U.S. Senator Roy Blunt gives his take on the IRS scandal.

The 74th Senior PGA Championship is now underway at Bellerieve Country Club. KMOX golf correspondent Dan Reardon is there.

Chesterfield Rep. Sue Allen says some municipalities, like Chesterfield, have big malls which generate a lot of sales tax revenue but that money is then sent to other, more residential parts of the county to fund road projects or police.

“I’m not saying that they’re going to undo all those things, it’s just to look at the uniqueness of governance of municipalities,” she said.

Allen says there is no reason to believe something is being done wrong but the goal is to better understand where the money goes. “First of all, the goal of the committee is to identify an independent study.”

The results of that study will help lawmakers understand if things are running smoothly. The committee will present a report in the winter.

Rep. Brandon Phelps filed the legislation Wednesday. An analysis of the bill by The Associated Press shows it would ban weapons in local parks and athletic areas. It also would ban firearms on public buses and trains a must for most Chicago Democrats fearing a slew of weaponry on public transit.

A federal appeals court ruled in December Illinois must allow citizens to carry concealed weapons.

Phelps is a Harrisburg Democrat who opposes too many restrictions. But his own measure failed. He filed the new version after a meeting earlier Wednesday in Speaker Michael Madigan’s office.

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Legislation (HB611) that was needed to comply with recent federal requirements was combined with an effort to broaden the definition of “misconduct” in the workplace. Jobless benefits can be denied to workers released because of misdeeds that quality as misconduct.

Tracy King, vice president of governmental affairs for the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said expanding what constitutes misconduct would help protect the integrity of the unemployment system.

“This isn’t a social program for people who get fired from work,” King said Wednesday. “There is a very definitive reason that this program was set up. And through the court system (the definition of misconduct) has been narrowed to the point that it is seen by the employer community to be severely abused.”

Misconduct would apply when workers knowingly disregard their employers’ interests, violate no-call and no-show policies or break a company rule unless it can be demonstrated the rule is unlawful or that the employee could not reasonably have known about the rule. State law currently defines misconduct as “wanton or willful disregard” of an employer’s interest, a deliberate violation of an employer’s rules and a disregard of standards of behavior which an employer has the right to expect.

Opponents of broadening the definition of misconduct said it could cause some workers to lose unemployment benefits if they are fired for less significant reasons.

Lawmakers passed the unemployment measure before their mandatory adjournment last week, and Nixon has until mid-July to take action. He can sign the measure, veto it or allow it to take effect without his signature.

Other parts of the unemployment legislation were proposed to meet federal requirements created when President Barack Obama signed the Trade Extension Act of 2011. Failing to comply with those requirements could carry a financial cost. Officials said Missouri businesses could lose $859 million in federal tax credits and that state government could lose federal funds for programs such as the administration of the unemployment system and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Missouri’s legislation would count a newly hired employee as someone who has not previously worked for the business or who has been separated for at least 60 consecutive days. It also would require a 15 percent penalty for wrongly received benefits deposited in Missouri’s unemployment compensation fund.

In a financial analysis of the legislation, officials reported that the state already has levied a penalty of 25 percent for the first offense and 100 percent for subsequent instances. The state deposits the money into an account used for administrative expenses of the division of employment security. The legislation would redirect a portion of the penalties to comply with the federal requirement.

The final piece of the federal unemployment measure would prohibit removal of charges from an employer’s account if a payment was made erroneously and it is determined the business failed to respond timely or adequately and has a pattern of doing that.

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Did Apple do anything wrong? James Pethokoukis with the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the AEIdeas blog doesn’t think so.

Why does the price vary so much from one hospital to another when it comes to the same procedure? We talk with Louise Probst, executive director of the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition, Jan Vest, CEO of Signature Health, and Herb Kuhn, President and CEO of the Missouri Hospital Association.

There is $400 million that St. Louis County has collected from the Proposition A transit sales tax which hasn’t been needed for operations and, instead, has been saved.

Metro will use that money to pay down its $500 million debt still outstanding from the cross-county MetroLink expansion.

Metro CEO John Nations says the agency is refinancing the remaining $100 million and result is a savings to taxpayers of millions of dollars in interest.

“The benefit for county voters could be millions of dollars in substantial savings by reducing the long-term interest costs attributable with the cross-county alignment construction,” he said. “It’s very much in the interest of the taxpayers of St. Louis County to use funds that are not otherwise being put to transit purposes out of Proposition A to pay down the debt.”

Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) brought the bill back to the Senate for an override vote. “Rate-making, including the setting of formula rates is a legislative function delegated by the General Assembly to the ICC,” Cullerton said.

The Senate overrode the governor’s veto, 44-11. The Citzens Utility Board was against the bill because it felt the bill gave utility companies the ability to raise rates. Executive Director David Kolata says rather than continue to protest, the board is looking to the future.

“Now the most important thing is to interpret the law correctly going forward and to hold the companies accountable,” Kolata said.

SB 9 survived an override in the Senate, 44-11.

Currently only grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult siblings or cousins can get state-sponsored subsidies when they become the legal guardians of a child.

But a bill passed by the Legislature would expand that list to include people who are not blood relatives if their lives and those of a child are “intermingled” in a manner similar to a family relationship.

The subsidies are payments given to guardians to help pay for the child’s care.

The bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. John Lamping, of St. Louis.

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The council on Monday night defeated a proposal to limit penalties for possession of the drug and declined to place an alternative proposal on the August ballot.

Supporters of the proposals said they would meet later to decide what their next step might be, The Springfield News-Leader reported.

