Datestamp: 06/01/2008

'Village law' missing from key documents

By Chad Livengood

News−Leader

The "village law" was part of Senate Bill 22, an omnibus local government bill with measures crafted mostly
for individual municipalities.

Compared with the bill's other minor provisions, the village law was a major change in public policy. Not
something that should be tacked onto this type of bill without debate, critics say. The law allows landowners
to create a new village with a vote of the people within the boundaries of the proposed municipality.

Rep. Vicki Schneider, chair of the House local government committee, said she stuck the village law language
into her committee's version, which totaled nearly 360 pages by the time committee members got it the day of
the vote.

Committee chairs are allowed to modify House and Senate bills by tacking on additional language or
proposing modified wording by working out a deal with sponsoring legislators.

By her own admission, Schneider said she typically gets lobbied by fellow legislators or interest groups to
tack on additional provisions to omnibus legislation.

But Schneider says that was not the case with the village law. She says nobody came to her.

Schneider says the bill language arrived on her desk as a suggested amendment with an "S" written on a line
where a legislator's name usually goes. She interpreted it to mean it came from the Senate. But senators and
her own committee members say getting nameless amendments is not possible −− or shouldn't be.

After nobody came to her asking that it be included in the bill, Schneider says she consulted St. Charles
County officials and Rod Jetton, a former Bollinger County commissioner.

Schneider provided the News−Leader with a purported copy of the original amendment, which all members of
her committee have said they never saw. At the top, there are handwritten notations indicating "St. Charles
County" and "Rod Jetton" OK'd the bill.

"I think we mistakenly said it was OK, then realized it was not," said St. Charles County administrator Steve
Ehlmann, a former state senator.

After the brouhaha over the village law erupted last fall, "we called (Schneider) back and apologized for
giving her bad advice," Ehlmann said.

When Rep. Dennis Wood initiated his inquiry of the bill's history after Robert Plaster filed a petition last
August to create a village in his Stone County district, he questioned Schneider about her knowledge of the
village law provision.

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"She claimed she didn't know anything about it at that time," Wood said in a recent interview. "Her memory
got better as the session went on."

But summary documents given to Schneider's committee members made no mention of the village law.

In the first bill summary −− labeled "rough draft" −− provided to committee members the day before the vote,
provision No. 36 was left blank. In later summaries after the committee passed the bill, the village law
provision appears on No. 36, documents show.

"Nothing should be snuck by," said Rep. Tom Villa, a St. Louis Democrat who once served as majority floor
leader in the early 1980s.

The News−Leader obtained the documents from Rep. Jake Zimmerman, who appears to be the only
committee member who kept them. Though House rules say Schneider is the custodian of committee records,
she says she no longer has the pre−vote documents.

Another summary of the House Committee Substitute that Zimmerman says he received the day of the vote
also contained no mention of the village law provision.

Schneider said the missing provisions in the summaries appear to have been an honest mistake by a legislative
analyst, who is barred from commenting on the issue because of a confidentiality privilege afforded to
legislators and analysts.

"In my eyes, it wasn't intentionally taken out," Schneider said.

Lawmakers say it's not uncommon for summaries to contain errors or missing information. But, given the
secrecy surrounding the village law, current and former lawmakers say it's a bit suspicious.

"If they somehow screwed around with the summaries, that's certainly unethical," Ehlmann said.

The pre−committee vote summaries aren't the only documents missing. On the House's Web site in late April,
there were two summary versions of Senate Bill 22 as passed out of Schneider's committee −− one with the
village law provision and one without it. The two links were posted side−by−side.

Schneider said she had a staff member correct the Web site records after the News−Leader brought it to her
attention. Schneider says that also was a clerical error and not an intentional deletion of the committee's work.

In total, three of the four summaries of the committee's handling of the bill did not contain the village law.

Records show the committee voted 7−3 on Senate Bill 22, with Democratic Reps. Mike Daus, Mike Talboy
and Zimmerman voting against the bill.

The three dissenting Democrats say they voted against the bill because they didn't have time to digest its
content, which grew considerably from a hearing the week before the vote.

"There was just too much stuff (in the bill)," said Daus, D−St. Louis. "It's no way to pass legislation."

Members of the committee say they do not recall ever hearing or reading anything in committee regarding the
incorporation of villages −− fueling speculation by legislators and the public that the provision was slipped
into the bill by Jetton or at his behest by the majority party's attorney, Don Lograsso, who was regularly
attending committee meetings.

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Citing attorney−client privilege, Lograsso said he could not directly confirm nor deny whether he gave advice
to any House member regarding Senate Bill 22 or any of its many amendments.

"I constantly advise members on how to put things where they want to put them," said Lograsso, a former
legislator who has been the House's chief attorney since 2003. "It is rare for me to participate in writing any
amendment or bill −− it's just not my role. I cannot remember writing an amendment in the last several years
that is more than one sentence long on any bill."

When the bill came up for a vote on May 14 on the House floor, the village provision was already in the
legislation and not offered as an amendment, according to a review of the House Journal.

The News−Leader asked each member of last year's committee whether they had any copies of the missing
documents. With the exception of Zimmerman, the committee members said they purge documents after a
session ends.

Schneider maintains her committee members should have read the entire bill after she got done modifying it
with additional provisions a few hours before the vote.

"It's their job to read the bill," Schneider said.