Boone County delegation makes nice

Rep. Chris Kelly could have saved a few bucks on his phone bill if he’d just been prescient enough to add several members of the Boone County legislative delegation to his calling plan before the session started.

Kelly, D-Columbia, said he had the numbers of Rep. Steve Hobbs, R-Mexico, and Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, on speed dial during the 2009 legislative session. It wasn’t about friendship; it was about necessity as the three worked together on a slew of bills favorable to Boone County.

“We talked I bet a dozen times,” Kelly said. “One of the three of us would call the other one and say, ‘Oops, ‘X’ happened. What do we do now?’ And then we figured it out, and then we’d do something.”

Legislators who represent Boone County seemed to work in concert this session and across party lines. While they did not pass everything on their agenda, lawmakers say their close working relationship played a big role in nabbing funding for building the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center in Columbia.

It wasn’t always this way.

Local lawmakers, for instance, were ultimately divided on a plan to use assets from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority for capital improvement projects. The plan originally included money for a Health Sciences Center but later was altered to pay for the $31.2 million cancer center.

After the 2008 election cycle, the delegation changed dramatically. Kelly and Schaefer ousted two incumbent legislators. And Reps. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, and Mary Still, D-Columbia, won primaries to replace two lawmakers who chose to run for statewide office.

Rep. Paul Quinn – a Democrat from Monroe City who represents portions of northern Boone County – said the influx of new members made a fresh start possible.

“I think we worked well together,” Quinn said. “All of them came aboard and wanted to work together. You’ve seen a lot of cooperation between us. We talked together, reached out a lot to make sure we were on the same page. And it was a good year.”

Schaefer, Hobbs and Kelly ultimately struck an alliance that ended up paying dividends as the session went forward.

One example of this working relationship could be seen in the handling of a bonding bill aimed at creating capital improvement projects at colleges and universities. After Kelly introduced the bill, Hobbs quickly passed it out of a committee that he chaired. When it passed out of the House, Schaefer handled the measure on the Senate floor.

That reciprocity extended to other issues. Kelly and Schaefer both sponsored legislation that would allow the city of Ashland to establish a tax to build a hotel, as well as a bill to hand over the Mid-Missouri Mental Health Center to the University of Missouri.

The mental health center bill ultimately was sent to the governor, but the other two bills failed to pass. Kelly said work throughout the session made a big difference when an appropriations bill funding myriad projects with federal stimulus money came up for the debate.

“It’s like an infield,” Kelly said in May. “When that shortstop knows where he’s throwing the ball, he knows the other guy is going to be there.”
The appropriations bill allocated hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus money to the state for a variety of projects, including a statewide police communications system, St. Louis’ METRO transportation system and the state’s public defender system. With MOHELA suffering from financial woes, lawmakers decided to infuse stimulus cash to fund remaining projects – including the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center.

While the bill navigated a somewhat treacherous legislative path, it managed to pass a day before a mandatory deadline to pass legislation dealing with the budget. Kelly said Hobbs, Webber and Still all worked hard to keep the stimulus bill alive after some bumps in the legislative road.

Schaefer credited an open line of communication among Boone County lawmakers with keeping the University of Missouri-related programs on track.

“When things come together in this building, it tends to happen very fast,” Schaefer said in May. “And if you don’t have everything lined up and everybody’s not communicating, you’ve missed that opportunity. The opportunity usually comes and goes very quickly. And I think it’s a testament to the fact that in addition to working very hard, we all kept in communication.”

Several other factors contributed to Boone County lawmakers’ achievements.

It helped, for instance, that all three lawmakers are members of a budget-writing committee. Kelly – who served as budget chair during a prior legislative stint – served as the ranking Democratic member of the House Budget Committee.

In addition to being a member of the Budget Committee, Hobbs is close to House Speaker Ron Richard – a Joplin Republican who has a powerful influence over legislation. Freshman Still previously served as an aide to Gov. Jay Nixon when he was attorney general and to former Gov. Bob Holden.

Many of the candidates – such as Kelly and Schaefer – campaigned last year on working with the opposition to get things done. Kelly even drew flak from his Democratic colleagues for voting with Republicans on some issues.

The lack of political competition also could have played a role, especially in a legislature where House members eye a jump to a Senate seat. Kelly has said repeatedly he has no interest in running against Schaefer. Quinn and Hobbs live outside Schaefer’s senatorial district, and Webber can’t run for the Senate in 2012 because he’ll be under 30 years old. Still would have to give up two more terms in a Democratic-leaning House seat to run against Schaefer.

But the good working relationship may come down to the fact that the legislative contingent is personally close.

“You know, Chris beat my friend Ed Robb,” Hobbs said in May, referring to the former Republican state representative from Columbia. “And we talked when we first got down here. And I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, I kind of like Chris.’ And then we started working together, and found out… when we team up, we really get things done.”

Hobbs said he worked closely with Schaefer when the freshman senator worked for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

“We’re not Republicans or Democrats. We represent Boone County,” Hobbs added. “If we work together, we just might be able to do something special.”