On January 5th at noon, the 2010 legislative session officially began in the Missouri Senate, and I was honored to be sworn-in as the state senator for the 20th District. I am eager to begin work on legislation that will improve our state and will benefit you-the residents I have been elected to serve.
For those who are not familiar with my background, I was born in Springfield and am a graduate of Nixa High School. When not serving in Jefferson City, I work in real estate development. Before getting involved in state politics, I was proud to serve as mayor of Nixa from 1997 to 2002. I also have a strong family heritage of serving the community; my mother, Edna Wasson, was the first female mayor in Nixa. In 2002, I was elected to the Missouri House to serve the 141st Missouri House District, which included parts of Christian, Lawrence and Stone counties. This November, I was elected to serve the 20th Senatorial District, which includes Christian, Douglas, Webster, and parts of Greene counties.
This session, one of the main focuses of the General Assembly will be to make sure Missouri has a job-friendly environment where companies want to move to and expand. We need to make sure that employers have the tools they need to thrive in our state. Some ideas that have already been discussed to encourage job creation are capping corporate franchise taxes at $2 million to encourage companies to invest in hiring new employees and giving employees a choice in whether they want to join a union. We also want to work on restoring balance to Missouri’s Human Rights Act in order to end lawsuit abuses and bring our state law in line with the federal human rights law.
On a local level, I am sponsoring Senate Bill 26, which would create a special license plate to benefit the Nixa Education Foundation. The Foundation is a vehicle for charitable giving capable of benefiting the entire Nixa School District. The legislation is simple, but it is an issue that I have worked on during my time in the House, and I hope to see it pass successfully this year.
I will continue to use this weekly column to keep you up-to-date on the happenings of the Legislature and my work on issues in the Senate. Please feel free to contact my office if you have any questions about the Legislature or suggestions on how we can make state government better at (573) 751-1503 or toll-free at (866) 242-0810.
