JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

With news coverage so splintered these days among online publications and old-fashioned newspapers, I’m here to help you sort out some of the main things the Missouri General Assembly did or didn’t do in the last few days of this year’s session, which ended this afternoon.

As I see it, here are some of the positives that came out of the session…

:: A big, fat state budget of $49 billion, up from $40.9 billion this year, due primarily to billions dollars in federal Covid relief funding. Two key items in the budget are $2.5 billion to pay for expanded eligibility to the Medicaid program and $925 million to increase payments to providers serving people with developmental disabilities, nursing home patients and people needing assistance to remain in their homes through the Medicaid program.

:: Retention of the “6-2” congressional map, which leaves intact U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s 5th District. A group of ultra-conservative senators sought unsuccessfully to unravel the cohesive 5th District and stretch it eastward like a piece of bubblegum to dilute the Democratic vote and, ideally, turn it Republican, resulting in a “7-1” Republican-dominated map.

:: The state, instead of the Kansas City and St. Louis public school districts, will pick up the cost of funding Missouri’s public charter schools at the same level as traditional public schools. Under an earlier version of the bill, approved by the House in March, millions of dollars in funds would have been stripped away from the Kansas City and St. Louis public school districts in order to make up for a formula disparity where charter schools are currently paid less per student. According to the fiscal note attached to the original House bill, KCPSD would have lost more than $8 million to public charter schools, and the St. Louis district would have been shorted about $18 million. Ultimately, the legislature decided the state should make up the difference – which, again, goes back to that big, fat budget.

:: Some of the best things to emerge from the session were things that didn’t get approved. For example, left on the cutting-room floor were bills that would have legalized sports wagering, diluted the open records law, and made it significantly harder to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process…Legalized sports betting may help Kansas lure the Chiefs to Kansas, and as I wrote several days, ago, let ’em go. They’ve always had absentee owners and have never been as committed to Jackson County and Kansas City, MO, as the Royals.

**

There were, of course, some negatives, including big changes in voting practices.

:: Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, Missouri voters will be required to present a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. That is not the case currently, and Republicans have been trying to enact a photo ID requirement for 15 years.

:: Local election authorities will no longer be able to use touchscreen voting machines. We’ll be leapfrogging back to the all-paper-ballot system, where we try to darken those little holes with little pencils that are down to the nub by Election Day afternoon…This is ludicrous. Touchscreen voting is easier, more reliable and probably less costly in the long run. Republicans want to do away with it because some fear the touchscreen machines are connected to the internet and the Chinese are getting in there and manipulating votes…In actuality, the Chinese are sleeping while we’re voting, and they don’t care who we vote for.

:: The only good thing to come out of the voting bill is that it provides for a two-week, pre-Election-Day window when people can vote absentee without an excuse…Hallelujah! I can finally stop lying down to those workers down at Union Station.

:: Finally, the General Assembly approved two bills aimed at requiring the city to spend more money on law enforcement. One bill would would raise the minimum percentage of Kansas City’s general-fund revenue that must be spent on police from 20 percent to 25 percent. (We’re talking tens of millions of dollars that could otherwise go to street resurfacing, bridge repair, park amenities and other quality-of-life-and-city basics.) The other bill provides for a statewide vote to amend the constitution to allow the legislature to increase the percentage from 20 percent.

The KCPD-spending bills were intended, more than anything, as a poke in the eye to Mayor Quinton Lucas, who along with a Council super-majority, last year had the audacity to try to reallocate $42 million from the police budget to establish a Community Services and Prevention Fund. Unfortunately, the Council’s surprise move didn’t work out. The Board of Police Commissioners sued, and a Jackson County Circuit Court judge ruled the council had overstepped its authority to redirect police funding after it had approved the budget.

…I love Kansas City. It’s just that residing in Missouri is a prerequisite. C’est la vie.