The proposal would have required the city to charge some first- and second-time offenders who had 35 grams or less of marijuana with municipal infractions, rather than criminal misdemeanors. Exemptions also would have allowed suspects to be prosecuted in state court for multiple offenses or when other crimes are committed, or at the discretion of the county prosecutor.

Last summer, proponents gathered enough signatures to put the issue to a public vote, but council members declined to put it on the November ballot. Instead, the council approved the petition and then repealed it at the first opportunity.

In response, the propenents’ attorney, Chip Sheppard, worked with city staff and Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky to draft an amended proposal, with a goal of putting it on the August ballot.

The council voted 6-2 to not approve the first proposal, and then agreed unanimously not to put the alternative up for a vote.

Opponents argued that the decriminalization of marijuana possession should be done by the state, if at all.

Mayor Bob Stephens said people who use marijuana know it’s illegal.

“It becomes a willful violation,” Stephens said. “I don’t see any reason to lessen the penalties on that.”

Councilmen Doug Burlison was one of only two council members to support the proposed change.

“We mark people for life when they are arrested for a marijuana charge … Is this a real crime that people in this community need to be up in arms about?” asked Burlison. “I think we’ve learned that prohibition … is not a good policy.”

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Jason Doyle, Assignment Editor at KOCO in Oklahoma City talks about today in Oklahoma

Regional CEO of the Red Cross, Cindy Erickson joins Mark to talk about how you can help.

Broadcaster Bill McDermott joins the show to discuss the upcoming Chelseam-Manchester soccer game at Busch Stadium

“As elected officials, it is your responsibility to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority,” Missouri Rep. Kathie Conway, R-St. Charles, said, urging St. Charles City councilmen to vote against the proposal.

“Let’s not be antiquated, let’s get with it,” a supporter of the ban said. “Everything comes from the coasts and it’s coming this way and we are the last ones ones to get it.”

For others, the argument was a legal matter.

“This is not about public health, this is about private property rights,” an opponent to the ban said.

“You have a right to flail your arms around but when it comes in contact with my nose, your rights have ended,” another resident countered.

“We all have choices, we all don’t agree on everything but you have to respect other people’s rights, other people’s freedoms,” one man said.

Almost all in attendance Monday agreed in their opposition to an exemption for Ameristar Casino.

“Decide on principle where you stand – individual rights or public health or private property – but make sure that whatever you stand for, it is fair and it is even,” another resident said. “Otherwise you are never going to hear the end of it.”

City council members now have a few decision to make: whether to propose a ban, and with what exceptions, if any.

The Executive Committee voted 12-3 on legislation to ban the delivery, sale or transfer of ammunition feeding devices of more than 10 rounds after emotional testimony from the families of two first-graders who died in the Newtown, Conn., shooting in December that claimed 26 lives.

And it included a sharp retort from the legislation’s sponsor to a Republican asking questions about an exception for using the magazines to depict violence in Illinois-made movies.

Illinois has failed repeatedly to enact an assault-weapons ban since a federal prohibition expired in 2004. The issue was infused with new urgency after a movie theater shooting in Colorado last summer and Newtown on Dec. 14.

Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son, Daniel, died at Sandy Hook, said the police investigation showed killer Adam Lanza made a conscious decision to leave smaller-capacity magazines behind.

“He knew that by bringing the high-capacity magazines, he could kill a lot more people, and he did,” Barden testified.

The sponsor, Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge, and other supporters believe that except for police officers and the military, gun owners don’t need magazines that quickly feed 30 or more rounds of ammunition. But sports-shooting events are also an exception in the legislation, which would not confiscate any existing weapons.

In Dylan Hockley’s classroom at Sandy Hook, Lanza’s need to reload allowed 11 children to escape, Dylan’s mother, Nicole Hockley, testified.

“If the shooter’s magazines had held 10 rounds instead of 30, forcing him to reload many more times, what additional opportunities could have been available for someone to disarm him, or for more children to escape?” she said.

But Todd Vandermyde, Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, showed committee members a photo he said depicted Chicago police officers holding semi-automatic AR-15s to guard the home of a slain colleague and said the Illinois governor’s security detail is issued handguns outfitted for magazines of more than 10 rounds.

“If it’s good enough to protect their lives, and it’s good enough for them for the protection of their families, then why is my family worth any less?” Vandermyde asked. “I’m on the road as much as all of you are, away from home, and these are exactly the types of tools that I leave in the hands of my family to protect themselves.”

Jay Keller, of the Illinois Firearms Manufacturers Association, said members told him a law limiting magazine size would force them to leave Illinois. That perplexed Senate supporters, who said the firearms-builders could still sell their wares in other states, just not in Illinois.

Keller said another client, the Motion Picture Association of America, would no longer oppose the bill now that Kotowski had amended it to exempt the use of the magazines in filming movies.

That led to a curt exchange between Kotowski and Sen. Dale Righter, a Mattoon Republican. Righter asked if Kotowski believed violent movies contributed to societal violence. Kotowski said there were a number of cultural factors that contributed.

So Righter asked the reason for the movie carve-out, and when Kotowski said it was because movie actors use blanks, Righter, attempting to stress that movie violence looks real, said, “I would hope they’re not using live-round ammunition in movies, senator, and I’m assuming that the actors who fall over are not really dead.”

Kotowski accused Righter of trying to “minimize the impact” of high-capacity magazines.

“When someone gets access to a 100-capacity ammunition magazine and they use it in a crime,” Kotowski said, “we have real-life dead bodies.”

The bill is SB1002.

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A special committee has been charged with commissioning an independent study to provide a “comprehensive analysis of the taxation and governance issues.”

The joint House and Senate panel will submit recommendations for proposed legislation to legislative leaders by the end of this year.

