JEFFERSON CITY — The need in the days leading up to the Sept. 12-13 veto session of the Missouri General Assembly, when the bid to override Senate Bill 749 begins to take shape in the State Capitol, is for Missouri Baptists to pray.
Kerry Messer, legislative liaison of the Christian Life Commission (CLC) of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC), is among a group of faith-based lobbyists working to power the religious liberty bill past the veto of Democrat Gov. Jay Nixon. Experience has taught Messer that prayer must be a top priority.
“We pray first off for truth and righteousness to be upheld in the land,” Messer said. “There’s a lot of political rhetoric and spin being thrown around on this veto override which can confuse not just citizens but even lawmakers themselves. Secondly, we need to pray for great wisdom and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the legislators that their convictions would be more than just their own but be the convictions that the Lord would have them to act on. No. 3, pray that we as God’s people would have grace in the eyes of our elected officials that we could communicate clearly with conviction and without compromise and yet without in any way offending those lawmakers.”
Messer sees SB 749 as one of many Missouri speed bumps meant to stall the enactment of the federal Affordable Care Act. The Republican majorities in the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate hope for a potential federal health care remedy, electing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Messer said the override of SB 749 would “express to the U.S. Congress, ‘We don’t want this. Get rid of this before you shove it down our throats.’”
The bill is designed to strengthen protections for employers from being required to buy insurance for abortions, contraception or sterilizations for their employees if they object on religious grounds. If the override fails, three MBC institutions would be at risk – Southwest Baptist University, Hannibal-LaGrange University, and the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home. All would be required to provide abortion coverage in their health care insurance plans to employees.
Only 23 times in the history of Missouri has a governor lost on an override. Messer said the religious liberty measure is well-positioned to be No. 24.
“It speaks to the will of the people,” Messer said. “It speaks to righteousness. It speaks to policy that should be upheld by anybody who fears the Lord. But it’s also a provision that undoubtedly would end up in the courts, and the courts would have to decide just how much authority does the state have over directing its own affairs.
“This is an ongoing question that comes up every time you turn around on all kinds of issues because every time the court responds to a case related to this overarching topic of states’ rights, the court only gives a surgical answer to very limited, narrow, written questions that come before the court. The question of whether or not the federal government can force people of conviction to pay for abortion, contraception, and sterilization for other people is a question that our courts have never answered in the context of states’ rights. So I believe it sets the stage to move to the next level.”
At least two-thirds of lawmakers in both the House and Senate are needed for the override to succeed. It passed in the Senate with 26 votes, three more than the minimum. The House total was 105, which is four short of the override number. However, about two dozen lawmakers were absent when the vote was taken, and there are believed to be several votes to override in that pool.
Assuming senators vote as expected, the drama will be in the House, where members of the Democrat Pro-Life Caucus will need to weigh voting their convictions against protecting the interests of their party.
“This is only going to exacerbate their stress,” Messer said.
How will he go about the business of interacting with them?
“It’s like walking on eggshells,” Messer said. “You have to be very, very cautious. You cannot be overly bold, and yet you can’t be too timid. It’s a time where diplomacy really comes into play like no other time. You have to be very careful not to offend or give any justification to someone who may be looking for an excuse to make a decision and they’re looking for scapegoats.”
If the override succeeds, it will be the third time in Messer’s tenure that pro-life and pro-family advocates will have accomplished that. The others were in 1999, on a veto by Democrat Gov. Mel Carnahan on a partial-birth abortion ban, and in 2003, on a veto by Democrat Gov. Bob Holden on the establishment of a 24-hour abortion waiting period.