Republicans, Democrats speak of bipartisanship to open legislature

For some Missouri lawmakers from Southwest Missouri, the 2008 legislative session bears a strong resemblance to the year most of them began their careers in the legislature.

The 2002 session saw the economy in the tank, Missouri government facing a huge budget deficit and big cuts to programs, and a Republican legislature having to work with a Democratic Governor, Bob Holden.

In 2008, the economy is in the tank, state government again faces deficits and program cuts and a Republican controlled legislature has to work with a Democratic Governor, Jay Nixon, who takes office on Monday.

There was a lot of talk about bipartisanship, Democrats and Republicans coming together to solve Missouri’s problems on Wednesday when the Missouri House opened its sessions.

Most of the more than one dozen speeches given by both Republicans and Democrats mentioned bipartisan cooperation at some point, although Democratic Leader Paul LeVota also spoke of past wrongs by the Republican majority and the Democratic minority’s role as a watchdog over the Republican majority.

So where does bipartisanship and cooperation stand as the 95th General Assembly begins its debate in a tough year and under the leadership of Joplin Republican Ron Richard as Speaker?
“I see it being much more than just talk, and primarily because if you look at Speaker Richard’s record, Speaker Richard almost always passed legislation out of the committees he chaired unanimously, he always had very strong bipartisan support, almost always his legislation passed by over 100 votes,” said State Rep. Bryan Stephenson, R-Webb City. “He has a long history of being able to work in a bipartisan way whether as a mayor or as a representative or as Speaker. I am quite confident that we are going to see not just lip service to bipartisan ship, but a real coordinated effort by the Speaker, the Senate and our Democrat governor elect to make some real bipartisan progress for the state.”

Richard brushed off the Democrats comments on the floor when asked about LeVota’s comments at a press conference after the opening session on Wednesday.

“That’s why I’m Speaker and he’s not,” Richard said. “That’s the way politics and elections are and that’s okay, you know, I suspect Paul and I will be working together in issues but I don’t take any offense to any of that stuff. That’s the way it is and if you’re not a big boy or big girl, when you get in the game, you don’t belong in the game. It was their time. It was the first time we were on sort of television and that’s going to happen when we go national. It’s part of politics, part of the dialogue and you all know what I have to say. You all have covered all my committees and my debate on the floor and I’m not going to change because of that.”

Other local lawmakers were more concerned about the tone of speeches from the Democrats.
“I think when you look at the tone, and you look at Ron’s speech, then you look at Paul LeVota’s and J.C. Kuessner’s speeches, compare the two,” said State Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho. “Ron said we’re going to work together. They said we say that but. . . They set the tone right there, I think, that they weren’t all that concerned. They wanted to make their speeches to the media and make sure they understood that well, you can say we’ll work together, but you haven’t treated us right. They brought up a lot of things that didn’t need to be brought up.”

“And in the same breath, they were saying bygones were bygones, but. . .,” added State Rep. Marilyn Ruestman, R-Joplin. “My comment would be that we start every year this way and I think it’s sincere, I think everybody here wants to do what’s best for the state, but we have different methods of how we do that. We Republicans believe you can rely on yourself and less government and less government programs and I think it remains to be seen because you’ve got a new governor and you’ve got some different leadership in the Senate so I think it remains to be seen whether everyone can remain bipartisan. I think everyone would like to be.”

Wilson said this year will be different from past years because of Richard’s style of leadership and there is more of a chance for bipartisan cooperation than with past speakers.

“When you looked at the past leadership, not to say anything bad about past speakers, but I think you are going to have more openness, more transparency, you’re going to see more professionalism, more accountability in the House,” Wilson said. “When you talk about bipartisanship, as Ron said in the news conference, he can be political when pushed in the corner, but he doesn’t want to be pushed in the corner. He wants to say hey, lets work with everybody. It’s going to be up to the other side, if they start playing the games, and they try to put you in the corner and start telling us you don’t like certain groups because you are cutting these programs, when we ask them what are their solutions, they don’t have any, they just say we’re doing it wrong.

“I think the difference is this year you have a speaker who wants to lead in a bipartisan way, has led in a bipartisan way and was saying, we’ll go as far as you let us go."