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Nixon signs municipal court reform

Saint Louis, Mo. — Cities around Missouri will have a little less revenue coming in every year after Gov. Jay Nixon signed a bill today limiting revenue from traffic tickets and court fines.

Senate Bill 5 is the brainchild of Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, who is also a candidate for state Treasurer in 2016. Schmitt has championed the bill which is at least in part a direct response to the unrest last year in Ferguson, when leaders around the state identified “taxation by citation” as one of the many issues eroding trust between people and government.

“We must rein in the ongoing practice of municipalities – especially in the St. Louis area – of drumming up local revenue through a rigged system of excessive traffic tickets, which is extracting more each year from the citizens these local governments are supposed to serve,” Schmitt said in a statement. “Government should exist to serve its citizens, not to extort them. Passing this bill is a big step toward ending government by speed trap and taxation by citation.”

Current state law allows any municipality to collect up to 30 percent of its annual revenue through traffic ticket fines and related court fees. Schmitt’s bill reduces that number statewide to 20 percent, but cuts that number to 12.5 percent for the St. Louis area.

Schmitt was active on Twitter  for his bill
Schmitt was active on Twitter for his bill

Schmitt said that some very small municipalities around St. Louis were entirely reliant on ticketing their own citizens to fund government, calling them “modern day debtors prisons.” Schmitt publicly criticized cities like Calverton Park. St. Ann, Edmundson and Pine Lawn — all very small St. Louis county municipalities, for abusing the court system to bring in revenue.

Rep. Robert Cornejo, who handled the bill in the House and was present for the bill signing, invoked the founding fathers.

“Our founding fathers stated that all men are created equal and this bill takes us one step closer to making sure that all men are treated equal,” Cornejo said. “I am proud that people from both sides of the aisle are able to come together to produce a bill that encourages smaller, more limited government that lets police officers get back to serving and protecting citizens and not being revenue generators.”

Nixon signed the bill in the Eastern Court of Appeals in downtown St. Louis today, calling it the “most sweeping municipal court reform bill in Missouri history.”

“This landmark legislation will return our municipal courts to their intended purpose: serving our citizens and protecting the public,” Nixon said. “That means, under this bill, cops will stop being revenue agents and go back to being cops: investigating crimes, protecting the public and keeping dangerous criminals off the streets.”