Lawmakers created the committee shortly before ending their 2013 session on Friday. A similar panel met in 2012 but lawmakers want to study the issue further before pressing forward with legislation.

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Gov. Jay Nixon said Monday that Alan Freeman has stepped down to return to his previous private-sector job as president and CEO of Grace Hill Health Centers Inc. Freeman’s resignation will take effect May 31.

Nixon said deputy director Brian Kinkade will again take over as acting Social Services director. Kinkade also filled in as director from July 31, 2011, until Freeman was appointed last Dec. 26.

Freeman’s departure comes one week after Ian McCaslin was replaced as director of the department’s Medicaid division.

Nixon this year pushed for an expansion of the Medicaid program, but the Legislature defeated that proposal.

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KMOV’s Chris Nagus discusses his latest investigation into government waste.

Real Clear Politics’ Washington Editor Carl Cannon talks about “Richard Milhous Obama.”

Illinois and Missouri are in disagreement over naming an almost completed bridge that will carry I-70. Earlier this month, the Illinois House passed a joint resolution to name the span the Veterans Memorial Bridge. But lawmakers in Missouri insist it should bear the name of late St. Louis Cardinals star Stan “The Man” Musial – the Stan Span, for short.

“I haven’t talked to Gov. (Jay) Nixon about it yet. I look forward to doing that,” said Gov. Pat Quinn. “I personally feel that the bridge should be honoring our veterans and so I think we need to sit down and talk about that.”

Pressed on the issue, Quinn says he “was a big fan” of Musial and heard his 3,000th hit because Quinn was sick and didn’t attend school that day. Quinn suggested combining the names – Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge – saying it was something “we could live with.”

Some suggest that it may take just as long to agree on a name as it took to agree on financing and build the bridge. For now, as work continues to complete the bridge, it remains nameless.

“(The General Assembly) set the rate, at that time, of $20,000 for bodily injury and $15,000 for property damage. That has not changed in 24 years,” Fine said.

Fine experienced the situation first-hand when he husband was hit by a distracted driver, and had to have his arm amputated. The driver’s liability insurance covered only $20,000 of the $500,000 cost.

“The insurance companies say the yearly increase (in premiums) will be minimal. I can’t put a figure on it but somebody threw around maybe $75 a year,” Fine said.

S.B. 1898 increases coverage of injury or death for one person from $20,000 to $25,000, two or more people from $40,000 to $50,000, and property damage from $15,000 to $20,000. The bill has passed the House Judiciary Committee.

The job of leading that review has been given to St. Louis Operations Director Eddie Roth.

Last week, a federal grand jury indicted 43-year-old Thomas “Dan” Stritzel, the city’s chief park ranger, and 55-year-old deputy parks commissioner Joseph Vacca. The indictment released Thursday accuses each man of three mail-fraud counts, alleging they men used various schemes to spend $465,000 on vehicle leases, credit card bills and other expenses.

Prosecutors say the theft, allegedly committed over the course of seven years, was so clever it would have been almost impossible to detect. Still, Roth says department heads are going to discern how to make their systems even more secure.

“We’re going to have a bunch of really smart people sitting around the table and understanding this and each step and each detail so we can think through if there’s anything we can do better,” he said. “The supply department, the law department, the comptroller. We have a lot of really outstanding people with a good insight into how to have secure systems.”

Roth says one problem with the Parks Department case, which he calls a “sophisticated scheme,” is that officials allegedly involved were the ones who should have been watching for fraud.

Sometimes, success is in the effort. But ultimately, success is often judged by results.

When the Missouri Legislature adjourned its annual session this past week, the Republican majority claimed it was a successful effort even “historic” and “monumental” based on the measures they considered and approved. Yet if results are what matter, their success may ultimately depend upon the decisions of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.

Several of the Republicans’ priority bills could get vetoed by Nixon. If that happens, there may be a bifurcated definition of success.

“It will be successful politically,” said Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, “but the Legislature will be criticized again for not turning their commitments into policy substance.”

Consider some of the priorities passed by the Republican-led Legislature:

An income tax cut for individuals and businesses is projected to reduce state revenues by about $700 million when fully phased in. It’s perhaps the most philosophically pure Republican measure of the session. Just four of the 134 Republicans in the House and Senate voted against it. The reduction in income tax rates would be the first in Missouri since 1921.

Yet Nixon has indicated that he likely will veto the legislation because of the potential drain on state revenues. To override his veto could require every single Republican in the House to toe the party line during a September veto session.

A bill touted by Republicans as the “paycheck protection act” would require some public employee unions to get annual written consent from members to deduct dues from their paychecks and spend money on political activities. Republicans call it “labor reform. “

Labor unions typically support Democratic candidates and have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Nixon’s prior campaigns. Not a single Democratic lawmaker voted for the measure. Although Nixon has not said much publicly about the legislation, a veto would appear likely. And Republicans don’t seem to have enough support override a rejection.

Legislation promoted by Republicans as a protection of Second Amendment rights would declare federal gun regulations unenforceable in Missouri. Among other things, the bill also would allow special “protection officers” to carry concealed guns in schools and let people with concealed-carry permits openly tout firearms up to 16 inches long.

Nixon has not said what he will do with the bill, but another veto is possible. After the Legislature adjourned Friday, he said there are “very real legal issues” with attempting to nullify federal law. And Nixon previously expressed concerns about putting guns in schools.

Tax cuts, gun rights and anti-union measures all play to core Republican constituencies.

House Speaker Tim Jones and Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey both cited those measures on their list of accomplishments, which also included education legislation and a financial fix for an insolvent state fund for disabled workers.

“We have a vision for the state and we expressed what that was and we worked toward those goals,” said Dempsey, R-St. Charles. “I think that’s what the people expect from their elected leaders, and that’s what we provided.”

