MDN.ORG:
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
JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt introduced Monday the two men he has charged with leading his promised overhaul of Missouri government.
Warren Erdman of Kansas City and Stephen Bradford of Cape Girardeau will head up a commission that Blunt has created to analyze the structure of state government and recommend changes to improve efficiency.
"There are no sacred cows," Blunt said. "Every element of our government structure is on the table."
The 20 person board, formally titled the State Government Review Commission, will lead the reorganization Blunt promised during his campaign and has said is long overdue.
"We have a typewriter government in an internet age," said Blunt, during a press conference in the governor's office. "The state government that we have today is in ways an antiquated entity."
The last broad reorganization in Missouri was in 1974 under the administration of Gov. Kit Bond. Over 100 state departments were consolidated into just more than a dozen.
Bradford was a staffer with the last reorganization. He and Erdman, a vice president at Kansas City Southern who once served as Sen. Kit Bond's chief of staff, will be helping Blunt fill out the rest of the commission in the coming weeks.
Blunt said he expected the commission to submit an outline of their methods in 60 days and the final results in one year.
Elsewhere on the capital, the House Democrats, led by Columbia Rep. Jeff Harris, held a press conference of their own.
Harris, the Democrats' new leader in the House, was touting a new bill aimed at preventing minors from purchasing violent and sexually explicit video games. He said that the material in question was extremely objectionable.
"We're not talking about Pac-man or Pong here," Harris said.