KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Legislators in Missouri will officially begin a special session Monday focused on reducing violent crime. But legislators say work won’t truly begin until after the primary elections.
On Aug. 5, the Senate will begin meeting in committees. Bills will go from the Senate to the House of Representatives before heading to Gov. Mike Parson for final approval.
Senate districts 7 and 9, which represent the urban core of Kansas City, Missouri, in Jackson County, are empty. The governor appointed both of those senators to statewide commissions earlier in the year.
Senators from the Northland and east side of the city said they’ll work with representatives to make sure Kansas City is effectively represented during the special session.
An increase in homicides in Kansas City and St. Louis is partly why Parson called the session.
“Every day we delay on this, someone is dying and we all know that,” Parson said last week. “Somebody is getting killed every day. Anything we can do to speed this process up to give law enforcement and prosecutors the advantage to use this, I would like to see it done as soon as possible.”
The Republican governor laid out six priorities for legislative issues in the special session. They include improving witness protection, addressing when to charge juveniles as adults and giving harsher penalties to adults who encourage a minor to commit a crime or give a minor a gun.
Democratic representatives in Kansas City say the governor’s priorities fail to address the root issues of preventing violence.
“This special session deals with things after a crime has occurred and nothing to prevent them from occurring in the first place,” said Greg Razer, the representative of House District 25, which includes Waldo, Brookside and South Plaza.
He and Rep. Barbara Washington of House District 23 on the city's east side plan to introduce their own bills focused on gun control, red flag laws and increasing penalties for people who kill children in drive-by shootings.
“We need to protect people and to make sure we’re not putting anything out in the community that makes it easier to kill,” Washington said of her proposal to limit assault rifles.
Neither representative is optimistic their bills will get much attention under the narrow scope of the special legislative session.
Razer does believe improvements to witness protection can make a difference.
“If somebody has seen a crime, they’re going to fearful for retaliation,” he said. “We should be able to, if we need them to testify, we should be able to protect them.”
Washington said there are constitutional details to work out before she’ll vote yes on the governor’s proposal to allow prosecutors to use some witness statements in situations where they are currently prohibited.
“We definitely want to protect our witnesses so that we can get more crime solved. But we also want to be in a position where we are not taking away the constitutional rights of anybody,” she explained and added that defendants have a right to face their accusers.
The special session should last through mid-August.