In an effort to win passage, Republicans moderated several of the measures that are now pending before Nixon.

They agreed to phase-in the income tax cuts over 10 years and made them contingent upon continued growth in state revenues of at least $100 million annually. After initially seeking to ban automatic paycheck deductions for members of public sector unions, Republicans settled on merely requiring annual written consent. The provision allowing trained “protection officers” to carry guns in schools was pared back from an original idea that would have let any teacher with a concealed gun permit pack a weapon without needing approval from local administrators.

Republican legislative leaders used words such as “reasonable” and “measured” and “responsible” to describe the measures sent to Nixon, even as some Democrats denounced them as “extreme.”

Jones said there was “a release of ideas and of progress” that had been pent up among lawmakers, and a gubernatorial veto wouldn’t diminish the Legislature’s accomplishments.

“I look at it as a success if the General Assembly did it,” said Jones, R-Eureka. “The governor obviously is of a different political persuasion.”

Many officials in Washington, D.C., already define success as taking positions on policies rather than actually enacting them, said George Connor, head of the political science department at Missouri State University. It appears that same mentality is growing among lawmakers in Jefferson City, he said.

“My sense of the Missouri Legislature is that they do not have to actually enact their priorities in order to claim victory,” Connor said, “because this is about re-election more than it is policy, and I think that’s a national phenomenon that has finally trickled down to Missouri in a pretty substantive way.”

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When lawmakers left town on Friday they had soundly defeated Nixon’s plan to expand Medicaid coverage to 260,000 adults by using almost $900 million from the federal government. Nixon had dubbed the expansion as the “smart” and “right thing to do.”

But Republicans rejected Nixon’s plans from the start and argued the state could not afford the expansion if the federal government reneged on its promise to fund 100 percent of the cost for the first three years and 90 percent after 2022.

“Hundreds of thousands of working Missourians will needlessly go without health coverage, and the dollars that Missouri taxpayers sent to Washington will be spent in other states instead,” Nixon said after the Legislature adjourned Friday.

House leaders wanted to use the Medicaid debate as an opportunity to instill “market-based” changes to the existing program while expanding coverage to fewer adults than envisioned under President Barack Obama’s health care law. But those efforts stalled after the Senate showed little interest in tackling the issue this year.

“Expanding Medicaid to the tune of putting a billion new dollars into a system that I think is really troubled was never on our agenda. I feel that the governor dragged us into that agenda after the election on something he did not run on,” said House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka.

Nixon announced his support for Medicaid expansion on Nov. 29 and began a public campaign trying to pressure Republicans into backing his plan. He held 32 press conferences across the state and met with House and Senate Republicans behind closed doors.

But during the governor’s final push for Medicaid expansion, Republicans diverted their attention to a full-scale investigation into his administration over new drivers’ license procedures that required applicants’ personal documents to be scanned into a state computer system.

Lawmakers were concerned the scanned documents, including birth certificates and concealed weapons permits, could be shared with the federal government. Although administration officials denied that the scanned copies would be shared, Republicans learned through their investigation that a list of Missouri gun-permit holders had twice been compiled for the Missouri State Highway Patrol to be shared with a federal agent in the Social Security Administration.

The situation came to a head during Nixon’s final public Medicaid expansion rally on April 16 inside the Capitol rotunda. That morning he announced the Revenue Department would no longer scan gun permits but would continue scanning other documents. After the event, he expressed frustration that Republicans were only focusing on the licensing procedures and called it “a major kerfuffle” intended by Republicans to “divert the attention of the public.”

Despite passing on Medicaid proposals, Republican leaders and Nixon were able to find some common ground this year. Replenishing an insolvent fund for injured workers was a shared priority, and lawmakers sent the governor a bill that would allow the state to start settling a backlog of more than 30,000 pending claims against the disability fund. Nixon has also already signed into law measures reinstating expired tax credits on certain charitable donations and creating new tax breaks aimed at attracting amateur sporting events.

But other Nixon priorities were dead on arrival in the Legislature. The governor asked lawmakers in January to reinstate limits on how much individuals and businesses can contribute to political campaigns. The limits were removed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2008, and Republicans weren’t eager to consider the caps again.

The House didn’t conduct a hearing on the proposal. The limits were discussed briefly on the Senate floor after being pushed by Democrats, but Republicans abruptly ended the debate. Nixon promised to take the issue to the voters if the Legislature didn’t act this year.

“Now that the Legislature has failed to move forward, I’ll be interacting with folks who are interested in moving forward in those areas and lend my council and support where I think it can be impactful,” he said.

The governor’s plan to lengthen the school year by six days also was never considered by Republican lawmakers. He also pushed to scale back existing tax breaks for historic buildings and low-income housing, but that effort died on the last day of session.

Nixon praised the Legislature for going along with some of his budget priorities, including increases to K-12 and higher education funding. He also was successful in securing additional funding for mental health programs, domestic violence shelters and export initiatives.

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Dogtown Alderman Scott Ogilvie says big donations are getting out of hand.

“In the last mayoral campaign that we just finished up, both candidates had donors that contributed in excess of $50,000 per person,” he said. “They both had a couple of those and they were not necessarily residents of the city of St. Louis or even the state.”

Ogilvie’s plan would limit single contributions for the mayor, comptroller, and aldermanic president to $10,000 and no more than $3,000 for individual aldermen. “So that means that’s the most a single person can give to you,” he said.

Ogilvie believes campaign donations have been getting out of hand in St. Louis since 2008, when the state did away with campaign donation limits.

Alderman Shane Cohn has also voiced support for the measure.

