JEFFERSON CITY - House leaders unveiled a set of rules that would require a member get permission, on some bills, to offer an amendment or speak on a bill in the full House.

The proposal is similar to the Congressional system in which the sponsor of a bill and the minority party leader control who is allowed to speak during floor debate.

House Speaker Rod Jetton said the measure would help make House debate is focused.

But a Democratic legislator who once served as majority leader said the rule gives too mu

JEFFERSON CITY - The Senate Labor Committee heard a measure to impose tighter restrictions on workers' compensation coverage.

The proposal has been pushed by business organizations for the last several years. Both the governor and Republican legislative leaders have vowed that it would be a top priority in this year's session.

Critics charge the proposal goes too far in denying coverage to injured workers.

JEFFERSON CITY - At his first press conference as Missouri's governor, Matt Blunt shot down measures supporting collective bargaining by state workers and signed several cost-cutting measures.

And the Republican chief executive hinted the first cuts won't be the last, or the deepest.

JEFFERSON CITY - The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the state's appeal of a lower court decision that blocks the state Transportation Department from blocking the Ku Klan from the program.

The organization has sought to "adopt" a highway in southeast Missouri and thus putting KKK's name on the highway.

Missouri prohibits organizations with a history of violence from participating in the program, but a federal appeals court held that ban violated free speech rights of the First Amendment to the U.S.

JEFFERSON CITY - Matt Blunt was sworn in Monday as Missouri's new governor and pledged to answer what he called a mandate for change by improving education, trimming government programs and bridging the divide between the two parties.

Blunt is Missouri's first Republican governor in more than a decade and the first to pair up with a Republican-controlled Legislature in more than 80 years.