Saint Louis, Mo. — Sen. Eric Schmitt strode into the 2015 legislative session with a municipal court reform bill guaranteed to win him plenty of attention in light of the unraveling events in Ferguson. Schmitt’s bill is now poised to move through the House despite pushback from Mayors across North County St. Louis.
Schmitt has likened the use of traffic fines and court fees to fund vast chunks of local government to “taxation by citation,” and wants to lower the maximum amount of their budget a city my collect via its police force. Opposition began slowly at first when Cool Valley Mayor Viola Murphy penned an open letter in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch accusing politicians of blindsiding small municipalities with an issue that only recently became politically popular.
“This is shameful politics and posturing,” Murphy wrote at the time.
But Schmitt’s bill continued to gain steam in the state legislature. On Monday, Schmitt — a candidate for treasurer in 2016 — issued a call for Attorney General Chris Koster to conduct an investigation into the neighborhood of Bellefontaine Neighbors in North St. Louis County after a damning news report from KMOV revealed that local police were threatened with termination if they didn’t meet specific arrest and citation quotas.
“This is a damning report that raises very serious questions about the actions of public officials in Bellefontaine Neighbors and we need to know immediately whether any laws have been broken,” Schmitt said in a statement. “This investigation clearly uncovered that public officials threatened and coerced law enforcement with their jobs if they did not meet ticket and arrest requirements. The traffic ticket requirements are bad enough, but arbitrary arrest requirements raise new questions. I am urging Attorney General Chris Koster to investigate this report so the public can know the truth about whether public officials are exploiting, threatening and coercing law enforcement to fund their bloated budgets.”
Bellefontaine Mayor Robert Doerr denied to KMOV reporters that the scheme amounted to a quota system. He did not respond to requests for a comment for The Missouri Times.
At a committee hearing earlier this month for Schmitt’s SB 5, he likened many St. Louis municipal courts to “modern day debtors prisons,” and called the use of tickets to fund city services a “corrupt scheme.
Greendale Mayor Monica Huddleston told lawmakers at the hearing that Schmitt’s bill would take away a municipality’s right to protect itself and rob it of much-needed revenue. Huddleston and Murphy, who was in attendance, said their communities had worked for years on consolidation and better court practices and accused several senators of opportunism.
Schmitt worked with several senators representing rural districts to carve out exceptions for the smallest Missouri towns, and after some work on the Senate floor, the measure now advances to the House over objections of some local mayors. Schmitt’s bill has the support of House leadership and, despite the objections of some mayors in their districts, many House Democrats representing North St. Louis County.
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
