Allowing brass knuckles and feral hog hunting? Missouri lawmakers have gone off the rails

In February, the Missouri Senate approved a short bill exempting food pantries from liability for providing “shelf stable” food, including dried venison. Some called SB 662 the “deer jerky” bill.

This week, the Missouri House took up the measure and passed it. It has, um, changed.

The legislation now addresses, among other things: legislative subpoena power, hairstyle discrimination, the “Kratom Consumer Protection Act,” motor vehicle condition disclosures, salaries for court reporters, eminent domain for power lines, liability protections for COVID-19 health care responders and costs related to changes of venue in death penalty cases.

Oh, and it allows feral hog hunting on public land along with raw milk sales, and provides liability exemptions for private campground owners because of “the inherent risk of camping.”

With just a few days to go before adjournment, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled General Assembly are frantically cramming a hodge-podge of favored legislation into catch-all omnibus bills. The aim is simple: Pass whatever’s still lying around and hope no one notices.

Call it omnibus-mania, because it is truly madness. It must stop.

Legislators are now debating plans to neutralize the authority of county health directors, changing the rules on expanded Medicaid before voters get their say, adjusting the tax structure on airplanes, even legalizing brass knuckles.

A five-page bill addressing opioids is now a 49-page monstrosity reestablishing debtors’ prisons in Missouri. A “crime” bill appears to require security officers in schools to carry guns and attempts to nullify federal gun laws. Payday lenders may get a break in last-minute legislation.

These measures, and others, are contemptible on their own terms. Passing controversial bills in the waning hours of a session disrespects the state’s voters who want to make their views known before lawmakers act.

And how can lawmakers say with a straight face that they understand all these measures? Or that the courts won’t throw these multi-topic bills in the garbage where they belong?

Such behavior is — or should be — unthinkable in the middle of the disastrous coronavirus pandemic. Missourians are still getting sick and dying. A Missouri food processing plant is crammed with workers who have tested positive for COVID-19. Parts of the state remain closed.

Perhaps legislators should spend more time contending with how to deal with the fallout from the deadly virus and less on the right to wear metal weapons on your fingers.

We’re not the only ones who think lawmakers have lost their way. In an extraordinary letter this week, a coalition of Missouri groups from the left, right and center urged legislators to focus on the pandemic, not on political trophy-hunting.

“Lawmakers are failing to lead by example if we are truly all in this together,” the groups said. “Passing bills unrelated to the budget or the COVID-19 virus without the scrutiny of sunshine taints the legislative process and public trust in the institution.”

It isn’t often that the ACLU of Missouri agrees with Americans for Prosperity Missouri. Those groups and others are aghast at what’s happening in Jefferson City, as all Missourians should be.

This is not the time for politicians to take advantage of a generational calamity to pass indefensible legislation while constituents are focused on their health and their families.

It’s time for lawmakers to go home.