“I’m mad. It is un-American, it is wrong, and we have to make sure that this gets fixed,” Missouri’s senior senator said. “There’s a reason Lady Justice wears a blindfold in America. That is because in America, we don’t apply the law based on who you are, who you know, or what you believe. We apply the law equally.”

McCaskill went on to say that the targeting of one group based on political beliefs “infuriates” her.

“We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we’ve got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do with this and make sure that they are removed from the IRS and the word goes out that this is unacceptable,” she said. “It is un-American, it is wrong, and it cannot occur again.”

McCaskill concluded by saying many groups claim to be charities while doing political work and that it is a problem which needs to be fixed “but not in a way that highlights one belief over another.”

KMOX State Capitol Correspondent Phil Brooks discusses today’s closing session of the state legislature.

All of the major television networks revealed their new shows this week. TV Guide’s Matt Roush joins us.

The Eric Holder “I Don’t Know” Song

Conners has hired St. Louis attorney Merle Silverstein. Silverstein issued a letter to media outlets claiming that the corporate order “is the only reason for his silence.”

Conners wrote Monday night that shortly after he interviewed President Obama and his wife in April of 2012, the IRS “started hammering” him.

“At the time, I dismissed the ‘co-incidence’, but now, I have concerns … after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members,” Conners wrote.

Conners issued a brief explanation of his post during the 6 p.m. news Tuesday night, stopping short of apologizing but explaining that his troubles with the IRS started years prior to his 2012 interview with President Obama.

“Any issue he has with the IRS are personal issues. They have nothing to do with our television station KMOV or him as a journalist,” Mike Valentine, vice president for content at Belo, told the website BuzzFeed earlier this week. “As a news anchor, he owes a duty to our viewers to report in an unbiased manner. His Facebook post and his Twitter posts, as a result, were inappropriate. And we don’t condone personal posts that jeopardize the journalistic nature of our business. It’s really that simple.”

“This is not a carry bill,” said the NRA’s Illinois representative, Todd Vandermyde. He spoke to a Senate committee which passed the bill along party lines Thursday afternoon.

The bill gives state police latitude to approve or deny a request for a permit for a gun owner to carry a concealed weapon. Vandermyde said it’s too much latitude; he believes Illinois should be a “shall issue” state, in which most requests would be granted. Instead, he said the bill would give Illinois many ways to deny requests.

Sponsoring State Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago) said it is popular to refer to Illinois as the last holdout among the 50 states, as it is the only state with no concealed carry provision. But Raoul cautioned against believing that the other 49 states have identical rules.

In addition, the police chief in Chicago would have extra consideration to examine concealed-carry applicants. Raoul said that’s because Chicago has an especially dense population. State Sen. Dale Righter (R-Mattoon) asked Raoul about other large cities in the state, such as Rockford, Aurora, and Peoria. Raoul said the mayors of those cities have not contacted him despite knowing since December the state would be working on a bill. When Raoul said the mayor of Chicago had been in contact with him, Righter said, “I have no doubt.”

A federal court threw out Illinois’ concealed-carry ban in December and gave the state until June 9 to come up with a law. The bill could get a full Senate vote Friday.

H.B. 183 passed the Senate Executive Committee.

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Now County Council members say they want answers.

South County Councilman Steve Stenger told KMOX that make no mistake, he wants a new family courthouse and he wants the main courthouse to be renovated, but he says the extra 30 million dollars raises some red flags.

“This isn’t a 30,000 dollar cost overrun, this isn’t even a 1-million dollar cost overrun, this is 30-million dollars” Stenger said. Adding “When you see that, at the same time you see a 10,000 dollar campaign contribution. That just raises a lot of questions.”

Stenger says he won’t go so far as to say he’ll vote against the request, but he says he does think its fishy that Alberici Construction, one of three construction companies bidding for the project, made a campaign contribution just before the funding request came to the council.

Contracting bids for the project are due in June.

County’s Chief Operating Officer Garry Earls said this week that the courthouse project has been in the planning stages for the last 14 years.

House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, praised lawmakers who worked on the compromise.

“We haven’t run from it, we’ve embraced it and it’s been a heavy lift,” Jones said. “This will be one of the crowning successes of this legislative session.”

The problem of the Second Injury Fund has plagued the state for several years. It began when, in 2005, the General Assembly capped the surcharge on worker’s compensation premiums at 3 percent. At the time, the fund had a surplus. Now, the state’s attorney general said it has a shortfall of $32 million.

The fix allows the surcharge to increase up to 6 percent through 2021.

The fund provides payments to workers with prior disabilities who are injured at work and, because of the combination of injuries or a preexisting condition, become partially or totally permanently disabled.

Since the attorney general’s office stopped making settlements in 2009, there are more than 30,000 pending cases working their way through the courts, with an estimated liability of more than $100 million.

In March, more than 1,000 people who were awarded settlements from the Second Injury Fund had their payments withheld because the fund does not have enough money to meet its commitments.

Rep. Ed Schieffer, D-Troy, said he had a constituent who has been waiting five years to get payment from the fund and desperately needed the money.

“I would consider this a public debt and I’ve been outraged that we couldn’t deal with this more speedily than we have,” Schieffer said.

The increased surcharge to pay the current obligations fund was combined with limits on who the Second Injury Fund will cover in the future. Under the bill, workers with permanent partial disabilities would not be covered and workers with permanent total disabilities would only be covered if the first injury was work-related or from military service.

The bill also reduces the interest rate on delayed payments from the current 9 percent.

Rep. Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, who shepherded the bill through the House, said the high interest rate and the halting of settlements by the state attorney general, contributed to the high cost of fixing the fund.

