Republicans will attempt 50 override votes on budget

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Senate Appropriations Chairman and the House Budget Chairman told reporters today that they were planning on holding override votes on approximately 50 line-item vetoes in the state budget.

“The governor’s priorities in the budget process were out of line with Missouri and, frankly, they are wrong,” Sen. Kurt Schaefer said.

Schaefer spent much of the call hammering Nixon’s budget vetoes as showing that Nixon was “out of touch” with Missouri voters and putting politics ahead of good policy. Schaefer slammed the governor for vetoing funds for a heart defibrillator for Missouri Highway Patrol’s Water Patrol unit.

Schaefer repeatedly mentioned Nixon’s traveling across the state and sometimes the country in his taxpayer-funded airplane.

Senate Pro Tem, Tom Dempsey, formally requested a legal opinion from Attorney General Chris Koster on whether or not lawmakers had the authority to override line-item vetoes in the September veto session. James Layton, the state’s Solicitor General, issued a formal response.

Layton’s response says that a strict constitutional reading does not give the legislature the authority it needs, but notes that legislators have done it in recent years. According to Layton, lawmakers will need to override the vetoes of the budget line-by-line as opposed to voting on the underlying budget bill.

Schaefer indicated that Missouri lawmakers would do just that, and agreed that there was “some ambiguity” in that portion of the Missouri Constitution.

Nixon’s budget vetoes amount to about $40 million in reduced funds. The budget passed by Missouri lawmakers in the spring was about $1.3 billion less than the one offered by the governor.

Nixon has largely argued for some of his vetoes as necessary because of budgetary uncertainty created by the “Friday Favors” bills he vetoed. Nixon has characterized 10 bills passed in the final hours of the legislative session as “freebies” and “giveaways” to “special interests” in the form of tax breaks.

Schaefer and Stream countered that, assuming the legislature overrode all of the 10 bills, Nixon vetoed $90 million more than the bills would cost the state.

Lawmakers will convene on Wednesday to begin overriding Nixon’s vetoes. Lawmakers in both chambers have indicated that debate will be severely limited and even non-existent on at least some of the budget bills in order to get all the votes completed before the end of the week.