CRAIGforCONGRESS

Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

  
 

 

 

Congressional Issues 2010
MISSOURI FARM BUREAU
County and State Government



Missouri Farm Bureau

Kevin Craig - "Liberty Under God"

Building Codes These are not Congressional, federal issues.
We are philosophically opposed to the idea of requiring statewide building codes; however, if such a law is proposed, we believe farm buildings, including the farm residence, should be exempt and the bill should only establish minimum standards and must require approval by local voters prior to enactment.  
Circuit Court Budget  
We believe county commissions should have the same veto power over circuit court budget requests as they have over all other county offices, departments and commissions requesting county funds for salaries, equipment, supplies and services which are not specifically set by state law.  
Constitutional Amendments  
We believe the Missouri Constitution is too easily changed (having 100 amendments since its adoption in 1945 through 1998 as compared to the U.S. Constitution having only 27 amendments since 1790, including the first ten called The Bill of Rights). A Constitution should be a framework for action rather than a collection of special-interest taxes and programs. Therefore, we support an amendment to the Missouri Constitution requiring a two-thirds majority rather than a simple majority to adopt amendments. We believe that only a simple majority vote should be necessary to completely remove existing constitutional amendments previously adopted by a simple majority.  
County Government  
We believe any county should be authorized to adopt a charter form of government (home rule) if approved by a majority vote.  
We oppose any efforts to change existing elected offices in second, third, or fourth class counties to appointed positions.  
We support the consolidation of county offices and/or facilities when desirable and practical.  
We support giving the voters of a county the authority to approve the sale of property built from voter-approved county bond issues.  
We encourage county governments to develop reasonable and adequate emergency preparedness programs including possible emergency drills.  
We believe school tax increases and bond issues should be placed before local voters no more frequently than once a year.  
We support decoupling and/or changes in the salary-setting procedures for elected county officials that will simplify, make more equitable, and less political the process for establishing salaries for county elected officials.  
We believe county commissioners should be notified in advance of hearings, as well as proposed regulatory or operational changes which will affect the counties. In many cases, local elected officials and taxpayers find out about changes after the fact.  
We support legislation that would give county governments equal standing with both the municipality and the local developer when tax increment financing districts are established, including the following:  
1. permanent county government representation on a municipalities' T.I.F. (Tax Increment Financing) Commission; and  
2. a prohibition on the General Assembly from diverting revenue from voter-approved county sales taxes.  
County Government Audits  
We believe counties and other local tax-supported political subdivisions that are supported primarily by taxes should be audited by competent outside auditors or auditing firms on a regular basis, and audit conclusions should be published.  
We believe fire protection, sewer, ambulance and water districts that are supported by taxes should be audited the same as any other tax-supported district.  
County Planning and Zoning  
If planning and zoning becomes necessary, it should be administered at the county level and counties should be allowed to enact zoning authority for specific concerns such as solid waste disposal. Only the unincorporated areas and not the incorporated areas should be able to vote for the acceptance or rejection of planning and zoning.  
We oppose legislation granting county commissioners the authority to name county planning commissions to develop a comprehensive master plan even if the master plan would go to a vote of the people.  
We favor legislation that would prohibit non-charter, first class counties from imposing regulations or requiring permits for agricultural land or buildings. Missouri statutes contain such a limitation on second and third class counties.  
We favor the regulation of agriculture being limited to state jurisdiction and do not believe local jurisdiction, such as county commissions and county health organizations should be allowed to regulate agriculture.  
Counties developing a land-use policy should ensure a policy favorable to agriculture. We urge all county governments to allow their respective county Farm Bureau the opportunity to help draft a county land-use policy.  
We oppose the taking of property for road frontage as a condition for county approval of non-commercial building permits. We also oppose the addition of other unrelated requirements as a condition for the approval of non-commercial building permits.  
We oppose changing existing state law setting the minimum size of parcels for subdivided development in the unincorporated area of the county.  
Economic Development  
Economic development is important to the vitality of all areas of the state. We support efforts by the state legislature and the Department of Economic Development to address the economic development needs in Missouri's agricultural communities.  
An example of such a program is the development of rural enterprise zones which give businesses incentives to build and expand in rural areas.  
We believe that grain processing plants should be eligible for enterprise zones the same as manufacturing plants which qualify now.  
Federal Regulations  