“The Second Injury Fund has been taking on water,” Richardson said. “It is now going to cost us twice as much money to dig the SIF out of the hole it’s in than it would’ve taken (three years ago).”

Richardson said not acting to fix the fund would increase the liability to the state. He cited a pending Missouri Supreme Court case in which a lower court indicated the state or businesses could be liable for the unpaid claims against the fund.

“This brings certainty back to the system, brings solvency back to the fund,” Richardson said.

Despite the increased surcharge, business groups have endorsed the solution. Dan Mehan, president and CEO of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said he was happy with the bill.

“We get the trade-off of reform for Second Injury Fund that’s going to reduce the liability going forward,” Mehan said.

Workers’ compensation would cover occupational diseases

Mehan also supported the provision of the bill dealing with changes to the state’s workers’ compensation system.

The bill places occupational diseases exclusively under the state’s workers’ compensation system, limiting the ability of employees suffering from such diseases to sue employers in civil court. The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that occupational diseases is not included under the definition of “accident” in worker’s compensation laws, opening businesses up to civil suits from workers.

The bill also provides an enhanced benefit for occupational diseases from toxic exposure, with an even greater remedy for workers exposed to asbestos who contracted mesothelioma as a result. A person getting benefits under these remedies could not sue in court.

Worker’s diagnosed with the nine specific occupational diseases due to toxic exposure defined by the bill would be entitled to about $157,000 in compensation.

Under the law, businesses would have three options in dealing with potential mesothelioma suits.

The first option would be to join a new fund created by the bill called the “Missouri Mesothelioma Risk Management Fund,” which would be funded by members and pay up to $500,000 to an affected worker or their family. The second is to accept liability for mesothelioma under worker’s compensation or another insurance method, which would again set the amount at $500,000.

If the employer decides not to buy into either option, a worker or worker’s family who is diagnosed with mesothelioma could sue them in civil court.

Richardson said the change was not a cap.

“It’s an additional benefit on top of what a traditional workers’ compensation would pay,” Richardson said.

House Minority Leader Jacob Hummel, D-St. Louis City, argued passionately against the bill, which received some support from his own party. He said he refused to put a price on a human life.

“I don’t believe that someone who is suffering, when someone is suffering a slow, painful death, should have a price tag put on their life,” Hummel said. “Juries look at the human factor and decide what pain and suffering those families have endured.”

Richardson said the enhanced benefit for toxic exposures would be the best in the country.

Rep. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, said he supported the bill in part because it included post-traumatic stress disorder of police officers under occupational diseases and encouraged members to vote for the bill. Webber is a veteran.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Webber said. “Don’t let one or two things you disagree with get in the way of supporting the bill.”

The measure passed by bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate.

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County sheriffs already have the responsibility of receiving concealed-carry applications, reviewing applicants’ backgrounds and issuing paper permits. But under current law, recipients take the paper permits to a local licensing office overseen by the Department of Revenue to receive a photo ID card noting their concealed-carry status.

The Senate voted 24-5 Thursday to send the measure to Gov. Jay Nixon. It cleared the House late Wednesday night.

Republican lawmakers began pushing for the legislation after learning the Revenue Department compiled a list of gun permit holders that was shared with a federal agent in the Social Security Administration. That revelation came during an investigation into the department’s new licensing procedures, which require applicants’ documents to be scanned into a state computer system.

The bill’s supporters said removing the Revenue Department from the gun permitting process could prevent the list of holders from being shared again.

“We don’t have a central collection point anymore, so it is more difficult to give it up and probably the most important thing is that the sheriffs were already doing all this stuff anyway,” said Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla.

The department compiled the list of permit holders at the request of the state Highway Patrol who had agreed to assist a federal agent investigating Social Security fraud. Republicans called the list-sharing an invasion of privacy, but the Highway Patrol said it was a legal exchange of information between law enforcement officials. The federal agent, Keith Schilb, told a Senate panel earlier this year that he had not been able to access the list of Missouri permit holders because of technical problems.

Lawmakers gave a sheriffs’ taskforce $2 million in next year’s operating budget to help them begin the process of printing the permits. The Missouri Sheriffs’ Association said it would take over the responsibility of printing the licenses as long as it had state funding.

Under the legislation, Missouri’s new concealed weapons permits will contain the name, address, date of birth, gender, height, weight, hair and eye color, and signature of the holder. Applicants would be required to show a state-issued photo ID when applying for the permit but photos won’t be on the license.

The legislation would also require school personnel to undergo training sponsored by law enforcement on responding to an intruder in school buildings and would give school districts the option to teach an National Rifle Association-sponsored program to first graders.

It includes another provision that would allow teachers and other school personnel to take active shooter response training as part of their employee training. Although the training is optional, Brown said many school districts are already adopting similar guidelines.

One Democrat voted against the bill as a “protest” and said the Legislature should not be focusing on firearms legislation.

“I am totally against any gun bills right now. … We spend way too much time on talking about guns this session,” said Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis.

The Republican-led Legislature already sent Nixon a gun bill earlier this year that would declare all federal gun control laws unenforceable within the state. It would also allow designated school personnel to carry concealed weapons in school buildings after undergoing training and lower the minimum age required to get a concealed gun permit to 19.

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The state already has a small number of what are known as veterans treatment courts. The bill sent to Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday would allow all judicial circuits to create them.

The measure also provides for cases to be transferred to circuits with veterans treatment courts from circuits without them if all parties agree.

Defendants whose cases are handled in such courts could be referred to substance abuse and mental health treatment.

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Facing a mandatory quitting time of 6 p.m. Friday, legislative leaders planned to make one final attempt to pass legislation that would create several new business incentives while scaling back the amount of tax credits awarded annually for the renovation of historic buildings and the construction of low-income housing.

