As discussed before the legislative authority of the state has been given solely to the House and the Senate of Missouri, unless of course, the people through the process of home rule or charters have granted that same authority to the locally elected, in which they can pass ordinances, rules, and regulations but these also must comply with the governing documents of the state and the national (federal) government.
For reference to the above statement I refer you to these areas of the constitution
Article 1:
Text of Section 1:
Source of Political Power–Origin, Basis and Aim of Government
That all political power is vested in and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole
Article 3:
Text of Section 1:
Legislative Power–General Assembly
The legislative power shall be vested in a senate and house of representatives to be styled “The General Assembly of the State of Missouri.
Article 6 discusses the local government application and the available charter grants of local governing but it is much too large to post.
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/ViewChapter.aspx?chapter=VI&constit=y
Today my opinions on SB 818 and how it started as a decent repeal of authority to the Department of Health and Senior Services, or DHSS then morphed back into authority being given by the legislative body back to another governing body that probably doesn’t have the authority they’d like to grant it.
In RsMO section 192.006 they are adding the following “No rule promulgated by the department shall delegate the department’s rulemaking authority to any official, agency, or other department. No rule promulgated by the department shall grant rulemaking authority to a state or local administrative official. Now I will add that within the wording of the state constitution, the DHSS is not granted, except by legislative decree, any “rulemaking” authority let alone giving that rule-making authority to other branches of the government bureaucracy. At face value, it appears that the legislature is only informing DHSS that they can’t promulgate rules because that authority is not codified to them, which I believe is a step in the correct direction.
In RsMO 192.020 they propose the following wording in that section
No order, rule, or regulation made or promulgated by the department shall delegate the department’s authority to promulgate or make orders, rules, or regulations to any official, agency, or other department. No order, rule, or regulation promulgated or made by the department shall grant authority to promulgate or make orders, rules, or regulations to a state or local administrative official. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a county health officer or local health authority from enforcing the department’s rules and regulations and local ordinances pursuant to sections 192.280 and 192.290.
My issue with this wording is the following subsection “Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a county health officer or local health authority from enforcing the department’s rules and regulations and local ordinances pursuant to sections 192.280 and 192.290.”
Now if a county health officer or local health authority has such right to enforce such granted by the people then full steam ahead, not that I would ever agree that one person has the right to use the ballot box to remove my rights from me, but so be the conversation. If the people of such an area have created the agencies and power structure then that is one of them, however, by this wording, the legislative branch is granted such authority to any existing health boards and its appointed board and authority it has no right to grant simply because the legislature probably granted the authority by promulgation that such agency can be created. They borrowed authority granted to them and created an agency to which they hadn’t the authority to do.
In my worn-out example, they loaned my car out without my permission to do so, and because they returned the vehicle undamaged they believed everything was just fine.
Is it any wonder why the genie of government growth can’t be put back in the bottle with severe restrictions?
How would I have changed the wording? I’m not a wordsmith as you can tell by this article, however, I would only grant the lower health departments authority where they have been duly constitutionally created and I would also reign in any authority that DHSS believes it has unless they are following the duly created constitutional laws of the state. I know that is a hard sell since very few laws would meet the above-referenced right of law-making capacity spelled out in Article 1 Section 2 of the state constitution
