Around the Horn in Jeff City

• House Democrats are calling on Gov. Matt Blunt to immediately drop his administration’s lawsuit against a former Missouri Department of Agriculture employee who accused the agency’s former director of sexual harassment. The Agriculture department sued the employee on Feb. 20. Ag Director Fred Ferrell was forced to resign on Feb. 26. During a court hearing on Wednesday, Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce denied the department’s request for an immediate ruling in its favor. House Minority Leader Jeff Harris, D-Columbia, said the governor should order the agriculture department to drop the lawsuit. “It is unconscionable that the Blunt administration would cover up these serious allegations for more than nine months and then sue the victim in a desperate attempt to keep its dirty little secret,” Harris said. “The governor should do the right thing and cease victimizing the victim.”
• Two House Republicans are expressing extreme disappointment with what they call "a lack of cooperation from the Attorney General's office during the appropriations process." Representatives Jim Lembke, R-St. Louis County, and Nathan Cooper, R-Cape Girardeau say Attorney General Jay Nixon failed to comply with reasonable requests from the House Committee on Appropriations-General Administration for additional data with regard to their annual budget requests. “I’m baffled by this disregard for the legislative budget process,” said Rep. Lembke. “Fiscal oversight requires communication and accountability. Attorney General Nixon himself touts the availability of public records and open government as being crucial to the well-being of good government, but he fails to follow through on it.”
• Gov. Matt Blunt today launched an energy sharing initiative that will generate steam to heat the Jefferson City Correctional Center. He says it will save taxpayers $8 million dollars. The partnership launched today will create renewable energy and heat using byproducts from the Jefferson City Landfill. Methane gas from the landfill will be converted to electricity, and the heat created by conversion facilities will be used to heat water for the state prison. The project uses resources that would otherwise have been wasted while at the same time producing benefits for the environment, the state, prison and local communities, according to a Blunt administration press release.