This week was a ‘marathon’ of legislative activity that benefitted our rural district tremendously. I was also thrilled to see the Proposition B reform legislation sent to the Governor and a positive response from his office indicating his support of the necessary reforms. As a result, around 1,500 people showed up to rally the Governor and ask him to sign the bill into law as soon as possible. I would strongly encourage you to contact his office asking him to sign the ‘Prop B reform’ legislation into law. We also passed out of the house three bills of particular benefit to our district, they are as follows:
HB 828 – Prevailing Wage Reform
Prevailing wage is the requirement that employers pay employees a specified hourly wage higher typically higher than a normal rate. In Missouri it applies to certain categories of work, determined by statute, rules, and regulations. One of these categories is construction. Prevailing wage was never meant to apply to maintenance of buildings and simple repairs; for instance, things like repainting an old building. Recently, the Missouri Supreme Court determined that employees repainting old buildings were actually doing construction work, so they should be paid prevailing wage. This bill fixes the court case, to bring “prevailing wage” back to where it was intended – without this fix “prevailing wage” could be extended to a ridiculous point where you can’t even legally hire a neighborhood kid to paint your shed without having to pay them upwards of $20 an hour.
HB 1008 – Highway Construction Contracts
The Missouri Department of Transportation is not like a business – it can’t always build projects the cheapest way possible because there are limits on how state agencies can spend money. Most of the time this is good, state money is public money and there should be restrictions on how it is spent. However, sometimes the protections get in the way, and make projects cost more than they should. This bill simply allows MODOT to enter into a type of payment agreement that it normally could not. This payment agreement would be flexible, allowing for changes in highway revenues, but also allowing private contractors and MODOT to work together more efficiently through greater public-private partnerships.
HB 708 – American Law in American Courts
Unless you’re a lawyer, going to court is often bad. It’s a confusing and stressful time – under American laws. Now imagine you go to court, and instead of using American law, the judge decides that he’s going to try your case under New Zealand law, or Brazilian law, or even a religious law like Sharia. Good luck. It’s hard enough for the average citizen to figure out what’s going on under American laws. Worse – courts across the country have begun to use these foreign laws in their cases, and if we don’t do something, this might become the norm instead of an exception. We have seen a startling emergence of judicial activism applying Sharia law to settle court cases. That’s why we passed HB 708 – a measure to make sure that Missouri courts use Missouri and American law when they decide cases. They can still look at foreign laws that are the same as ours, but they can’t use a different remedy or outcome than would happen under our law. It just makes sense. In a Missouri law, you should be subject to the laws of Missouri and of the United States. New Zealand, Brazilian, or Sharia law has no place here unless it’s the same as ours.
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