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Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
By: Lynda Gledhill
State Capital Bureau
JEFFERSON CITY - House leaders scrambled Tuesday to find a way to bring welfare reform to the House floor after Monday night's rejection of the bill by the House Budget Committee.
House Speaker Steve Gaw, D-Moberly, said he was looking for other bills before the House onto which welfare reform could be piggy-backed.
One possible option is legislation to implement federal mandates on child support enforcement, considered to be a component of welfare reform.
Missouri has to pass some form of child support enforcement or risk losing federal money.
"There is a good likelihood we would lose at least $60 million in federal money," said the bill's House handler, Rep. Pat Dougherty, D-St. Louis.
Sen. Joe Maxwell, D-Mexico, the primary author of the welfare reform bill, said he and the Senate still hope to find a way to pass welfare reform this session.
"The Missouri Senate, in a bipartisan way, has strong feeling that we want to protect children," he said. "We are looking at every option available."
Maxwell said there are several key provisions he would like to see in any welfare reform attempt.
These include sanctioning only the head of household if they are convicted of a federal drug offense, exemptions from the work requirements for those with physical or mental disability and the elderly, and a child support assurance program.
This effort comes in the wake of the defeat of the Senate-approved bill in the House Budget Committee.
Republicans and some members of the Black Caucus had voted against the bill last week, leading to a furious round of negotiations. Monday was the last day the vote could be reconsidered.
Gaw, who had been part of the negotiations that stretched from Sunday into early Monday morning and continued all day Monday, lay the blame squarely on the House Republicans for the second committee defeat Monday.
"The new minority floor leader said welfare reform was a priority for the session, yet they block voted against the only bill that would allow the issue to come to the floor," he said.
But it was absent Democrats who contributed to the committee's rejection.
The new minority floor leader, Rep. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, responded by wondering when the Republicans had turned into the majority.
"If they can't get the bill out of committee, they can't blame Republicans," he said. "We attempted to work with the other side but they insisted on a drastic expansion of the welfare system. We want to try to work toward the middle, but if they continue to demand a huge expansion we will work to kill it."
If the legislature fails to pass a welfare reform bill, the federal law will take affect. Currently, Missouri is operating under the welfare reform law passed by the state in 1994 and several federal waivers. Without a bill, the changes set out in the federal law signed by President Clinton last year would also take effect.
The federal law sets strict time limits and penalties on welfare benefits. Recipients will have a five-year lifetime limit on benefits and must be working within two years. While the state can exempt 20 percent if its population from the five-year limit, there are no exemptions from the work requirements.
The proposed bill would have exempted people from the work requirement because of physical or mental disabilities or age. There are 16,000 people who fall into these categories in Missouri.
In addition, the federal bill permanently removes the entire household from benefits if an adult is convicted of a felony drug provision. The Missouri bill would have allowed the children to continue to receive benefits.
Maxwell said the Senate had worked hard to try to protect children, and now the state must be ready for the consequences.
"I think we need to be prepared for more foster care," he said. "The security will not be there for the children. This attacks the intact family."
Colleen Coble, executive director of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she does not think anyone knows what the impact of implementing the federal law is going to be.
"There are so hundreds of situations that could come up," she said. "Now the department will have no authority to develop contingency plans. They will be restricted by the federal law."