Session ends: Fisher lauds redistricting, regrets injury fund failure

State Rep. Barney Fisher gave the just-adjourned 96th Missouri General Assembly an "A" in some subjects and an "F" in others Tuesday, lauding its congressional redistricting plan and revision of the Proposition B "puppy mill' amendment OK'd by statewide voters last fall.

The Horton Republican was disappointed over legislators' failure to create a second injury fund in the workman's compensation system, saying he'd asked the governor and attorney general for a special session to take up the issue.

As Chairman of the House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee in Jefferson City, Fisher had also disliked seeing labor unions and trial lawyers nix his plan to keep employees from suing one another for on the job injuries.

"We over-rode Gov. Nixon's veto of the congressional map because

Congressmen Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver like their new districts and the St. Louis and Kansas City representatives gave us the 109 votes we needed," he said. "It would have gone to courts without them.

"The main changes in Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler's 4th District are that she gives up Jefferson City and Cole County and gets Columbia and Boone County, where the University of Missouri is. All the members expressed some dissatisfaction, which probably means it was about right."

Fisher said rescinding key parts of Proposition B "will save Missouri $25 million the first year" because dog breeding is a $1 billion a year industry. The measure was opposed almost everywhere in the state except Kansas City and St. Louis, which heavily backed it.

The revised law provides funding for inspectors, lifts the 50-dog limit on breeding stock and changes requirements for space, food and water.

Fisher said his efforts to establish a second injury fund have now been deep-sixed a half-dozen times since 2005 by lobbyists for the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, AFL-CIO and steelworkers', pipefitters' and carpenters' unions.

Such a fund would be dedicated to reimbursing compensation payments made by employers or their insurers or adjusters to certain injured employees. "I told the attorney general's and governor's offices that this is important enough that we should have a special session," Fisher said, adding that he hadn't had a response.

"We need more urgency to get something passed."

The 125th District representative was pleased the Assembly had sent a bill to Nixon, a Democrat, to increase the accountability of welfare recipients and mandate random drug tests.

He was also gratified that penalties were made more severe for defendants convicted of human trafficking. "A man was just caught in St. Louis kidnapping young girls and holding them in bondage to make videos," Fisher said.

"It's a cousin of illegal immigration and a bigger problem than most people think."

He was chagrined that House Bill 828, to reverse a Missouri Supreme Court decision and save the state's 114 counties and 522 school districts substantial maintenance expenditures, never got a vote in St. Charles Sen. Scott Rupp's Small Business, Insurance and Industrial Relations Committee.

"If a school district wants to restripe the parking lot, they have to pay the prevailing wage," said Fisher. "That means a water maintenance project Albany is doing will cost $61,000 instead of $42,000.

"If a county wants to paint the roof of the courthouse, it'll cost 20 to 50 percent more."

However, Fisher was happy the Assembly limited punitive damages in "nuisance" lawsuits against agricultural producers to $50,000.

He said a small group of out-of-state attorneys has expanded into Missouri and filed some 250 lawsuits against farmers for such matters as raising dust and having calves that bawled at night.

"The big companies like ADM and Smithfield Farms have lawyers, but mom and pop farms with 350 acres are pretty easy and sometimes lucrative targets for environmentalists," Fisher said.

"Calves bawl when they're being weaned. Moses had a problem with that."