Monday, October 03, 2011

Facebook Law fix still has not reached governor; Tilley fails to sign it again


It has been more than a week since the "fix" to Sen. Jane Cunningham's Facebook Law was passed by the House and Senate, but it has still not reached the governor's desk.

Speaker of the House Steve Tilley once again failed to sign the bill today, according to a legislative report sent out by Missouri National Education Association.

The House met in technical session on October 3, but House Speaker
Steven Tilley still did not sign either SCS/SB 1 (Jane Cunningham), a
bill pertaining to school board policies on employee-student
communications, or SS/SCS/SB 7 (Rob Mayer), a bill to create a new,
quasi-public entity to help identify and support emerging
technology-related businesses in the state. Both bills have passed
both chambers and merely await the formality of being signed by the
Speaker before returning to the Senate to be presented to the Governor
for his approval.

The Speaker is apparently delaying his signature of SCS/SB 1 and
SS/SCS/SB 7 in order to get the Senate to take up and pass the House
bills that are on the Senate calendar. However, the signature of an
approved bill by the presiding officers of the chambers is generally
considered a formality that can not ultimately prevent a bill properly
approved by both chambers from reaching the Governor’s desk, though
the exact path and timing by which this will happen is not yet clear.

The House will meet again in technical session on October 4, but the
Senate will not meet again until a technical session on October 6.
Once signed by the Speaker, the bill will return to the Senate and
will then be presented to the Governor. The Governor will have the
option to sign the bill into law, veto the bill and return it to the
legislature with his objections or allow the bill to go into effect
without signature.

Gov. Nixon asked the legislature to repeal the social networking portion of SB 54, not revise it. The "fix" requires every school district in the state to develop a teacher-student communication policy by March 1, 2012.

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