The agenda for the final day could also include one last attempt in the Senate to refer a transportation sales tax to the 2014 ballot.

Even if both of those matters fail, Republican legislative leaders already were declaring the session a success. They highlighted the passage of a potential $700 million income tax cut, new labor organization restrictions, numerous pro-gun measures, a tweak of the state’s education laws governing unaccredited schools and a bill that would restock an insolvent state fund for disabled workers, among other things.

The tax credit overhaul also was listed as a priority by some lawmakers and Gov. Jay Nixon when the annual session began in January. But as in the past, House and Senate members had different opinions about how greatly the state should curtail the historic and low-income housing tax credits.

A plan being circulated for final-day consideration would reduce annual tax credits for historic preservation projects to $90 million from the current cap of about $140 million. It would gradually lower the cap for the main low-income housing tax credit to $110 million annually from the current $135 million.

House Speaker Tim Jones called those “significant cuts,” though some senators said the reductions still did not go far enough.

The proposal also would create several new incentives for businesses, including ones targeted at computer data centers and investors in startup technology companies. And it would extend the expiration date on a somewhat controversial tax credit that has allowed a developer to amass a large amount of land in north St. Louis.

“It’s the first time we’ve moved a significant tax credit reform bill this far into the process,” said Jones, R-Eureka. “Now it’s really up to the Senate as to whether or not they want to bring this across the finish line, or if they can.”

Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said he was going to make an attempt to do so Friday.

But Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah, said he would block the legislation.

“There is no agreement on a tax credit reform bill,” Lager said. “These people are drunken sailors. … They cannot quench their thirst to spend. No way is that bill passing.”

Similar measures have failed in each of the past three regular legislative sessions and in a fall 2011 special session that had been called by the governor for the specific purpose of overhauling the state’s tax credit programs.

Last year, Missouri redeemed about $629 million of tax credits, which directly reduce the amount of money the state receives in tax revenues.

In addition to the broad-based bill curtailing and creating tax credits, another measure pending on the final day would merge four of Missouri’s current business incentives into a new program called Missouri Works. In general, the new program would make it easier for businesses to qualify for incentives but would also give the Department of Economic Development greater flexibility in determining how much aid they should get.

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The House gave the bill final approval Thursday on a vote of 110-36.

The measure brings Missouri into compliance with federal restrictions on purchases with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families electronic cash benefit cards.

It also prohibits welfare recipients from using the cash benefits for any merchandise marketed exclusively for adults, and increases the penalties for people convicted of spending their benefits improperly.

Supporters contend the measure will prevent fraud and abuse in the welfare system. Opponents say it places unnecessary restrictions on where people can buy food.

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Anchorman Larry Conners has hired attorney Merle Silverstein. A letter on behalf of Silverstein was sent to all media outlets Friday. It stated Larry Conners has been “advised by corporate from making statements, posting on Facebook, or participating in interviews on the IRS issue. That is the only reason for his silence.”

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Sources at KMOV have confirmed that longtime anchorman Larry Conners will “take a few days off” after comments he made on Facebook about the Internal Revenue Service.

Conners wrote Monday night that shortly after he interviewed President Obama and his wife in April of 2012, the IRS “started hammering” him. Conners did not explain how the IRS targeted him.

“At the time, I dismissed the ‘co-incidence’, but now, I have concerns … after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members,” Conners wrote.

Conners issued a brief explanation of his post during the 6 p.m. news Tuesday night, stopping short of apologizing but explaining that his troubles with the IRS actually started years prior to his 2012 interview with President Obama.

The Facebook comments drew a rebuke from KMOV’s parent company Belo Corp.

“Any issue he has with the IRS are personal issues. They have nothing to do with our television station KMOV or him as a journalist,” Mike Valentine, vice president for content at Belo, told the website BuzzFeed. “As a news anchor, he owes a duty to our viewers to report in an unbiased manner. His Facebook post and his Twitter posts, as a result, were inappropriate. And we don’t condone personal posts that jeopardize the journalistic nature of our business. It’s really that simple.”

The measure passed late Wednesday night would exempt the Doe Run Resources Corp. from punitive damages if the court determines the company is making a “good faith” effort to clean up the contaminated sites. Otherwise, punitive damages would be capped at $2.5 million per lawsuit.

The company’s potential liability stems from old lead mines in St. Francois County that Doe Run said it is working with the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the site. The mines ceased operations in 1972, before Doe Run was purchased by its current ownership. But people continue to sue the company, alleging lead contamination from the mining sites.

Under the legislation, Doe Run would be protected from large jury awards, such a 2011 decision in which a St. Louis jury awarded $320 million in punitive damages against Flour Corp., another lead company, for its role in pollution. Doe Run is currently the defendant in 11 lawsuits in St. Louis.

“We would not be able to afford those punitive damages,” said Doe Run Vice President of Law Matt Wohl.

A 2005 Missouri law caps punitive damages at $500,000 or five times the amount of actual damages, whichever is higher. But many of the lawsuits against Doe Run were filed before those caps were put into place. Wohl is counting on the punitive damage exemptions and caps to apply retroactively to the cases against the company.

The measure passed by the House 94-63 late Wednesday after it cleared the Senate 22-10 would exempt lead mining companies from punitive damages at sites that stopped operating before January 1975, as long as the current owner is making “good-faith efforts to remediate such sites.”

The bill would not limit other types of damages, such as the costs for medical treatment or lost wages.

Opponents argued the Legislature would be setting up a special system for Doe Run that would not apply to other companies and lawsuits. They also were concerned about the seriousness of the lawsuits involving lead contamination.

