Gary Nodler's time to push big bills in the state legislature will come later in the session when budget bills are being considered, but the State Senator from the 32nd District has pre-filed what he called minor bills.
Nodler pre-filed three bills on the first day lawmakers could file bills for consideration in the 2009 General Assembly.
• Senate Bill 14 would bar felons from running for or holding public office in Missouri.
• Senate Bill 15 would authorize the governor to transfer the Joplin Regional Center building on Newman Road in Joplin to Missouri Southern State University when the center's staff moves to a new consolidated state facility in Joplin.
• Senate Bill 16 would make a crime the manufacture, sale or possession of fraudulent insurance identification cards.
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Those are the only three bills I'm pre-filing and none of them are what would be viewed in the capital as major pieces of legislation," Nodler said. "When I did Senate Bill 389 (in 2007) that's a pretty all consuming process when you handle a major legislative package like that, and there just is no way to do the budget and that both."
Nodler talked about the three bills with The Carthage Press in a recent interview.
"I've reintroduced my bill about felons filing for office," Nodler said. "That problem presented itself again recently, there's a county in mid-Missouri where an out-of-state felon ran and was elected and now people are wanting to know why our bill didn't pass last year. Again, I had to say it did pass the Senate; you'll have to talk to folks in the House about it.
"We have a conveyance bill, there's a request for proposal to consolidate state office space in Joplin to a single location which would vacate the Regional Center, so we have a conveyance bill that authorizes the sale of that property to Missouri Southern when and if that relocation occurs.
"I've introduced a third bill dealing with auto insurance to make it a crime to fraudulently represent yourself as having insurance to get your license when you don't."
Nodler said he plans to help push a bill that will be introduced in the House by State Rep.-elect Tom Flanigan, R-Carthage, to change odor rules on confined animal feeding operations and facilities like RES in Carthage.
Nodler said he pushed a bill similar to the one Flanigan, a former aide to Nodler, plans to introduce, so the two decided Flanigan would try to push the law through the House as quickly and Nodler would carry it in the Senate.
"Tom and I talked about it and there won't be any problem getting it through the Senate if he can get it over to us," Nodler said. "The challenge is getting it through the House, if he can get it done early, then I can get it through the Senate. That's one of the reasons I decided not to introduce it on the Senate side because we know we can get it through here, so I'll just wait for Tom's vehicle and if he can get it to us in basically the form it was in when it left the Senate the last time, I can get it passed over on our side fairly quickly. That's a strategic decision that he and I made together about where it probably needs to come from to have its best chance to succeed."
The first session of this new 95th General Assembly will convene at noon Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009.
