Speaker Already Backing Away From Promise To Support Product of Bipartisan Ethics Committee

The Star's Jason Noble reports today that the House Rules Committee has refused to take up the legislation passed by the House's new bipartisan ethics committee, and said ethics committee is expected to strip all language related to campaign finance limits, committee transfers and other new rules. 

Multiple sources have told Prime Buzz that a House committee will strip from the ethics bill all measures relating to campaign finance.

That would include campaign contribution limits, prohibitions on transfers between campaign committees and a number of other items that have been under debate for months. Stripping the measures in committee would allow legislative leaders to rule out amendments concerning campaign finance in floor debates to come.

In January, Speaker Ron Richard promised "he would support any recommendation that comes out of the bipartisan committee."  But now...not so much. 

More from The Star:

In a hearing earlier this week, a House committee formed specifically to consider ethics bills added many more measures to the bill, but removed the language on committee transfers -- despite previously including nearly identical language on their own consensus ethics bill.

The bill was then sent to the Rules Committee, which generally gives legislation a final once over -- or an opportunity for leadership to kill it -- before heading to the floor for debate.

It is suspected that Rules will send the bill back to the initial ethics committee, which will then strip all the campaign finance language.

Rules met this morning, but did not take up the bill.

Ethics committee chairman Kevin Wilson, a Neosho Republican, said he wasn't sure of the bill's status, and referred questions to rules committee chairman Mike Parson, who was conveniently absent on Thursday.

Rules Vice Chairman Stanley Cox and the House Speaker, Ron Richard, also deferred to the absent Parson.

"You'll have to ask the chairman," Cox said in committee on Thursday.

When asked about the bill's status in a press conference, Richard said only, "Stay tuned."

Stay tuned?  What happened to I will support "any recommendation that comes out of the bipartisan committee?" If Richard had any intention of standing by that promise, he would say, "The Rules Committee needs to approve the bill so we can have a debate and pass it out of the House.  I'm the Most Powerful Man in Missouri, dammit, and a man of my word!" (Or something like that).