|
| ||
|
|
| |
|
May 29,
2008 Volume
4, Number 22 | ||
|
In This
Issue
E-Mail
cynthia.davis@house.mo.gov
Chair Vice Chair
Vice Chair
Official Homepage for Official Government Homepage for your
Look up Missouri House Bills – View
Entire Text, Summary, and Last Action Look up Consumer Federal
Links |
Memorial
Day Ceremony in O’Fallon
Below, Representative Davis
visits with one of our special veterans about what we need to do to better
serve our citizens. We are holding our “Buddy
Poppies.”
Every Sunday, we honor the Sabbath by closing our
bookstore. Our conviction comes from the ten commandments, and I
wouldn’t feel right selling the ten commandments if I were to break one of
them every Sunday. Sometimes I am concerned that my customers will
think I am selfishly taking the day off and don’t want to help them.
However, while I would like to help them, I feel an obligation to my
community to set an example of honoring our Creator by closing on
Sunday. Every year I go through the same feelings about
closing on Memorial Day. While there is nothing specifically
religious about being closed to honor our veterans, I feel that I owe this
to them. Sure, we could make a few more dollars if the store stayed
open, but then my family would not be able to attend the Memorial Day
ceremony with me. How will it help our next generation to respect
the price paid for our freedom if I can’t even sacrifice a few sales to
make a statement about the importance of this holiday? We didn’t
create Memorial Day because people needed an extra day off work. We
created it so that our citizens would be able to remember and honor those
who have sacrificed time and lives so that our country will remain as the
land of the free and the home of the brave. We all have an
obligation to teach these values to the next
generation. More of the
Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly: The Village
Law Last year, the “Village Law” was inserted into
legislation. Unfortunately, most legislators didn’t realize it was in the
bill or its consequences. With the village law in effect, property
owners who wanted to circumvent local regulations could create their own
villages, thereby creating a lack of local control in their
counties. The problem came to light when a developer in
southwestern
The strategy of members who
supported the repeal was to get their colleagues to vote for Part I of the
bill and vote down the other three parts, regardless of the contents of
those parts. I feel it is my job to weigh and consider each of my
votes based upon the merits of the bill. At the end of the day I
must account to my constituents on how I represented them. I voted
for Part III, which added the stiffer regulations against sexually
oriented businesses. Fortunately, 87 other representatives agreed with
me, and we added Part III to the bill. Other
House members voted to remove Part III because some senators were
threatening to not take up the bill if it contained the sexually oriented
business regulations. I had to decide whether to vote against
stiffer regulation of sexually oriented businesses, or vote for those
regulations knowing it could give the senators a reason to not repeal the
village law. In this case, I stayed true to my conscience and
figured it would be up to the senators to be true to
theirs. The
Senate refused to take up that bill but granted the House a conference to
alter the language. In the conference committee, the legislators
removed the sexually oriented business restrictions. By the time the
bill came back to the House, it was a mere fragment of what we sent to the
Senate. The new language was agreed to and
passed. If the senators had voted on the bill as it passed
out of the House, we could have had a much better law.
However, the most frequently quoted line around
the Capitol is “There’s always next year.” Your
thoughts are important to me, so please let me know what you think about
the village law repeal. You can send me your opinion by clicking
here: Cynthia Davis. Quote of
the Day…
The real art of
conversation is not only to say the right
thing at the right time, but also to leave
unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.
This Capitol Report is a weekly
newsletter by Representative J If you know of anyone else who
would like to receive my Capitol Report, please send an e-mail to Cynthia.Davis@house.mo.gov with the
person’s name and e-mail address. We’ll add them to the
list. L If you would like to stop receiving
the Capitol Report, email us at Cynthia.Davis@house.mo.gov
with “unsubscribe” in the
su | |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
