In the wake of the unrest in Ferguson, I spent time meeting with and listening to people in the community who overwhelmingly expressed an utter lack of trust with their local governments. Excessive fines and fees, speed traps and a system of taxation by citation had broken down the trust citizens put in their governments and their courts.
I also heard from law enforcement officers who said they wanted to spend more time building relationships with their communities instead of writing traffic tickets all day long to meet a quota.
As individuals made their way to our municipal courts, they were exploited because of their poverty and, in some cases, thrown into modern day debtors’ prisons.
More and more, our state’s municipal court system acted as a safe haven for overgrown local governments that chose to extract money from citizens through fees and fines instead of trimming their budgets. This abuse is summed up in a memo penned by the mayor of Edmundson in 2014 to his police chief where he reminded him and his department that the tickets they write “add to the revenue on which the [police department’s] budget is established” and that it would “directly affect pay adjustments at budget time.”
It was clear that justice was not being served. Change was needed.
As a state senator, I sponsored Senate Bill 5 in 2015 and Senate Bill 572 in 2016 to effectively put an end to taxation-by-citation schemes. The legislation capped the amount of fines for traffic violations that could be imposed per person, allowed for an alternative to payment of fees through community service, and limited the total amount of money cities could make off of traffic violations.
Moreover, the legislation was supported by clergy, conservative activists, the ACLU and law enforcement. In an age of division and mistrust, that kind of broad support is rare. The opposition was mostly limited to bureaucrats and politicians in profiteering cities who were preying on their own citizens. Despite their best efforts, the legislation passed with large, bi-partisan majorities. The changes we made in Missouri have worked and they have served as an example for other communities seeking to reform local government and their municipal courts.
After all the important improvements that we made, legislation has been introduced and is now up for debate that would reverse much of that meaningful progress.
These bills would remove the limits on the amount of fees cities could generate through traffic citations, eliminate the possibility of community service alternatives, and remove an accountability measure that requires cities to submit a report to the State Auditor’s Office outlining the amount of money they take in through citations.
These proposals would reinvigorate an abusive system of taxation by citation that preys on the poor and treats people like ATMs. Local governments do not exist to create new and innovative schemes to extract more money from the people they govern.
I share in Martin Luther King Jr.’s belief that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Passing any legislation that adversely affects our municipal reforms we have fought so hard for would be a shameful revival of elaborate extortion schemes aimed at everyday citizens.
Eric Schmitt (R-Glendale) is Missouri state treasurer.
