Jewish Light Online

A new year means a new legislative session, and as legislators return to the capitol many are predicting a session drastically different from last year's.

"Many of the issues in 2006 will cut across party lines and will create a much different dynamic than that of 2005," said David Winton, a consultant for the Government Relations Office of the Missouri Jewish Federations, which Winton said informs legislators and policymakers about the system and support structure the Jewish community has in place and the Jewish Federations help fund.

"Last session was very clear, Republicans had gained sizable majorities in the House and Senate as well as winning the governor's office. This seminal event created a year of partisan victories for the new majority on bread and butter issues including tort reform and workers' compensation ... In 2006 we will see issues like eminent domain, tax increment financing (TIFF) reform, stem cell and the proposed tobacco taxes. These issues don't fit into a neat partisan box, and will likely create a host of challenges to all the parties in the legislature and the executive. In past years these types of issues tended to create chaos within the legislative environment as well as unstable coalitions."

One issue many expect to be a dominant one for the new session is the issue of eminent domain, for which the Missouri Task Force on Eminent Domain has proposed tougher standards for taking people's property. At this point, much of the controversy surrounding the issue seems to focus on the specifics and the wording of the proposed legislation, and some predict a wide gap that may pit urban against rural in the issue of the government's right to acquire personal property.

"Eminent domain is an important issue for the Senate and House to deal with, given the recent Supreme Court decision and the lack of clear rules for taking property," Winton said. "Although this is not a specific focus of the Jewish community, it is the kind of thing we have to understand in order to work in the legislative environment. Politics and policy around these legislative focal points inform the process and give us insight into how and when we approach our priorities."

Rep. Neal C. St. Onge (R-St. Louis) said he expects eminent domain to be a "hot issue," as well as a tough one.

"The hard part about eminent domain is that it is a more difficult issue in the rural areas than it is in the urban areas, because while there may be a need in the urban areas for eminent domain, that probably wouldn't be the case in rural areas, especially for private developers."

"One of the things they (the task force) did not include in their recommendation that I think we are probably going to struggle with is the definition of blight," (as in, "the acquisition of abandoned or blighted property,") said Rep. Walt Bivins (R-St. Louis), "and that is something that really needs to be resolved."

"We don't want to do away with it (eminent domain) entirely," St. Onge said, "but it has been abused and misused, and we have to try and draw a good compromise."

Rep. Margaret Donnelly (D-St. Louis) said she expects a large number of proposals dealing with eminent domain and the related issue of tax increment financing.

"It is difficult to know what proposals will be able to pass," she said, "because there will be a need to work out lots of complex issues, and there are individuals on both sides who seem unwilling to have any compromise."

Rep. Clint Zweifel (D-St. Louis), on the other hand, said he expects there will be an opportunity for compromise.

"On regional issues like that I think there is a great opportunity for compromise that I think if it is done right will protect economic development for our region and still give some basic protection for property owners."

In addition to being a battle between urban and rural legislators, Rep. Dr. Charles R. Portwood (R-St. Louis) said he expects the issue to be split along party lines.

"I'm going to be in the fight for eminent domain to protect property owners," he said.

Rep. Jack Jackson (R-St. Louis) said he too expects eminent domain to be one of the biggest issues, and said that while it is a very sensitive issue, it is also critical, "and must be dealt with, but it must be dealt with extremely carefully and very thoroughly."

Jackson said similarly that he plans to protect the rights of the property owners.

"I think it is wrong for the government to come in and take peoples' land. That is not what this country was based on and that is not what I went to war to defend."

Many of the other big issues this session will revolve around education, including a mandate to require school districts to spend 65 percent of their budget on items directly related to classroom instruction, propositions to teach intelligent design as part of the science curriculum, and a bill to implement the Betty L. Thompson Scholarship Program, which would authorize a tax credit for contributions to nonprofit educational charitable organizations which would then distribute the funds to "income eligible students."

"There will be an attempt to pass legislation which is essentially a voucher bill that is disguised as a scholarship bill," said Rep. Sam Page (D-St. Louis), "and I will fight that bill very vigorously. I am concerned that legislation like this takes money away from our public schools at a time when they are struggling to provide essential services to our children. I think our schools in St. Louis County do a very good job with limited resources, and draining those resources toward religious or private education is not the role of government."

"It is a backdoor way of doing school vouchers, but every time we award those tax credits we are taking money that should be available for the public schools," she said.

"The bill will be filed," said Rep. Kathlyn Fares (R-St. Louis) "and it probably will come up on the floor."

Fares said she expects the legislation to transition as it goes through the system, and that she will not know for sure what her stance will be until it does.

Portwood emphasized that the scholarship program would take money from private donations, and not from public money and said he thinks it is "a great idea."

