Missouri Senate to consider House bill limiting local public health authority

(The Center Square) – Less than a week after the Missouri Senate rejected a bill seeking to limit the authority and scope of local emergency public health orders, a Senate panel has advanced a House bill that would impose many the same restrictions.

House Bill 75, sponsored by Rep. Jim Murphy, R-St. Louis, was approved by the House in a 114-44 vote on March 11 and passed through the Senate Health & Pensions Committee on Wednesday in a 5-1 vote. It now goes to the Senate floor.

HB 75 would restrict time spans for local health orders and require approval by the local governing councils and commissions, but is less expansive than Senate Bill 12, sponsored by Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake Saint Louis, which was shot down in a 19-11 vote after an eight-hour debate on March 25.

SB 12 would have prohibited local governments and officials from restricting the number of people gathering or residing on private residential property during a public health emergency.

SB 12 also sought to ban local governments and officials from restricting travel and imposing public health orders that directly or indirectly close or restrict businesses, churches, schools, for longer than 15 days within a 180-day span without approval from county and city elected councils.

Under SB 12, taxpayers in communities that imposed shutdowns longer than 15 days could apply for a tax credit for fees owed on real property.

HB 75 would allow local public health officials to order a closure for no more than 15 days. Any further orders, or extensions beyond 15 days, must be approved by a city council or county commission for no more than 10 days by a two-thirds vote.

“House Bill 75 does a simple thing,” Murphy told the Senate panel during last week’s public hearing. “It says that health departments need to protect our health. Legislators need to protect our liberties, and they can’t work independent of each other. There needs to be oversight.”

The bottom line, he said, is local actions over the last year in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic have shown the economic impacts of shutdowns and restrictions.

“It’s had a devastating effect on our citizens,” Murphy said.

Sen. Bill White, R-Joplin, one of nine Republicans who voted against SB 12 last week, said the Senate bill said “we’re really big for local government until we aren’t” while the House bill allows local residents and elected officials to choose how to respond to an emergency.

White said he would prefer HB 75 not restrict local governments to reviewing order extensions every 10 and 15 days.

“That is my concern, that you’re going to make my people do a lot of hoops for something that doesn’t impact them,” White said. “Let them have the control to say how long this is.”

Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, who voted for SB 12 and authored one proposal eventually incorporated into Onder’s measure said it is “a nonsensical argument” to allow local officials to have “unlimited power,” as the pandemic illustrated.

“Sure they’re local, but it doesn’t give them the authority to do whatever they want. They shouldn’t have that authority,” he said. “Local control resides with you as an individual in a free society.”

Koenig’s former SB 21 would have created a tax credit for business owners forced to close during a state of emergency, prohibited county health boards from requiring persons in quarantine isolate from members of the same physical household and barred hospitals from restricting visitation by a pregnant or new mother.

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