Kansas City Democrat offers update on budget, redistricting

By Rep. Ingrid Burnett, D-Kansas City)

Even though it was a short week due to the MLK Holiday, on Tuesday, 1/19, the House voted to advance congressional redistricting legislation to the Senate. 

Although several amendments were offered, none were accepted by the body, but they certainly allowed for spirited debate – some of which will most likely be featured in campaign ads once they start to heat up. 

The map that advanced was the map proposed by the Chair of the House Redistricting Committee, and maintained the status quo, 6 Republican/2 Democratic safe US Congressional Districts. Democrats unanimously opposed the bill because it doesn’t accurately reflect the 40 % Democratic turnout in the last Federal Election and because some communities of interest were not preserved, but rather divided into separate districts. 

It also missed the mark on strengthening our one and only Voting Rights Act district protecting minority communities from being divided to essentially cancel their vote as a voting bloc. 

By contrast, the Republican dissenters wanted a more aggressive gerrymander that would result in a 7-1 split favoring the GOP, even though an amendment to impose such a gerrymander was crushed on a vote of 23-120. 

Once all the shouting was done, however, the bill passed out of the House 86-67. As HB 2117 advances to the Senate, I expect there to be more fireworks, and I expect it will come back to the House with some changes. 

One of the changes has to do with timing. 

Filing for the Primary Election for Congressional Seats opens on February 22 and runs through March. For the November Election, the window is July 12 through August 2. However, all bills passed during a regular session, as we are currently in, don’t take effect until August 28, and you can’t run for office in a district that doesn’t exist. This really poses a very curious dilemma for lawmakers and politicos and as of yet, there has been no resoundingly approved solution.

If you’re planning on listening in to the Senate Redistricting Hearing, be on notice that it has been rescheduled for Tuesday, 1/25, at 12pm in SCR1.

Commission finalizes new districts for Missouri House

On Wednesday, 1/19, the independent commission charged with drawing new state House of Representatives districts finalized their redistricting plan for the House of Representatives seats. These are the district lines that will be used for the next decade. 

The unanimous agreement marks the first redistricting cycle since 1991 that the commission, which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, has avoided partisan deadlock to successfully redraw Missouri’s 163 House districts. The new district lines have produced some hopeful outcomes for the Missouri Democratic Party. 

For instance, we move from 49 to 57 districts that voted for Biden; 47 to 53 that voted for Galloway; 50 to 60 McCaskill districts, 11 to 16 majority Black districts; and a new Hispanic/Latino influence district.

The district I serve, District 19, will become the new Latinx district by removing the portions beyond KC city limits on the east and pushing the lines south to take in the 13th Ward, and by sweeping through City Market and part of the Crossroads District to connect Northeast to the West Side. 

District 19 has the potential to enjoy an influence it has not seen before. This is an exciting opportunity for both the Historic Northeast and the West Side as we build a social corridor through the city. Legislative districts must be redrawn every decade to reflect population shifts under the most recent U.S. Census. The new House redistricting plan will be used starting with this year’s elections and ending with the 2030 elections.

When it comes to the Senate Districts, it looks like things didn’t go as smoothly. After the Senate commission reached an impasse in December, the job of redistricting the 34-member chamber passes to another commission of six appellate judges. The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to appoint the appellate commission no later than Jan. 23.

Governor proposes $46.72 billion state operating budget

Also on Wednesday, Governor Parson released his proposed budget for FY 2023 and gave highlights during his State of the State Address in a Joint Session of the House and Senate. With Missouri flush with unprecedented general revenue surpluses and federal relief funds, Governor Parson proposed a $46.72 billion state operating budget that includes an increase in total spending by more than one-third over the $34.96 billion lawmakers so far have authorized by FY 2022, which ends June 30.

Although general revenue spending would increase by a robust $1.63 billion under the governor’s plan, the bulk of the additional revenue – $9.23 billion – comes from federal funds. 

Parson, a Republican, outlined his proposed budget, along with his policy priorities for the 2022 legislative session, during the annual State of the State address before a joint session of the Missouri General Assembly. 

Parson’s budget commits to fully funding the state Medicaid program both for the remainder of FY 2022 and all of FY 2023, which begins July 1. 

A constitutionally mandated expansion of Medicaid eligibility took effect last summer, but the majority Republicans refused to provide full funding in a failed attempt to block it. The Missouri Supreme Court later ruled the state must enroll and provide services to the expanded population, but the program risks running out of funding if lawmakers don’t pass a supplemental appropriation.

On education, Parson is requesting $600 million in additional funding for operational expenses and capital improvements at public four-year colleges and universities. 

As for K-12 schools, Parson claims his budget “fully funds” public education. However, that is true only for basic state aid to local school districts, with state funding for student transportation remaining about $182 million below what state law says it should be. 

The governor’s other budget priorities include $400 million for rural broadband expansion, $250 million for community development grants and $722 million for childcare programs. Rest assured, my Democratic colleagues and I will be digging into the budget specifics as we get back in the trenches this week, and there will be much more to report.

Parson spent much of the early part of his speech praising his administration’s largely hands-off approach to combatting the spread of COVID-19 and repeatedly referred to the pandemic in the past tense as if it is over. 

In reality, Missouri has set records for new cases and hospitalizations on a near-daily basis. 

On Jan. 12, Missouri broke its record for most cases in a single month in the two years since the pandemic began, even though the month wasn’t even half over at that point. Then, on Friday, 1/21, Governor Parson announced a specialized medical team of U.S. military personnel, which includes doctors and nurses, is being deployed to the St. Louis region to support hospital staff strained by COVID-19 and is expected to be in place at BJC Christian Hospital next week. 

In terms of the fully vaccinated, Missouri ranks fifth-worst in the nation for the 65-plus age group, with 83 percent deemed fully vaccinated. Only 54 percent of Missourians 18 or older are fully vaccinated for 11th worst nationally, according to tracking data maintained by The New York Times.

More Budget Woes

Right out of the gate this year, we took up an Emergency Supplemental Budget Bill containing appropriations to allow for a raise for State workers to take effect February 1. The reason for this urgency was to stem the exodus of workers from all of our state departments and to create a path for extra pay increases (that were related to COVID relief efforts and set to end in January paychecks) to continue uninterrupted. 

These raises are also reflected to be continued in the Governor’s proposed FY 23 budget which begins July 1. 

Another urgent matter in this supplemental request is to fund the Medicaid expansion population that the court ruled must be allowed to enroll and receive services despite the Republicans’ attempt to defund the constitutional amendment overwhelmingly passed by voters in 2020. 

Finally, a third urgent matter was the legislative approval of an appropriation of federal funds to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to reimburse local school districts and charter schools for their COVID response expenses such as meals, electronic learning resources, cleaning and sanitizing expenses, etc. 

This appropriation must be approved by the end of February, or it goes back to the Feds. 

As we wait for it to come back to the committee for a vote, our Budget Chair, Rep Smith of Carthage, has filed HJR 117, a ballot initiative that would essentially make Medicaid eligibility dependent upon whether or not the legislature appropriates money for that population by specifically naming them in the appropriation. It specifies that if they are not named, they don’t get MO HealthNet services.

Furthermore, it would end the practice of Missouri Medicaid funds being used to support Medicaid-eligible individuals from other states who are admitted to an emergency center in Missouri because it is the closest to their location. That bill received a hearing on Thursday, 1/19. It’s unclear if that bill will be voted on before the Supplemental. Neither has been noticed up for a vote to get them out of committee and on the House calendar for debate.