Rebecca is a journalism and political science student from the University of Missouri. This is her fourth semester working at Missouri Digital News. She is from Tallahassee, Florida.
Rebecca Beitsch's Blog Debate prompts opportunities for new senators to learn, even if it's not all in good fun
Posted 10/21/2009:
Swine flu has finally hit the Missouri General Assembly. Representative Beth Low, D-Jackson County, professed her illness via the social networking site facebook.
Low's status read: "Beth Low is not sick with sinus infection afterall. Its H1N1. Yippee...I'll have deveolped immune resistance when the superflu hits."
According to the most recent information from the health department, there are 107 reported swine flu cases in Missouri.
Posted October, 19, 2009
At a press conference today, Gov. Nixon said he was "hopeful" and "optimistic" about health care bills weaving their way through Congress.
Confronting the issue of the state's ability to pick up the tab for expanding Medicaid coverage, Nixon had this to say:
"We just want to make sure that as they lead forward they do so in a way that gives us the resources to accomplish that. There's vast differences between the Senate and the House bills, and governors, not just me but governors across the country, are very interested in expanding access to health care, but want to make sure the dollars are behind it. We're hopeful that there will be, and quite frankly I think some significant progress has been made in the last 8 to 10 days."
When asked by reporter Jason Rosenbaum why he had not signed a letter signaling support for health care legislation, the governor said:
"Signing pieces of paper in the middle of a legislative process, I mean, I just don't do much of that. I have the ability to pick up the phone and talk to these folks, which I've been doing through efforts with governors and others. Singing pieces of paper and signing letters for political show is not what I'm doing. I don't spend much time thinking about that sort of stuff. I'm not trying to jam people up or triangulate. Government doesn't move by signing on letters, government moves by actions. I've made my position and the state of Missouri's position clear to the highest ranking federal officials in this country and will continue to do that. I'm hopeful Congress will give us something we can work with at the state level, and I'm hopeful and optimistic that they will."
Posted October 13, 2009
So, has anyone checked out MDN on Twitter yet? We may have had a late arrival into the Twittersphere, but we've been making up for lost time. Phill has created an awesome application, so any Newsbook headline is immediately posted to Twitter directly from the MDN Web site. All our filed stories our posted there as well.
Tweets to keep an eye out for: I hope to soon post my feature story on the projected savings of electronic medical records to Twitter soon, as well as to the actual Web site. You can also follow me on my personal Twitter (@rebeccabeitsch).
Posted September 21, 2009
Coming down from a legislative high from last week's veto session, the only thing to turn to this week is more feature stories. Fortunately for me, veto session brought everyone back to one place, allowing me to score several interviews for my features stories.
Coming up this week: stories on public health care options in Missouri as well as an in-depth piece on electronic medical records and how they save money.
Posted March 12, 2009:
Like I've always said, one man's tractor parade is another man's comic relief.
It may have been the last day before legislative spring break, and while our state representatives were eager to get out of town, this did not stop the jokes.
The issue?
An emergency clause that would have allowed tractors into parades immediately upon passage.
The urgency caused Rep. Jake Zimmerman, D-St. Louis County, to give a speech about the importance of tractors in his faith. Hilarity did ensue and resulted in applause that was nothing short of thunderous.
You can listen to that here:
One representative responded by saying the people in Zimmerman's 83rd District wouldn't recognize a tractor when it went through anyway.
I can't speak to that -- but I do feel obligated to report that many representatives voiced that laws preventing tractors from being in parades are affecting fund-raising potential.
The emergency clause did pass, as did the bill with a vote of 158-0.
Posted February 17, 2009:
To quote the movie Thank You For Smoking, the public beating has not gone out of style.
I'm speaking of today's debate in the Senate, where Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, "helped" his junior senator David Pearce by repeatedly telling him not to turn around and not look at him while he was asking Pearce questions.
It is Senate procedure for senators to face the speaker during inquiries, and Pearce is the new senator from Warrensburg.
Crowell not only offered his opinions on Pearce's bill, but repeatedly halted his answers saying "You're going to need to turn around. You can't look at me; you have to look at the speaker.
Sen. Tim Green, D- St. Louis County, aided Crowell in his efforts by bringing to the floor a self-made mask of himself to put on the back of his head so that he is always facing the speaker.
Chiding of new senators aside, Crowell distributed 21 amendments to the bill, SB 45. If Crowell actually offers each amendment, it would open every section but one for an individual debate.
