FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 816

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES SMITH (85) (Sponsor), PACE AND GARDNER (Co-sponsors).

1913L.01I    D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 105, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to members of the Missouri house of representatives.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

           Section A. Chapter 105, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 105.012, to read as follows:

           105.012. 1. Every member of the Missouri house of representatives shall be subject to chemical testing of their urine within sixty days of the start of each legislative session for the purpose of determining drug content. The costs of such testing shall be paid by such member.

           2. To be considered valid, chemical tests of the member’s urine shall be performed according to methods and devices approved by the state department of health and senior services, and shall be performed by licensed medical personnel or by a person possessing a valid permit issued by the state department of health and senior services for this purpose.

           3. A member testing positive for illegal drugs or drugs that have not been lawfully prescribed to such member shall be prohibited from running for any elective office for a period of two years, unless a certified drug treatment program has been completed.

           4. For purposes of this section, “drug” means marijuana, any narcotic drug or controlled substance as defined in chapter 195, or the metabolite of any such substance.

           5. Results of the drug test shall be published on the online member profile of the Missouri house of representatives’ website.

[emphasis in original]

The poppy seed bagel market in Jefferson City could take a hit.

Previously:

HB 474: say goodbye to poppy seed bagels in the Capitol cafeteria (February 6, 2013)

Random? Or mandatory for everyone? Choices, choices.

A bill, introduced today:

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 474

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES BRATTIN (Sponsor), SMITH (120), FITZPATRICK, HANSEN, BAHR, NEELY AND MCGAUGH (Co-sponsors).

0514L.01I    D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 105, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to members of the general assembly.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

           Section A. Chapter 105, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 105.014, to read as follows:

           105.014. 1. Every member of the general assembly shall be subject to random chemical testing of their urine during the legislative session for the purpose of determining drug content. The costs of such testing shall be paid by such member.

           2. To be considered valid, chemical tests of the member’s urine shall be performed according to methods and devices approved by the state department of health and senior services, and shall be performed by licensed medical personnel or by a person possessing a valid permit issued by the state department of health and senior services for this purpose.

           3. A member testing positive for illegal drugs or drugs that have not been lawfully prescribed to such member shall immediately be removed from office and prohibited from running for any elective office for a period of two years.

           4. For purposes of this section, “drug” means marijuana, any narcotic drug or controlled substance as defined in chapter 195, or the metabolite of any such substance.

[emphasis in original]

I’ll believe this is for real when they include corporate CEOs.

The Sunday Post-Dispatch ran an editorial about “The Mean Girls & Boys Club”, which described the most gratuitously nasty bills introduced in the current Missouri legislature:

[A] truly mean bill creates hardship for classes of people without sound public purpose. A truly mean bill is based on prejudice, not fact.

The column spewed mean ideas: cutting COLAs for minimum wage earners; weakening child labor laws; designating the day after Thanksgiving until Dec. 26th as the Christmas Season; requiring welfare recipients to undergo drug testing; requiring Voter ID, which would disenfranchise many elderly, poor and disabled voters; and making it harder for fired workers to prove discrimination.

In yet one more example of the press’s willingness to draw a false equivalence in order to appear unbiased, the list of a dozen legislators who’ve introduced such bills included one Democrat, Maria Chappelle-Nadal. It would be imprudent of the Post to print such a column without a Democrat on the list. Chappelle-Nadal’s supposedly mean bill would require drug testing for those elected to the legislature. But if memory serves, and I can’t find proof of it on the internet, she introduced the bill only as a sarcastic comeback at the people who want to require drug testing of welfare recipients–sort of a “sauce for the goose” move. Since the P-D editorial opened her section with that very phrase, I get the feeling they suspect the same thing about the bill.

Since Chappelle-Nadal is very concerned about finding the funds for testing all welfare recipients, she probably relished introducing a bill that would require those mean Republicans to submit to the test AND pay for it themselves. Like I said, though, the editorial staff had to have at least one Democrat so as not to appear biased, even if including her in the list was … kind of mean.

Hey, editors, it is what it is. The Republicans are the mean ones. And your false equivalence doesn’t get you off the hook with them; all it does is embarrass you.