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This evening, Governor Matt Blunt will lay out his priorities for the legislative session in his State of the State Address. KSMU's Missy Shelton spoke with several legislators from Southwest Missouri about their priorities for the session and files this report.
Tonight, Governor Matt Blunt will outline the issues he thinks are most important for lawmakers to address between now and the end of the legislative session in May.
But lawmakers have their own individual priorities that they'll be pushing this session too.
Springfield Senator, Republican Norma Champion says the main focus this year ought to be on healthcare, making sure the state does a good job of rebuilding the Medicaid program.
Champion says she has several bills that are designed to keep children safe.
Since Champion sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, she says she'll be in a good position to advocate for the state to invest in a new crime lab in Springfield.
Virtually every Springfield representative has also expressed support for the crime lab...Democratic Representative Sara Lampe says she hopes to work on some crime-related legislation of her own.
Healthcare is a major concern for Republican Representative Jim Viebrock, whose Greene County district includes the cities of Republic and Ash Grove.
Viebrock says he plans to file a bill that would protect the owners of horses when a boarder is accused of neglect.
He says the idea for the bill came from a case in his district in which 130 horses were seized from a boarder and then put up for adoption while the owners of the animals didn't receive notification of what had happened.
Viebrock says he'll fine a bill on an unrelated issue...voter fraud.
He says there's a need to ban cell phones and other devices that have a camera function from polling places.
Springfield Republican Representative Charlie Denison says one of his priorities has to do with safety...He says he wants to give police the power to pull over drivers who aren't wearing seat belts.
The mandatory seat belt law and many of the other bills of particular interest to lawmakers from Southwest Missouri have been proposed and considered in previous years.
