Like an early Christmas for bloggers here at the Show-Me Institute, the swallows have returned to Jefferson City in the form of pre-filed legislative bills. My writing here for the next month will be the bloggy equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel — which may or may not be legalized by pending legislation. (One can always hope.)

I look forward to attempting to imitate former Senator Clifford Jones, who was famous for reading every bill filed each year. I am not actually going to read all the bills, but I will use the state’s online search engine to read all the bills that come up after I set a few filters, which is close enough. I must be careful not to violate tax rules by advocating here that legislators vote for or against specific bills, so these posts will be more along the lines of, "this is a fine idea," or — much more likely — "this is so unbelieveably stupid."

Bills that expand or grow government, increase the welfare state, add licensure requirements to more professions, or raise taxes without a clear purpose will come in for both scholarly refutation and juvenile mockery. Bills that increase our freedoms and limit government’s role in the economy shall be lavishly heaped with praise like a Veiled Prophet Queen on her wedding day.

Let’s get started. From the Springfield News-Leader comes word that a bill has been filed to repeal the controversial village ordinance passed at the end of the last session. The last thing Missouri needs is more small municipalitites and more separate local governments. Furthermore, it should be difficult to form a new city, or village, or galactic empire. Representative Wood has filed two bills on this subject, and I think they are both worthwhile and positive.