By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher visited St. Joseph as part of a statewide tour, discussing this year’s legislative session and thanking area legislators.
Plocher spoke to a group of legislators and community representatives Tuesday at the Buchanan County Courthouse
Plocher says despite some claiming the session was abysmal, a lot of good things got done.
“We passed the budget on time, we passed the FRA on time, we addressed illegal immigration, we passed a transformative education bill, we passed a great crime package that Senator Luetkemeyer from the area put together with our judiciary chair, a lot of good things got across the line,” Plocher tells reporters.
Plocher says the biggest low of the session was a 50-hour filibuster mounted by Democrats in the Senate that killed a lot of legislation in the last week.
There appeared to be a strain between Republicans in the House and the Seante this session.
Plocher says, however, while there are a lot of emotions while working on legislation, he wouldn’t say there was a strain between the two chambers.
“It’s a little frustration from the House dealing with the Senate, and probably vice versa,” Plocher explains. “We have different rules in each side of the building, we have to work with the rules though that we have, and I just have to work with the rules in the House,”
“Do I get frustrated with the Senate? I do, but at the end of the day if you look at the packages of bills that were able to come across the line from the Senate, I’m very proud of the House, I’m glad we were able to work with the Senate to get these bills across the line.”
Plocher says while quantity might have been lacking this session, he’s proud of the quality that made it through.
Plocher, a Republican, brushes aside a quip by the top Democrat in the House that the session was good for Democrats. . .
“We really protected illegal immigration by sending our troops to the border, I don’t want illegal immigrants coming to Missouri, we banned sanctuary cities, I would disagree with Mayor Quinton Lucas that Kansas City should be a sanctuary city,” Plocher says. “We defunded the sanctuary cities.”
“We passed a transformative education choice bill, that’s again a conservative measure, but I’m glad the Democrats are happy with that.”
Plocher also says the budget that was passed was fairly conservative, a budget that is $1.2 billion less than last year.
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