“My concern is that we have pending litigation, and it is very serious litigation, because we are talking about children that have developmental disabilities because of their alleged exposure to these toxins,” said Senate Minority Leader Jolie Justus, D-Kansas City.

Supporters countered that Doe Run was in a tough situation, because they purchased these mines from other companies after they had ceased operations.

“I don’t want to set up some special thing either, but this is a unique company,” said Sen. Ryan McKenna, D-Crystal City.

Wohl said he is hopeful the governor will sign the bill but declined to speculate about Doe Run’s future in Missouri.

The Doe Run provision was tacked on to legislation that would also extend the expiration date on environmental permit fees collected by the Department of Natural Resources.

The fees are paid by business and municipalities to get permission from the department to dump wastewater into the state’s rivers and streams. The department’s ability to collect those fees would expire in September unless Nixon approves the legislation. The bill would extend the expiration date until September 2018.

The lead lawsuits bill is HB650.

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Protesters rallied outside of Jimmy John’s in Soulard at noon Thursday.

Last week, hundreds of fast food workers around St. Louis stopped cooking food and started picketing in an effort to get higher wages, better working conditions, and the right to form a union without retaliation.

Organizer Marteen Rafinan says many workers who went on strike last week saw results.

“That’s actually happened in a lot of our places here in St. Louis where people have been offered more hours, been offered slight increases in salary,” he said. “That is because what the corporations would like to do is keep these workers quiet.”

Still, Rafinan said, it isn’t enough.

“Some have seen some change but basically the story is the same,” he said. “It’s very low wages, no benefits, no paid sick leave, very little control over hours.”

Most protesters were members of Missouri Jobs with Justice. No Jimmy John’s workers joined the protest.

A federal grand jury indicted 43-year-old Thomas “Dan” Stritzel, the city’s chief park ranger, and 55-year-old deputy parks commissioner Joseph Vacca.

The indictment released Thursday accuses each man of three mail-fraud counts, alleging they men used various schemes to spend $465,000 on vehicle leases, credit card bills and other expenses.

The fraud allegedly occurred over the course of seven years but Slay said Thursday that federal prosecutors tell him the thefts were not something the city could have uncovered on its own.

“Based on the information that they have, this was kind of done offline so it’s nothing that our normal processes of supervision and auditing would have caught,” the mayor said.

Slay says the city is “re-doubling back” to see if there is similar fraud occurring or anyone else involved.

“Particularly those involved in having money flow through their departments, to double check some of their processes and their people to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen in other areas of city government,” he said.

The bill (SB1) sent to the governor Thursday marks a compromise among some business groups and attorneys who represent injured workers.

The bill temporarily doubles the surcharge paid by businesses to finance a depleted state fund for disabled workers who suffer additional job-related injuries. Payments from the Second Injury Fund have been delayed to more than 1,000 people because of a shortfall.

The legislation also places occupational diseases under the umbrella of the workers’ compensation system and provides enhanced payments for people suffering from asbestos-induced cancer. Recent court rulings had allowed claims for job-related illnesses to be pursed in the courts.

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Dooley deferred comment to the County’s Chief Operating Officer Garry Earls, who says there are some big problems that are going to cost a lot to fix.

“In the course of our development of the project, as we looked at this project further the part of the work that is related to the old courthouse appears to be far more expensive than we had originally estimated,” Earls told KMOX. One example he gave was the installation of a new asbestos system.

Contracting bids for the project are due in June. One of three front runners, Alberici Construction, made a campaign contribution to Dooley on May 7th.

One week later, Dooley asked for more money for the project.

Earls said the courthouse renovation project has been in the planning stages for the last 14 years.

City Council members deadlocked Wednesday night over the proposal.

Newly elected Councilwoman Cindy Pool was considered by many to be the swing vote. She got groans from the audience for voting “no”.

“My constituents told me that they wanted this to stop,” Pool said afterwards. “Not necessarily for him to be back in office, but they wanted this to go away.”

The 3-3 tie came after passionate pleas from residents. One said: “There will be no moving forward until this is resolved. You can end it tonight and do the right thing, or continue to spend our money and make us a laughingstock of St. Louis County.”

Paul, who was elected last year, was ousted in April for allegedly illegally communicating with a Walmart developer and failing to keep control over council meetings, among other charges.

He’s now appealing the impeachment in St. Louis County Circuit Court, along with lawsuits against individual council members and the city.

Mayor Pro Tem Matt Pirrello, a leading figure during Paul’s impeachment trial, told KMOX News that he’d like to know how the ex-mayor is paying for defense attorney Chet Pleban.

“I don’t know where he has an unlimited bottomless pit of money to pursue all of this,” Pirrello said. “I think one of you all should be asking him that question. Where is all your money coming from?”

Paul has deferred KMOX questions about his personal expenses.

Pirrello: “The fact that he is continuing to perpetuate all these different lawsuits is only wasting taxpayer’s dollars. We have to defend ourselves. He is putting us in that situation.”

Pleban took the opposite approach, noting that the council could’ve avoided further expense by reinstating Paul.

The council voted unanimously to hold a special election for Mayor in November and also to hire independent counsel to advise them on issuing bonds in regards to the tax increment financing passed last year for a proposed Walmart.

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But that group pledged on Wednesday to push for the criminal code revision next year when lawmakers have more time.

The measure (HB210) is the product of a Missouri Bar committee charged with updating the criminal code for the first time since 1979. It would create new classes of felonies and misdemeanors and give judges more flexibility in sentencing.

Democratic Sen. Jolie Justus, of Kansas City, is one of the overhaul’s sponsors. She says time ran out to pass the 1,000-page bill this year.

Missouri lawmakers end their annual session at 6 p.m. Friday.

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