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Democratic Leader Walsh on minority role in legislative home stretch

St. Louis Public Radio | By Jason Rosenbaum,
Jo Mannies
Published April 9, 2017 at 10:12 PM CDT
Carolina Hidalgo I St. Louis Public Radio

On the latest edition of the Politically Speaking podcast, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies are pleased to welcome back Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh.

 

The Bellefontaine Neighbors Democrat is the leader of Senate Democratic Caucus, which has shrunk in recent years to nine members after Republicans took over scores of seats in outstate Missouri. Even though Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Senate, the minority party can still use the filibuster to block or force changes to legislation.

 Listen to Senate Minority Leader Walsh's appearance on Politically Speaking here.

 

Walsh represents the 13th District in north St. Louis County, which encompassing portions of Ferguson and Dellwood. Walsh spent nearly three decades as part of the Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local #1, and she's currently the president of the Missouri State Building & Construction Trades Council.

 

For years, Walsh has been a major opponent of “right to work,” which bars unions and employers from requiring workers to pay dues a condition of employment. Gov. Eric Greitens signed that policy into law earlier this year, although unions are circulating a ballot initiative aimed at preventing it from taking effect.

 

Walsh is handling a bill that would allow a number of counties to vote on a sales tax increase to help the St. Louis Zoo. The legislation becameembroiled in controversylast week when Sen. Bob Onder crafted an amendment (that was not offered on the floor) to rename the facility “The Midwest Abortion Sanctuary City Zoological Park” — a reference tohow St. Louis passedan ordinance barring employers and landlords from discriminating against women who are pregnant, use contraception or have had an abortion.

 

Onder issued a statement last week. “I had various amendments to the tax hike bill, some serious to protect the citizens in my district, others were senatorial banter meant to point out the irony of the recent action of the Board of Aldermen in the City of St. Louis,” he said.

 

  • Members of labor unions ended up voting forGreitenslast year — even after they were told he’d support policies aimed at weakening labor unions. “I worked polls where I’ve seen members that I know say ‘I know what my union hall saying, but I know what I’m doing,’” Walsh said. “So our membership elected the president and governor of the state of Missouri, and we have to take ownership of that.”
  • She hopes senators can block efforts torepeal the prevailing wage. Missouri’s law effectively requires higher wages to be paid in rural areas for public projects, such as school construction.

  • Some Republican senators have questioned whether Greitens could issue an executive order offeringpaid leave for some state employeeswithout legislative action. Even though she supports paid leave, Walsh says the GOP concerns have merit. “You know I love the idea that we’re going to give moms longer time off at home with their new babies,” she said. “But we have to be able to afford it.”

  • Walsh also said some senators were skeptical about taking up some of Greitens’ ethics-related priorities after the governor set upa nonprofit groupthat can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors.

Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter:@jrosenbaum

 

Follow Jo Mannies on Twitter:@jmannies

 

Follow Gina Walsh:@walshgina

 

Music: “Gold Lion” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

 

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Missouri News
Jason Rosenbaum
Since entering the world of professional journalism in 2006, Jason Rosenbaum dove head first into the world of politics, policy and even rock and roll music. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Rosenbaum spent more than four years in the Missouri State Capitol writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Lawyers Media and the St. Louis Beacon.
See stories by Jason Rosenbaum
Jo Mannies
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.
See stories by Jo Mannies