T.Mike Curry Weblog

Mo House and Senate? Nobody Seems to Know... But You Should

What's the Missouri House and Senate doing? Nobody seems to know... but you should. The state and local levels of government are the two places individual citizens can have the most influence. Yet, so few people do. Often it seems like the vast majority of people don't even know what their representatives are doing, let alone do they ever participate or get involved.

Fortunately there's an easy way to get started. All those bills they're working on are available online. You can look at them. You can read them. You can see where they are today, how they've been evolving and changing, and when the next hearing will be for a given bill. Really, you can.

Try going here...

Missouri House of Representatives Bill Information

Start with the bill list. It's a bit unruly, but it will get you started. Find one that looks intrigueing and click on the link. Take House Bill 282 for instance. This bill creates the crime of motorcycle stunt driving. Sounds odd, let's click on it. Oops, there's two links there actually. The first one takes you to the bill's status. The second one takes you to the House member page of the person who is sponsoring the bill and lists a lot of information, including a House email address for the sponsor (keep that in mind for later).

Back on the bill status page, you can find out what actions have been taken on this bill, hearing dates, where it is on the House calendar, fiscal notes, and more. There's even a link for the text of the bill. Click on the link under "Bill Text for HB282". There, you can actually read the text of the bill they are working on.

Finished reading it? Are you asking yourself, "Why?". Why do we need a law for this? Okay, let's say someone does a short little wheelie out on some county back-road. Let's say nobody gets hurt and no property is damaged. Unfortunately this person is now guilty of a class C criminal misdemeanor. Do it again and it's a class A misdemeanor. Do it a third time, and guess what budy, you're a felon!

Does this sound like a useless law for a victim-less crime to you? Does it sound like a great way to divert the efforts of law enforcement away from more important tasks like catching murderers? Or does this sound like something you really want to see become law? Either way, remember that link to the sponsors House email address? Go on. Click on it. Now that you know what they're doing and what the text of the bill says and means, let the sponsor know what you think of their bill.

But don't stop there. Go back to the main House page. Look on the right, down just a little. See that box labelled "Legislator Look-Up"? All you need to do is enter your zip code and click the Go button. It'll list your Senators, your Representatives, your Congressman, and more.

And by the way, you can find the same type of information for the Missouri Senate as well.

So go ahead. Find out what they're up to. Let them know what you think. You should.

( Feb 10 2007, 12:41:16 AM CST ) Permalink