The Missouri Senate appears on the verge of rekindling a 50-year-old fight over the role of the lieutenant governor, triggered in part by the five hours of budget debate this week.
At the start of Thursday’s session, Lt. Gov. David Wasinger recognized himself to speak, then quoted state Sen. Joe Nicola expressing his frustration at the short time allowed to read and understand the $49.7 billion spending package.
Wasinger said he was traveling in the state during the budget debate and heard similar complaints.
“The perceptions of the folks are the same perception that the senator has outlined,” Wasinger said. “So to give you a heads up, I will be, either yet this session be taking a far more active role, or it may happen next session, because I think some rules need to be changed within this chamber.”
Wasinger did not mention during his speech that his office budget was cut in the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by state Sen. Lincoln Hough of Springfield, who Wasinger defeated in the 2024 GOP primary. He lost one of the eight staff positions in his office, which is already the smallest of all statewide elected officials.
Friday morning, Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin — who by the rules holds the power to choose committee members, refer bills and decide parliamentary questions — used a social media post to slap back at Wasinger’s remarks.
Wasinger was out of line giving a speech in the Senate chambers, O’Laughlin said, because that is “a right reserved for senators.”
“He advised that he would be introducing new rules maybe next session,” O’Laughlin wrote. “Uh…..no. He does not have the authority to do this because he is not a senator. He also advised that he would be using the senate caucus staff. Also no.”
If Wasinger wants change, she wrote, “one way to be helpful is to not insult the entire Senate body in a five-minute speech.”
Wasinger, like Nicola, never held public office before winning election in November. His campaign promised he would be “challenging the Jefferson City establishment” if elected but he has not attempted to exercise the kinds of powers generally inherent in the job of presiding over a parliamentary body.
In his speech from the dais, Wasinger said that while he ran as an outsider, he had remained silent because he wanted to observe the chamber.
“I didn’t want to come in and, you know, begin throwing hand grenades,” Wasinger said.
If Wasinger tries to exert some sort of authority over the Senate, he would run headlong into a five-decade old Missouri Supreme Court ruling that diminished the already meager role of the lieutenant governor.
“Full-time Phelps” case
In 1972, Bill Phelps was elected lieutenant governor, the first Republican to win the office since 1928.
He promised he would be a “full-time” lieutenant governor, despite the lack of actual responsibilities in the office. Along with being ready to take over upon the death, disability or impeachment of the governor, the officeholder is “ex officio president of the senate.” In that role, the Constitution says, the lieutenant governor may join in Senate debate when it sits as a committee of the whole and cast the deciding vote in the case of ties.
As Phelps took office in 1973, the Senate changed its rules to put all substantive powers of the presiding officer in the hands of the president pro tem, elected from the members. The rules even allowed the president pro tem to dismiss the lieutenant governor from the dais.
And when then-state Sen. Bill Cason took the gavel from Phelps over his objections on the final day of the 1973 session, Phelps took the case to the Missouri Supreme Court.
At first, the case was only over the rule allowing the pro tem to relieve the lieutenant governor of the gavel. That rule, the 6-1 court said, was unconstitutional.
The pro tem must yield, Judge James Finch wrote, when the “lieutenant governor is present and desirous of exercising his role as presiding officer of the senate.”
That didn’t end the controversy.
The opinion was issued in November 1973, just before the start of the 1974 session. The courts were forced to issue a clarification when Phelps also contended the rules giving the pro tem the power to name committees, assign bills and rule on parliamentary questions were invalid.
The court quashed that argument. The lieutenant governor may hold the gavel if he or she wishes, but cannot use any power inherent in the role of presiding officer because those duties had been assigned elsewhere under the rules.
The Senate has the power to write rules to govern its proceedings, subject only to limits in the Constitution, the court decided.
“The powers and functions referred to…are not given to the lieutenant governor in (directly by the constitutional) or anywhere else in the Constitution,” the unanimous court ruled.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Wasinger said he hopes to reduce the amount of time “wasted on the senate floor” where “arcane senate rules stall progress on or completely block good legislation that would improve the lives of Missourians.”
His goal, he said, is to remove those impasses.
“Many other states have made reforms to their senate rules, and it is time Missouri does so as well,” Wasinger said. “This isn’t about any individual senator – it’s about a system in Jefferson City in much need of common sense reforms.”
O’Laughlin, in her response to his speech, said Wasinger needs to learn the lesson she learned, that it takes more than certainty about the wisdom of an idea to accomplish anything in the Senate.
“Lesson One: Develop a personal relationship with each senator and offer to help navigate what is an extremely complicated system,” O’Laughlin wrote. “This is how you get something done. Ultimately it’s the ONLY way.”
A mocking voice from the rank and file of the Senate showed Wasinger will have more, not less, work to do after his speech. As he closed his speech, he invited members to contact his chief of staff, Katie Ashcroft, with any ideas for reforming the rules.
State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, responded in kind on social media.
“If you have any ideas how @davidwasinger could do his job better,” she wrote, “please let Karen in my office know.”
