Friday, January 11, 2019

Emery: Senate filibuster included legislators discussing how underpaid they think they are

(From Sen. Ed Emery, R-Lamar)

Each year for 12 years, Concord Baptist Church in Jefferson City has sponsored a prayer breakfast for government officials and staff members. I try to attend annually and am always blessed and encouraged.

During the worship portion of the morning, individuals are called upon to pray for each branch of state government. There is always a keynote speaker with a biblical message that readily applies to the upcoming session. 

This year, the speaker was John Stroup of Freeway Ministries in Springfield. John’s testimony and message were compelling and convicting and were perfect to begin the 2019 legislative session. You can learn more about him and his work on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FreewayMinisteries

The first Thursday of each legislative session always begins at 7 a.m. with the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast. It is typically well attended, but this year’s attendance looked to me like the largest since I have been in Jefferson City. 



In addition to scripture and prayer and remarks from the sitting governor, this year featured the sheriff of the City of St. Louis. This inspirational speaker gave a powerful testimony of his own faith and dependency on Jesus Christ and the Bible. He closed with three key points: Pray daily, read the Bible regularly and worship faithfully. It was obvious from the audience response that he was well-received, including a standing ovation as he closed. The governor’s remarks were also right on target as he boldly shared his own Christian faith and encouraged us all to be “directed by faith.”

Usually the first two days of session are routine and given mostly to beginning the legislative calendar and approving senate rules for the session. Thursday, however, has been unusual. A few senators are not happy with some of the rule changes and are filibustering. The topics they are discussing to hold the floor include how foolish and short-sighted they believe Missouri voters have been for rejecting a tax increase for roads and bridges. They have also discussed how “underpaid” legislators are. This is while they have spent four hours and counting, discussing everything from cars to outhouses. Somehow I don’t think anyone listening to the Senate today will believe we are underpaid or even earning the salary we are paid.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice separation of church and state Emery. Why not vote for the tax, just look at the sloppy job of interstate we have and yet they grant money for sidewalks on 32nd street out by the Flying J truck stop that has no pedestrian traffic. The interstate if full of potholes and every joint between 4 slabs is cracked and crumbling and when they "repair" those potholes they just throw in cold mix and walk away with minimal prep work. The bridges are falling apart due to the legislature allowing the load limit of trucks to increase from 60,000 to 80,000 lbs when the roads were not designed for that except for war machinery. This means that 40-50% of the traffic is trucks now and that constant pounding of increased traffic is tearing them up. Funny that the roads built in the 30's by the Germans are doing quite well because of good engineering and not engineers from Rolla.

Anonymous said...

Separation of church and state. Give it a rest, 5:48. Public officials are allowed to have a belief system, Angel Cheeks. 40 to 50% trucks? I just did a quick Google search and turned up nothing on those numbers. Do you have some inside info or are you guessing?