazy.  

The Star's Barb Shelly asks the obvious question about House Republicans and their attempt to create a poorly-conceived drug testing program for TANF recipients: Have they lost their minds? 

The new program would cost $2M per year (see the fiscal note for HB73 here) -- this clearly contradicts the framework put forward by House Budget Chair Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) earlier this month.  As posted outside Silvey's Capitol office: 

Are these rules suspended only when it's time to pick on poor people? 

Moments ago, Democrats walked out of the House Rules Committee to protest Chairman Michael Parson's ruling to move the House GOP's new(est) stimulus spending to the floor without deliberation by the Budget Committee. Immediately after Parson's gaveled the meeting to order, Rep. Mike Talboy raised a point of order, citing House Rule 25 (10) (a), which reads:

The Committee on Budget.
The Committee on Budget shall have the responsibility of filing all appropriations bills, assigning of those bills to the appropriate appropriations committees and shall report upon all bills recommended to it by the respective appropriation committee and any other bills, measures, or questions referred to it pertaining to the appropriation and disbursement of public money.

The rules of the appropriations process didn't bother Parson, and he promptly ruled against the point of order. Democrats, in turn, chose to leave the committee hearing rather that participate in the "sham process"

Last week, the House endorsed Rep. Jim Guest's "crusade" against Real ID-compliant drivers licenses. The debate on the bill was frustrating, infuriating, hilarious and irrational -- all at the same time. And while Republicans fought amongst themselves about the sensibility of legislating against conspiracy theories, they simultaneously undermined one of their key arguments for this week's expected battle on Photo ID legislation.

Lost in the hyperbole and conspiracy theories on Real ID was one point of agreement from all sides: that it is very difficult for some Missourians -- and a hassle for many more  -- to obtain the key documents needed for a driver's license or photo id. Guest described the process for obtaining a driver's license as "very difficult" in a debate with Rep. Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City), and Rep. Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) challenged Guest (a fellow Republican) at length about the bureaucratic hassles of obtaining identification.

Steve Kraske reports in today's Star about the curious financial arrangement of Speaker Ron Richard's legislative director, Tom Smith.  Smith is a "key player" in the assigning of bills to House committees, and also happens to run a business that collected $500k last year from Republican candidates last year:

A top aide to the speaker of the Missouri House runs a political consulting business on the side that generated nearly $500,000 last year, records examined by The Kansas City Star show.

In his public job as legislative director, Tom Smith holds significant influence over the life or death of bills moving through the General Assembly. Critics said his political consulting business raises questions about the potential for a conflict of interest in one of the most powerful offices in state government.

Previous Fired Up! coverage of Smith's self-dealing can be found here.

Of course, Smith denies any hint of wrongdoing, and no Republican legislators remember an explicit demand from Smith.  “I think it’s absurd that someone could buy 1,000 pieces (of mail) and somehow have a level of influence,” Smith says. 

I think it's absurd to think that Smith's clients are only buying 1,000 pieces of mail.