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| 5/7/2009 1:10:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Hoskins, Burnett debate Senate Bill 66
Jefferson City - Rep. Denny Hoskins - backing Senate Bill 66 in the House - debated the measure with Rep. John Burnett, D-Kansas City, resulting in this exchange...
BURNETT - "Within the last 24 hours, I filled out this personal financial disclosure myself. I think it took me less than 10 minutes, but I was distracted because I was watching television at the time.'
HOSKINS - "Right."
BURNETT - "So, it seems to me that it's not a great burden that we place on our elected officials to fill out this disclosure. You know, it's about 20 questions that we answered and I'm not sure why we want to exempt 61 cities from knowing whether or not their elected officials have these financial interests that might be in conflict. Is there some reason other than some Knob Noster (person) asked you, that they don't like it. Do they have something to hide?"
HOSKINS - "No, there's nothing to hide from good old Stan Hall, mayor of Knob Noster. No, what's happened..."
(Interrupting) BURNETT - "Why can't he spend the 10 minutes like I did?"
HOSKINS - "Well, what happens is ..."
(Hoskins paused.)
BURNETT - "He could probably..."
(Hoskins cut in and for a moment the two talked over each other.) Hoskins - "You're an attorney, you've got more assets than that, gentleman. "
BURNETT - "But they don't ask ... you to disclose your assets. It asks you to disclose categories of assets. So, I would have to be a zillionaire to spend more than a few minutes filling out that form."
HOSKINS - "Right. I mean, based on what the current statute's doing is a lot of the city councils and aldermen of these 61 cities that this would affect, they don't realize there is this requirement and they forget about the requirement..."
BURNETT - "Shouldn't we train them when they get elected. We train them in election campaign finance and they have to sign a disclosure saying they're aware when they file their campaign committee. Don't they file the same disclosures, sign the same acknowledgements that we do?"
HOSKINS - "Well, it's a little bit different. Most of these are volunteer positions, gentleman."
BURNETT - "It's different? They file different papers than we do?"
HOSKINS - "They're just regular people filing..."
BURNETT - "I'm a regular person, gentleman, and I file a regular financial disclosure just like every other regular elected official in this state."
HOSKINS - "You're being paid, gentleman."
BURNETT - "Why do the people from Knob Noster get a pass?"
HOSKINS - "Excuse me?"
BURNETT - "Why do you want to give the people from Knob Noster a pass on filling out this form? This form doesn't really tell the public anything. It merely tells you the categories of financial interest that people have. For example, if I bought and sold real estate in Knob Noster last year, that would be on that form. I just don't happen to own any real estate in Knob Noster..."
(They again talked over each other.)
BURNETT -"It seems to me that if I was an elected officials in Knob Noster, that would be relevant."
The two continued to scuffle verbally, with Hoskins listing the 61 cities that would be exempted, including Lawson in Clay County and Lone Jack in Jackson County and Maryville in northwest Missouri.
BURNETT - "About half of those towns I've heard of, so they're not insignificant little blob pecks on the map. ... They're not little backwaters that don't matter to anybody. So it seems to me that if I'm aware of the existence of those places, that they are significant enough that they ought to file the same kind of financial disclosures that we ask of all elected officials. Now I'm not sure why, and you haven't articulated any reason, why you are going to deprive the citizens of this state and the citizens of those municipalities of the information that they would be entitled to under existing campaign finance disclosure law."
At that point, Burnett's time expired.
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