JEFFERSON CITY • Newly elected Rep. Keith English is bringing a busload of 50 family members and friends from St. Louis County to the state Capitol today.
A Democrat who will represent Florissant’s 68th District, English is among the roughly one-third of legislators who will be new to the House or Senate when they take the oath of office shortly after noon.
“I’ve just got goose bumps thinking about it,” said English, a union electrician.
Excitement and good will figure to be the main order of the day as the 56 freshman House members and 12 new senators are sworn in alongside their veteran colleagues for the opening of the 2013 session of the Missouri Legislature.
First-day niceties aside, the Republican-controlled Legislature is likely to clash this session with Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon on key business and labor issues.
In the House, the GOP has a 109-52 grip, with two vacancies. That gives Republicans enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto if they stick together. Senate Republicans also have enough members to override, dominating that chamber 24-10.
Even so, some legislators are cautioning that Republicans are unlikely to walk in lockstep. As the GOP has increased its number of House seats, it has picked up more swing districts, where members might not toe the party line.
“You have different views of everything from guns to unions,” said Rep.-elect Kevin Engler, R-Farmington. “To get everybody on the same page and hold the line will always be a challenge.”
Engler is one of six new House members who is not a true freshman. He is returning to the House after exhausting his eight years in the Senate allowed under term limits.
In fact, Engler has been coaching legislators who will be committee chairs for the first time. Running meetings “smoothly and legally” can be tricky when tempers flare, he said.
“I’ll try to give them the best advice possible, but it may be worth what I’m charging them,” he quipped.
The session’s tone will be set today when the Legislature’s leaders give their opening speeches. Eureka Republican Tim Jones is set to begin a full term as House speaker after taking the helm last fall when Steve Tilley quit to become a lobbyist. Across the Rotunda, St. Charles Republican Tom Dempsey is in line to become the Senate president pro tem.
Both men must be elected by colleagues in floor votes, but given the huge Republican majorities, the votes are a formality.
After they give their speeches, Jones and Dempsey are expected to appoint committee chairs and begin assigning bills to committees to get the ball moving on priorities such as tax credit reform, restoration of caps on medical malpractice awards and a still-developing plan for a capital improvements bond issue.
In addition to learning the legislative ropes, the freshmen have been scurrying to hire staff members and find apartments or extended-stay hotel rooms. During the session, legislators get $104 a day to cover lodging and food. The per diem comes on top of their $35,914-a-year salary and 37-cent-a-mile travel reimbursement.
Nixon, who won a second term in November, will be trying to persuade legislators to expand Medicaid as allowed under the federal Affordable Care Act, which would bring as many as 300,000 more Missourians under the health care program for the poor. The governor will present his ideas in a State of the State and budget message Jan. 28.
GOP leaders have thrown cold water on Medicaid expansion, calling it financially unsustainable for the state.
Other flash points could include bills cutting income taxes for businesses, overhauling the tenure system for teachers and weakening unions — for example, by preventing automatic paycheck deductions.
“There’s going to be a big labor fight,” predicted Rep. Stacey Newman, D-Richmond Heights.
For now, though, as the machinery of the Legislature gears up, the focus is on the personalities that will make the process work or grind to a halt, depending upon one of the key ingredients: relationships.
One of the questions floating around the Capitol is how freshman Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, will get along with arch foe Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City. The two have tangled fiercely in the past.
But Nasheed described their recent interactions on the Legislative Black Caucus — which Nasheed chairs — as “very cordial. We get along pretty good here lately,” Nasheed said.
In the House, the freshmen will change the chemistry. They aren’t the biggest class ever — that distinction belongs to the 90-member class of 2003. Still, they make up one-third of the chamber, and some say they bonded during a two-week bus tour of state facilities after the election.
Newly elected Rep. Ron Hicks, R-St. Peters, said he’s already collaborating with Democrat English — to try to find a room in the Capitol where they could squeeze in some fitness equipment for quick workouts.
“It was great to get to know each other, break down that fence a little,” Hicks said. “Put it this way, I made friends. That’s going to help if you want to reach across that aisle.”