"I think if organizations and corporations want to get involved, that is exactly what America was set up to do, to all pitch in to help. I think it is a win-win situation. That proposal requires no state money, it does not decrease the amount of funding in the formula, it doesn't change the situation whatsoever, it enables more kids who might not have an opportunity ... to move forward in that process, which is important."

Betsy Dennis, executive director of the local branch of the American Jewish Committee, said the AJC "believes that the use of public funds to provide vouchers with which students may attend primary and secondary parochial schools is in violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and therefore unconstitutional, including scholarship programs disguised as vouchers."

Gail Armstrong, principal of Solomon Schechter Day School, said she is and has always been a proponent of a scholarship program that offers tax credits, rather than a voucher system.

"To me it is still a voucher system," said Rep. Regina Walsh (D-St. Louis), who says she does not support the program at this stage. "My children are educated in the Catholic faith. They all went to or currently attend private or parochial schools, and I think that they received a wonderful education. I struggled to provide them with that education, but I do not think taking away from the public school system is the answer, and I just feel like that kind of proposition would do that."

Walsh said she similarly does not support legislation to incorporate intelligent design into the science curriculum.

"I choose to send my children to private or parochial schools because I want them to have a faith-based education, but that is not for every individual's child. The public schools should not be required to add that to their curriculum."

"There will be another attempt to insert language to discourage the teaching of evolution in the public schools and replace that with a religious-based curriculum, and that bill seems to have gained a little bit of momentum from last year," Page said, "but I am still hopeful the education community in Missouri, especially the science teachers, will step up and help us oppose this legislation."

The Jewish Community Relations Council — which develops positions with the 19 community organizations on issues that are of particular concern — stands against intelligent design, according to Marilyn Ratkin, JCRC domestic issues director.

"Intelligent design is a bill which we think is very similar to creationism, which is bringing some religious issues into the science class. It breaches church-state separation and that is something we are against."

The St. Louis branch of the National Council of Jewish Women said it will be monitoring closely any bills that deal with vouchers and intelligent design.

Marlene Hammerman, state public affairs charwoman for NCJW, said the NCJW position on intelligent design states that the place for teaching religious beliefs is in the homes and religious institutions, not the publicly funded classroom, and that the NCJW position on vouchers states that "the NCJW opposes education vouchers because they breach the barrier between religion and state, rob public schools of needed resources and support schools that discriminate in the selection of students. NCJW supports quality public education for all, utilizing public funds for public schools only."

Rep. Barbara Fraser (D-St. Louis) said she finds the issue of intelligent design "particularly upsetting," and that she sees it being pushed as a "guise of presenting several sides of an issue."

"Essentially, it hides the fact that creationism is a religious belief, not a scientific theory," she said.

According to Dennis, the AJC believes the introduction of intelligent design theories into science classes is unconstitutional.

"Intelligent design is not a scientifically-accepted theory," Dennis said, "but a religious theory similar to creationism, which has no place in the science classroom of a public school. Any discussion of creationism or intelligent design would be more appropriate in a history or comparative religion class, as opposed to a science curriculum."

Fares said that while she thinks it is fair for intelligent design to be taught, she does not think it should be taught as part of the science curriculum.

While the language of the bill would currently have intelligent design taught as part of the science curriculum, Fares emphasized that "all the things we do are a process."

As a former school board member, St. Onge said he will push for educational issues to be handled on a local level.

"Not only do I run on local control, I firmly believe that it should strictly be up to the school boards and we should stay out of trying to influence that," St. Onge said on the issue of intelligent design.

St. Onge said he has similar concerns with the proposed mandate to have school districts put 65 percent of their budget strictly toward classroom instruction, "because they do not include transportation in that 65 percent, and in suburban districts like the two I represent — both Parkway and Rockwood — they have large transportation costs, but those are not counted in the 65 percent, so that does not make sense to me. Also, by the current guidelines they're using you can't count librarians but you can count athletics, and again that doesn't ring true to me. Again, I am a local control guy. I think it should be up to the local school boards how they spend their money."

Many legislators said they expect the language of the bill to be rewritten, and would not be for it as it is currently written.

"My understanding is that 65 percent will probably be as a target rather than a mandate, and that there are other things which will be considered," Fares said. "The bill has not been filed. There will be some other things that will go into the filed bill."

Page called it a "terrible bill," stating that he will oppose it as it is currently written.

"The problem with that legislation is there are a lot of activities a school participates in that did not currently fall into the definition of a classroom activity and would not be covered by this bill. This bill, as it is currently written, would discourage funding for libraries for example, which is not considered a classroom activity, but I think it is important for children to have a chance to read and have a diverse selection to choose from."

Walsh said she expects this mandate to be a big issue, and that she is not for the legislation as it is currently written.

