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State Rep. Dan Shaul is the latest guest on Politically Speaking, where the Imperial Republican talked with St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum about a host of issues around Missouri elections — and expectations for congressional redistricting later this year.

Shaul is the chairman of the House Elections Committee, as well as a special House committee overseeing congressional redistricting. He was first elected to the Missouri House in 2014 and will be barred from running again after 2022 by term limits. He is one of several Republicans who announced their bids for a Jefferson County-based Senate seat.

Here’s what Shaul talked about during the show:

• Why lawmakers want to pursue a three-week period when voters could cast absentee ballots in person with no excuse. Currently, Missourians have to provide one of a number of excuses in order to vote absentee — including being out of town or being physically incapacitated.
• Why the legislature was trying to reenact Missouri’s photo identification requirement to vote. That measure was effectively made inactive by a Missouri Supreme Court decision.
• Other election-related ideas, including increasing the number of signatures required to get something on the statewide ballot and increasing the percentage of the vote needed to pass a constitutional amendment.
• With lawmakers expected to convene this winter to vote on congressional redistricting, Shaul provided his take about the expectations and priorities for Republicans who will control the process. This is the first time in modern Missouri history that Democrats haven’t controlled either a legislative branch or the governorship during a redistricting year.

When Shaul was first elected to the Missouri House, a slew of Republicans managed to win seats in Jefferson County. Since his first win, Shaul has won reelection by increasingly wider margins as the county gravitated more to the Republican Party.

In addition to his legislative duties, Shaul is the executive director of the Missouri Grocers Association. Before he started working in the grocery industry, Shaul served in the Air Force.

Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter: @jrosenbaum

Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz returns to Politically Speaking to talk with St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jaclyn Driscoll about a host of issues the Missouri General Assembly could take up in the second half of the 2021 session.

Schatz is a Republican from Sullivan who was elected to represent Missouri’s 26th District in 2014. He was reelected in 2018 and was picked by his caucus as the president pro tem after the 2018 election season. Schatz will be barred by term limits from running for the Senate after 2022.

Here’s what Schatz talked about during the show:

• Whether the Senate may add funding for Medicaid expansion to the state budget. The Missouri House declined to expand the health care program last week — and a failure of the Senate to act could mean the issue is heading to court.
• His bid to increase Missouri’s gas tax, a measure that passed out of the Senate but faces an uncertain fate in the House.
• Whether lawmakers could institute a period of time for voters to cast absentee ballots in person without an excuse. He also discussed why he would be in favor of requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote absentee in person.
• Whether Missouri’s candidate filing deadline could have to be pushed back — and whether he could be a candidate for the U.S. Senate next year.

Schatz represents all of Franklin County and most of western St. Louis County. As pro tem, he is responsible for appointing committee chairs and directing legislation to committees.

Schatz’s family owns a utility contracting business.

Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter: @jrosenbaum

Follow Jaclyn Driscoll on Twitter: @DriscollNPR

Follow Dave Schatz: @DaveSchatz26

On the latest episode of Politically Speaking, House Budget Chairman Cody Smith talks with St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jaclyn Driscoll about this year’s budget process — which has drawn more attention than usual because of the battle over expanding Medicaid.

Smith represents Missouri’s 163rd District, which takes in parts of Jasper County. The Carthage Republican has served as chairman of the powerful Budget Committee since the 2019 legislative session.

Here’s what Smith talked about on the show:

• Why his GOP colleagues declined to expand Medicaid under the auspices of the Affordable Care Act. He answered questions about whether the move runs counter to a constitutional amendment that passed last year expanding the health care program.
• Whether the state portion of Medicaid expansion could essentially be paid for a lengthy period of time through federal American Rescue Plan funding.
• Whether a direct funding source could be found to pay for Medicaid expansion if cost savings don’t materialize and after American Rescue Plan funding runs out.
• A measure he’s handling that would tie Missouri’s minimum wage to the federal minimum wage.

Smith was first elected to the Missouri House in 2016, and reelected to his post in 2018 and 2020. His GOP-leaning district includes Carthage, Carl Junction, Oronogo and Webb City.

In addition to his legislative duties, Smith is the owner of a company that seeks to prevent disease from spreading in health care facilities.

Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter: @jrosenbaum

Follow Jaclyn Driscoll on Twitter: @DriscollNPR

Follow Cody Smith on Twitter: @cody4mo

We wanted to know how environmental issues affect babies and birthing people during childbirth, one of the most delicate life processes. In the U.S., Black babies are two times more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies, and Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications then white women. So in this episode, we hear from a documentary filmmaker about humanizing Black birthing people, a neonatal hospitalist about the effects the environment has on newborns and mothers and an executive director of an Equal Access Midwifery Clinic about supporting people of color through the birthing process.

On the latest episode of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Collector of Revenue Gregory F.X. Daly talks with St. Louis Public Radio’s Rachel Lippmann, Corrine Ruff and Jason Rosenbaum about the campaign to preserve the city’s earnings tax.

Daly, who was first elected collector of revenue in 2006, has provided $50,000 from his campaign bank account to help keep the earnings tax. Every five years, St. Louis voters have to decide on whether to renew the 1% tax on income for people who either live or work in the city.

Here’s what Daly talked about on the show:

• How the earnings tax constitutes nearly a third of the city’s budget and goes toward a host of important services. He added that if it were to gradually go away, as it would if Proposition E doesn’t end up passing on April 6, the city would have to find another revenue source to replace the lost income.
• Why it’s important for people who work in St. Louis, but don’t live there, to keep paying the earnings tax. The statewide initiative requiring a vote to retain the earnings tax every five years does not require residents of surrounding counties to weigh in on the matter.
• Legislation that would allow people who live outside the city to ask for earnings tax refunds if they’ve been primarily working from home during the pandemic. Daly said state Sen. Andrew Koenig’s bill would likely cost the city millions of dollars if it were enacted.
• Whether the campaign to retain the earnings tax will be complicated by the mayoral general election happening at the same time. This is the first instance since 2009 in which the April general election is more decisive in the mayor’s race than the March primary.

Daly is a southwest St. Louis native who has spent more than 40 years in St. Louis City Hall. He worked for a number of Board of Aldermen presidents over the years, including Tom Zych, Tom Villa and Francis Slay. (Villa said in a 2016 episode of Politically Speaking that Daly was one of his students when he worked as a teacher.)

Daly became license collector in 1998 after then-Gov. Mel Carnahan appointed him to the post. He won election to the collector of revenue’s office in 2006 and has been reelected ever since with minimal opposition.

Because he’s rarely faced any credible challengers over the years, Daly has one of the most well-funded campaign committees in city politics — with more than $500,000 on hand as of January. He considered running for mayor in 2017 and 2021 but decided against it.

Follow Rachel Lippmann on Twitter: @rlippmann

Follow Corinne Ruff on Twitter: @corinnesusan

Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter: @jrosenbaum

Follow Gregory F.X. Daly on Twitter: @gregoryfxdaly