Keep the focus on these 6 proposals

Legislative action is finally well underway in the Second Regular Session of the 93^rd General Assembly. There have been about 500 bills filed in the Missouri House of Representatives so far and there will be many, many more. As your personal state representative, I have co-sponsored nearly 100 of those which I believe will serve some or all of you in a positive way. The bills which I have signed, along with the respective primary sponsors, relate to a variety of issues including, but not limited to: education, veterans’ affairs, personal rights and freedoms, senior citizens, small business, children’s needs, medical care, energy issues and others.

I have personally filed six pieces of legislation at this point, which have been developed based on information and requests from several of you in the Third Legislative District.

House Bill 976 is a result of the difficulties which many of you have had in the renewal process for your Missouri driver’s license. The bill would allow military veterans to use their appropriate service records (DD-214) to help verify "lawful presence" in cases when birth certificates are not available.

House Bill 977 relates to elections for officials in fourth class cities (700 residents or fewer). The bill would allow "at-large" positions due to difficulties in finding willing candidates from respective parts of the village.

House Bill 1081 proposes to adopt uniform policy for applicability of sales taxes on used all-terrain vehicles when purchased either from an individual or from a dealer.

House Joint Resolution 44 would provide personal property tax exemption for one motor vehicle, owned by military service men or women who are on active duty for 270 days during that tax year and they could not have used that vehicle while on duty.

House Bill 1445 would result in a major boost for agriculture and alternative energy advocates. This proposal addresses several interrelated actions with the major objective of including at least two percent bio diesel fuel (B-2) blended in the bulk of diesel fuel sold in Missouri.

House Bill 1446 would allow for flexibility in MoDOT’s existing program of B-20 motor fuel utilization.

The Department has become a major consumer of bio diesel, largely as a result of legislation I authored in the 2002 session; however, there have been some problems with poorly mixed fuels, especially in colder weather. This bill enables MoDOT to waive usage in these situations.

As your State Representative, I cannot over emphasize the importance of you continuing to share your viewpoints on any issue of significant concern to you or your family. In contrast to the above legislation which was prepared from our communication, I had formulated a draft proposal relating to tobacco taxation that I do not plan to file (at least not at this time) based on your collective opinions.

You may recall that the initial question of my recent legislative survey asked whether you supported a proposal by "the Committee for a Healthy Future" who are calling for a tobacco tax increase of 80 cents per pack. Personally, I believed that to be a very excessive proposal and potentially harmful to many families. As a result, I had proposed an option of eight cents per pack as a reasonable alternative. Your survey responses do not favor either of these options. Surveys are still trickling in but at this point, your collective opinions are:

80 cents — Yes 40% No 50% No Opinion 10%

8 cents — Yes 37% No 42% No Opinion 21%

Another question in the survey related to driver license renewals and HB 976, described above, is a direct result. Nearly 80% of the responses asked me to offer some options to the Department of Revenue. About 50% marked the option for military records and a clear majority of 95% believed that holding a license for the previous ten years, should be acceptable. I am still working on that option, but have run into difficulties that I may not be able to overcome.

I will share more survey information with you next week and will try to keep you posted on some of our legislation activities each week of the session. If you haven’t completed a survey and have access to the Internet, you can go to jimwhorton.com and click on survey to complete. Please feel free to visit or call at your convenience.