"If you take 65 percent of that, what happens to all the other things that go with it?" Walsh asked. "I think the school districts are doing the best they can with what they have now ... It is a good idea in premise, but all those things go hand-in-hand with educating a child, you have to heat the building, and take care of infrastructure, and take kids to school."

"I understand that it is being revamped right now," Portwood said. He also said he does not support it as a Republican, and that "probably every Republican in the state is campaigning on local control and saying the school district ought to make decisions in those matters."

From the perspective of the Jewish community, one of the top-priority issues hanging over from last year is Missouri's budget.

"The state has been in a difficult budget situation for the last five years," Winton said. "This state, like others, is blessed with a strong and vibrant not-for-profit community which provides, in partnership with state government, much of the safety net to those in need. The Jewish Federation, in partnership with other community leaders like the United Way and Catholic charities, are working hard to reach legislators and the executive branch with this message of partnership and thoughtful planning."

Many legislators have expressed that they are hopeful that we may see a turning of the tide from last year's drastic cuts.

"I am taking a cautiously optimistic view of it," Fares said of the budget. "Revenues are coming in better than expected, but we have some costs that are also there," she said.

St. Onge said similarly that he is "anxiously awaiting it and guardedly optimistic it won't be as bad as it was last year."

"Hopefully it won't be quite as bad as it was last year and I know we are looking to restore some of the stuff for the folks in the sheltered workshops and possibly the wheelchair batteries, so I am guardedly optimistic on the budget," he said.

Bivin said that from what he has seen, "revenues to the state — at least through November — had increased at a rate of roughly about 5 percent, plus or minus, which will certainly help, but we are going to be faced with the school funding formula we came up with last session, and as I understand it that is going to take a significant amount of new dollars, so that 5 percent increase might not go very far."

Page said he predicts the House will revisit some of the decisions from last session.

"The biggest decision was the vote to eliminate health care for 100,000 Missourians, and I am hopeful we will be able to revisit that decision and restore some of their health benefits. I have observed that a lot of people who fought very hard to cut those benefits in the last session are reconsidering the wisdom of that decision because of public outcry and public outrage."

"A lot of things they pulled money from last year they got a lot of flack about," said Rep. Bruce Darrough (D-St. Louis).

Donnelly, however, expressed concern, stating that the Medicaid commission has issued its recommendations and that they "fall very far from the goal," which she says is to make sure that all Missourians have the opportunity to be insured.

"Within the budget process the concern is that they will continue to just look at the bottom line and decide more cuts have to be made, just as they did last year, and that there really won't be any thoughtful process but instead just turning it over in such a way that all they will look at is that we have a certain amount of dollars and so we will cut wherever we need to," she said.

Another issue the Jewish community is carefully monitoring — according to Winton as well as the local chapters of Hadassah, NCJW and JCRC — is legislation surrounding stem-cell research.

"Hadassah's prime concern this year will continue to be on stem-cell research and monitoring any bills that would either ban or make easier stem cell research in the state," said Cheryl Adelstein, head of the Hadassah American Affairs Division.

According to many Republican legislators, the issue is expected to be put to the voters as a ballot initiative, and will not be focused on during this legislative session.

"We expect to have an initiative petition for it to be handled by the electorate, and that may be the better way," Fares said.

"I think it is probably going to be a kind of quiet year this year because of elections," Darrough said. "I think that anything that will come up will be more bi-partisan."

Still, the Jewish community seems to be monitoring many issues, including a TABOR bill — to cap state-raised revenue — which NCJW says it is monitoring with their coalition partner, the Missouri Budget Project. Ratkin of JCRC said this bill "is very injurious because the state is already below what we need on our general services."

NCJW says it is on the positive side of a prevention first bill that is comprehensive in terms of decreasing the number of abortions in the state, and will be supporting the Missouri Women's Health Service Act, which will reinstate money for family planning and well-woman care.

Hadassah also says it will be watching closely the Missouri Lifesaving petition initiative that is taking place in communities as well as monitoring any legislation that seems to have church-state First Amendment implications.

Local Jewish advocacy groups are reaching out for the community's involvement and working to prepare for the bills they think might crop up this session.

Winton said he encourages individuals who are interested in getting involved to write their legislators.

"People are really surprised when I tell them that state legislators, as a general rule, personally read their correspondence," he said. "At the state level, five or 10 well-written letters can sway a senator or representative's opinion on an issue. What people forget is that legislators come up to Jefferson City and they are bombarded with thousands of bills every year, and most on a specific issue that they understand well, such as education. Therefore, on most of the other issues related to governance, their opinions are not well-formed. They don't know what the right thing is on many issues, so receiving five or 10 letters can make somebody who didn't know anything about that issue a real ally. Our experience is that once someone makes this small effort, they are hooked."

Behind the News

Legislative Session

Lawmakers to look at eminent domain, intelligent design, vouchers

BY KEREN DOUEK

STAFF WRITER