Senate Committee Guts MOHELA

Senator Coleman's Press Release:

For immediate release Contact: Chuck Miller
February 7, 2007
573.751.4128

Coleman: Senate Republicans Practice Politics of Prejudice on MOHELA bill

JEFFERSON CITY - Saying today's committee vote was nothing more than
the politics of prejudice, Senator Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis, blasted
Senate Republicans for stripping college building projects from the
state's metropolitan areas and Columbia while only supporting projects
in rural, Republican-represented districts in a bill heard in the
Senate Education Committee.

Senate Bill 389, a Republican-sponsored measure, originally called for
the sale of $350 million of MOHELA assets to fund college building
projects around Missouri. During an executive committee hearing
today, Senate Republicans eliminated some college building projects
listed in the bill that were to be built on campuses in St. Louis,
Kansas City, and Columbia, areas represented by Democrats. College
building projects in Republican-represented areas were protected.

"What the Republicans did today was not only political but it smacks
of prejudice," said Senator Coleman. "Voters in the last election
sent a clear message that they want Democrats and Republicans to work
together. The Republicans slapped Missouri voters in the face today
while snubbing students in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia. I am
sickened by this blatant disregard for the people of Missouri."

About $113 million in construction projects were eliminated from
Senate Bill 389. Thos projects include Harris-Stowe State
University's CORTEX Accelerator Facility; the Business Incubator
projects at Mizzou and UMKC; the Health Sciences centers at Mizzou and
UMKC; and the Center for Emerging Technologies II at UMSL.
Construction projects that were protected included the Business
Incubators in Springfield and Cape Girardeau.

"Eliminating business incubators at Mizzou and UMKC while protecting
the one in Springfield and Cape Girardeau is the worst kind of
partisan, prejudicial politics," Senator Coleman said, "and there is
absolutely no other reason for it. Republicans exhibited contempt for
higher education and economic development today by catering to some
ultra fringe groups who oppose any research freedoms on Democratic
higher-education campuses."

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