We support preventing state regulations from being stricter than federal law unless justified through a public hearing.  
We believe economic impact studies for proposed regulations should be made available to industry, landowners and the media before any new regulations are adopted.  
We also believe that economic impact studies for proposed regulations should be developed through hearings including affected industry and landowners.  
Initiative Petitions  
We believe the influence of out-of-state interest groups through the initiative petition process should be restricted.  
We support legislation which would require sponsoring organizations of initiative petitions to be identified and give accurate and detailed public notice of the provisions contained in the statutory or constitutional changes being proposed. Such notice should be given in advance of any efforts to obtain signatures.  
We support legislation which would require people gathering signatures on an initiative petition to ask potential signers of the petition to first read the ballot title.  
We support limiting the use of professional signature gathering organizations for initiative petition efforts, including prohibiting payment on a per-signature basis.  
We recommend that when an initiative petition is approved for inclusion on the Missouri ballot, and Missouri Farm Bureau has no policy on that issue, that Missouri Farm Bureau make an effort to inform members of the pro and con facts of the issue.  
We further recommend that Missouri Farm Bureau poll county presidents to determine whether to establish a position on the initiative after providing appropriate educational materials.  
Mailing Lists  
We oppose county, city, state and federal government agencies from making mailing lists available to the private sector to be used for business solicitation purposes.  
Public Employees  
We believe the law preventing the use of public employees on public time and the use of other public resources to pass or defeat a constitutional amendment or proposition before the voters for their approval should be strictly enforced.  
Rural Fire Protection  
We believe it should remain the right of the citizens in rural communities to determine whether they will be served by volunteer fire departments or tax-supported fire districts.  
Whenever possible, we believe rural fire district boundaries should be established to include all of a landowner's contiguous property if the landowner desires to be included in the fire district.  
We support legislation that would remove population restrictions in 321.322 RSMo as to provide for a five year phase-out for all fire protection districts affected by a municipality annexation.  
We believe the same protections should apply to rural fire districts as school districts when subject to forced annexation by municipalities.  
We believe any person running for election to a rural fire district board in Third and Fourth Class Counties must live and vote in the fire district he or she is running in .  
Rural Housing  
We urge federal agencies to examine their programs to ensure that calculations for housing assistance treat outstate rural residents the same as residents in rural metropolitan statistical areas.  
Rural Subdivision Streets  
We believe rural subdivision street maintenance should be the responsibility of the property owners. If county government accepts the responsibility of rural subdivision street maintenance, county courts should have the authority to levy street improvement taxes.  
Rural Water Districts  
We oppose efforts to weaken or repeal the authority of rural water districts relative to local control and administration of rural water services.  
Sovereign Immunity  
We support the complete restoration of sovereign immunity for local government and public officials when acting in an official capacity of the office, and further, if sovereign immunity can not be restored, we oppose raising the limits of sovereign immunity on local agencies.  
State Legislature  
We are concerned that the integrity of the state and federal legislative process has deteriorated by allowing amendments of an unrelated subject matter to be attached to pending legislation. We believe this practice of piggybacking amendments should be corrected either legislatively or through a constitutional amendment. There might be tension between this recommendation and the one above. Kevin Craig agrees that Constitutions should be rarely amended, and that "earmarks" have become an engine of federal growth.
We believe the excessive use of executive orders to legislate and regulate, such as executive orders regarding collective bargaining and urban sprawl, bypass the legislative process and should be restricted.  
We oppose any effort to reduce the size of the Missouri House of Representatives.  
State Regulations  
We favor the requirement upon legislators and state agencies filing new laws and state regulations to also file an estimate of the costs to the public sector to comply with the laws and regulations and an estimate on the benefits that the public will receive.  
We support the establishment of a state regulatory review commission with agricultural representation to review all state rules and regulations to determine their necessity, their statutory authority and whether or not they should be abolished.  
We support the sunset and review of all new and current regulations.  
We believe state agencies should be assessed financial penalties for failing to act in accordance with mandatory requirements and deadlines contained in state law.  
We support a three-acre exemption on sewage treatment regulations.  
We strongly oppose the State Health Department contracting with county health officials to enforce stringent health regulations at the county level that result in the discontinuation of county fairs' and local churches' fundraising activities.  

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