Governor Jay Nixon (D) traveled to Warrensburg this morning to sign SB 997, a higher education bill, on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) – in Warrensburg – June 16, 2016.

Governor Nixon spoke with media after the bill signing:

Question: ….Governor, as you’re looking at bills that you have to consider Senate Bill, uh, 656 is coming up. Where are you with that?

Governor Jay Nixon (D): Which one? I’m sorry.

Question: That’s the, uh, the, uh, um stand your ground.

Governor Nixon: Well, I mean, we’re, all the bills go through a pretty, uh, you know, thorough review. Um, you know, that’s one which I’m looking at very carefully because, uh, you know, a few years ago we, we struck a deal to put, uh, sheriffs in a position where they, uh, had the ability to, um, review and, uh, reject, uh, conceal carry permits. Uh, to move to a point which you took that power away from sheriffs, took that responsibility away from them and their communities is something that, uh, that, that we’re looking at very, very carefully. But, I, I haven’t made a final decision on the bill other than to say that, uh, when, when the legislature comes and, and moves policy pretty significantly from where we all agreed it should be a couple years ago that gets a very close review.

Question: So, are you getting any kind of public, uh, feedback on, on the bill?

Governor Nixon: Um, when I, when I make that decision I’ll do that publicly for sure. But we’re still in the bill review process and still, uh, gathering facts and information. And, and, uh, when I make my final decision I’ll certainly make that public.

Question: I have a question on the voter ID law. I understand that’s actually a two part law. Uh, I have it on good authority and the, as I understand it one part puts it on the ballot, that’s pretty much a gotta do thing, but what’s that second part that you have veto power over?

Governor Nixon: Yeah, the first part is to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot for this, this fall. I placed it on the November ballot so that the most people would have a chance to see, uh, whether they wanted to, uh, to support that or not. The second piece is they went ahead and passed in, in essence what’s called implementing legislation, uh, before that vote. Um, I look at this, this bill, um, you know, my position is we should make voting available to as many people as we possibly can. I mean, and we should make it as easy as we possibly can for people to vote. Uh, and, uh, so we’re reviewing this, this is relatively similar to a measure that I vetoed a few years ago, uh, that would have, uh, made it very expensive and difficult, especially for senior citizens and others that didn’t have driving privileges to, uh, to get a separate state issued ID. So, um, it’s not an area that my, my general philosophy is let’s make voting, uh, easier for folks, um, so this kind of, uh, comes at that. But, I haven’t made a final decision on that, but we’ll, uh, we’ll be acting on that one relatively quickly.

Question: [crosstalk] If you were to in theory, not that you’re going to, veto this what would it do in terms of the effect on the vote that [crosstalk] comes in November?

Governor Nixon: Well, it, wouldn’t really effect the vote in, directly, in the sense other than it would be, I would, I would lay out what I thought the, my position was at that time. But, you could, you could, uh, the public would then have to vote and assuming that veto was, uh, uh, upheld, uh, then the legislature has to come back next year and put, put rules and regulations in this. So, um, but, uh, I think we’re a long way to the finish line there. I do think that the basic philosophy I have is let’s make voting more open and easy, and especially for, for seniors and, and other folks that don’t drive. Um, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s , it’s extremely challenging to say that, uh, we should make it more difficult for them to cast what is, uh, one of the fundamental rights of citizenry….

Previously:

Voter ID and the GOP art of hoodwinkery (April 7, 2016)

CCS HCS SB 656: hypocrisy (May 14, 2016)