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Toll roads get initial House approval

JEFFERSON CITY - A sweeping resolution to create toll roads and a secretary of transportation gained first-round approval in the House Thursday, infuriating state Republican lawmakers who alleged a violation of parliamentary procedure.

The move came a week after the House approved a $747 million tax increase for transportation funding, which has the support of Gov. Bob Holden, the Democratic-led resolution is now one House vote away from going to the Senate.

The resolution would authorize the governor to appoint the secretary and increase the size of the state Highway and Transportation Commission from six members to nine, based on the state's Congressional delegation.

Accountability has been a major Republican issue this session, and Rep. Larry Crawford, R-Centerville, said a bipartisan effort was under way to achieve it.

"We have said since the beginning that we need accountability first," Crawford said. "We have talked about middle ground, and I thought we were working."

Republicans said the House resolution would affect the accountability but in a politicized way.

Partisan hostilities reached an uncommon intensity, with name calling, following a four-hour debate on the resolution. Calling the Democrats' actions "utterly lame," House Minority Leader Rep. Catherine Hanaway, R-Warson Woods, said Thursday's vote was an effort to force the $747 tax plan "down the throats" of voters.

"House Democrats today resorted to the worst forms of rules manipulation, bully tactics and railroading," said Hanaway, flanked by 16 fellow Republicans. "This is tyranny of the majority."

Hanaway said Democrats also positioned the resolution as a revenge to Republicans who didn't vote last week for the "jumbo jet" $747 million tax hike transportation plan last week.

"What happened today was extreme partisanship of the worst kind," Hanaway said.

Republicans said they were especially upset that a House rule was usurped to pass the resolution, a move Assistant Republican Leader Patrick Naeger, of Perryville, said "smells to high heaven."

The House rule said a bill or resolution must be on the calendar for at least one day before it can be debated on the floor. It was put on the calendar Wednesday.

The rule was thrown out because a House majority voted to do so. Two hours after the rule was suspended, the resolution was passed, despite seven Republican-proposed amendments to stop it.

"House Democrats threw away the rulebook today," Republican Whip Charlie Shields, from St. Joseph, said. "There was no reason to suspend the rules to take up the transportation resolution today."