Judging by the headlines of late, the FBI is feasting on Missouri government and politics.</p><p>Two separate probes have resulted in guilty pleas for three Missouri lawmakers, all Democrats from the St. Louis area.</p><p>The Missouri Housing Development Commission is under scrutiny, with the director of the agency acknowledging that the FBI has interviewed him as part of an investigation related to low-income housing projects.</p><p>Others in the Jeff City orbit have said they&rsquo;ve been interviewed about the intersection of campaign dollars and legislation, a practice known as &ldquo;pay for play.&rdquo;</p><p>It is a dizzying development and one that suggests the lessons from the 1990s involving Speaker Bob Griffin and Attorney General Bill Webster have faded. After all, a new generation of politicians has arisen, ushered onto the scene by term limits.</p><p>Both Griffin and Webster got in trouble in connection with their official offices. Griffin was caught up on the &ldquo;Devil&rsquo;s Statute,&rdquo; Section 666 of the federal code, which makes bribery a crime.</p><p>Missouri Auditor Susan Montee, a Democrat, said the new generation of lawmakers views the world differently.</p><p>&ldquo;Obviously people are a lot more connected now with cell phones and instant messaging,&rdquo; she said &ldquo;It&rsquo;s easier to know what things are going on. It&rsquo;s a lot harder to keep anything that you&rsquo;re doing secret.&rdquo;</p><p> That&rsquo;s true. But there&rsquo;s something else about Jefferson City. I&rsquo;ve said it many times: There&rsquo;s a <em>culture </em>that&rsquo;s grown up around the Dome that at once says (1) lots of money; (2) far, far from home; (3) low pay.</p><p>It adds up to one word: T-R-O-U-B-L-E.</p><p> Montee said that at a minimum, new ethics laws are needed. </p><p>&ldquo;When you&rsquo;ve got 25-year-olds coming in and subject to the type of political pressures they get and there&rsquo;s the need to raise large sums of money and there&rsquo;s no real guidance out there &hellip; then I definitely think we need some sweeping changes in the way we do things.&rdquo;</p><p> Fortunately, legislative leaders are mulling changes. But will they have the guts to push for sweeping change, or will they opt for the wallpaper approach that just, well, papers over problems?</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>How likely would you be to go to the aid of a company that had treated you to a trip to the Masters golf tournament?</p><p>A venture capital outfit out of St. Louis, Advantage Capital Partners, flew Missouri House Majority Leader Steve Tilley and fellow Republican Rep. Tim Jones to the Masters this year. The trip came just as the firm was seeking help with a big tax-credit issue.</p><p>Advantage Capital wanted the General Assembly to extend the life of a program called the New Markets Tax Credit, which is aimed at helping small businesses get the capital they need to grow.</p><p> Advantage Capital also was seeking a boost in the amount that could be authorized each year from $15 million to $25 million.</p><p>The General Assembly wound up granting the latter, not the former.</p><p>But the rub of this little tale? Advantage Capital never reported its gift to the state Ethics Commission. Not, at least, until yours truly learned about the trip and called about it in August &mdash; more than four months after Tilley and Jones enjoyed final-round action at Augusta on Easter Sunday.</p><p>It&rsquo;s the company&rsquo;s duty to issue that report, not the lawmakers&rsquo;.</p><p>Within hours of my call, Advantage updated its April expenditures to reflect the trips: $840 for the one-day, down-and-back trip for Tilley, $1,200 for Jones.</p><p>Who knows? Maybe Jones ate more.</p><p> Rachelle Rowe, vice president of communications for Advantage Capital, insisted that her firm &ldquo;did not intentionally hide&rdquo; information about the trip.</p><p> She admitted the reporting process broke down inside the company. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s an internal issue on our part,&rdquo; Rowe said.</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>How serious is congressman Ike Skelton taking his re-election bid for his 18th term?</p><p>Pretty. One sign of it: He&rsquo;s hired Ken Morley as an adviser. Morley&rsquo;s the same guy who shepherded fellow Democrat Jay Nixon to the governorship last year.