Legislators had returned to the State Capitol here to chip away at the 29 bills and four line items that Gov. Jay Nixon had vetoed — the most vetoes he has issued in a single session in his five years as governor. He was overridden more times in a year than any previous governor since the two-thirds majority rule was instituted.

But Mr. Nixon won victories on the two most divisive measures, in an unlikely turn for a man who, for the first time in his tenure, faced veto-proof Republican supermajorities in both chambers.

“It’s a defining moment,” Mr. Nixon said at a news conference after his veto on the tax-cut bill was upheld. “Today was about protecting our economy, our communities and, especially, our schools from this costly and misguided bill.”

Over the summer, Mr. Nixon devoted most of his attention to the tax-cut bill, barnstorming the state to argue that it would decimate financing for education, mental health and other services. The bill would have slashed taxes for businesses and lowered the state’s income tax rate for the first time in more than 90 years.

The governor stitched together a broad coalition of support from the educators, with more than a hundred school boards across the state passing resolutions to sustain the veto.

Mr. Nixon also enraged some opponents by withholding $400 million in state spending that he said he would release only if the tax cut failed. On Wednesday he said he would work to distribute the money quickly.

After a summer of escalating confrontation and more than an hour and a half of debate on the House floor, 94 members, all of them Republican, voted in favor of overriding the veto of the tax cut, and 67 voted against it, with 15 Republicans joining the Democrats. That fell well short of the 109 votes needed.

Representative T. J. Berry, the Republican sponsor of the tax-cut bill, conceded that there were some unintended consequences of the bill that Mr. Nixon had pointed out — the elimination, for instance, of an exemption on prescription drugs that could have caused people to pay more. Mr. Berry said he expected the legislature to fix those technicalities when it reconvened next year.

“We’re like the old Greek demigod who pushed the rock up the hill, just to watch the rock fall back down,” Mr. Berry said after Wednesday’s vote. “I’m sure in January we will turn around and pass almost the exact same bill and put it on the governor’s desk during session, and he will veto it. But at least then the arguments will be clean. They won’t be that this is a flawed bill.”

Despite the defeat, supporters of big tax cuts said they were heartened that a majority of lawmakers had favored the measure.

“We ran a campaign that was aggressive, out there talking in the general public about tax cuts,” said Aaron Willard, the treasurer of the Grow Missouri Coalition, a chief advocate of an override. “We got resounding support from the general population.”

The House barely passed the gun measure, 109 to 49, with three abstentions. But hours later, the Senate, which has 24 Republicans, failed to get an override by one vote, with 22 senators voting for an override and 12 against, including two Republicans.

The veto of the gun bill appeared to be headed for an override until the past week. Chris Koster, the state’s Democratic attorney general, wrote a letter last week opposing the bill. Mr. Koster said that some of the provisions were likely to be deemed unconstitutional, and he pointed to several problems even if parts of the law stood; that it could, for instance, prevent local and federal law enforcement agencies from working together.

Then this week, the Republican floor leader in the Senate, Ron Richard, said that he was withdrawing his support for the bill because of concerns over its legality. Mr. Richard was one of the two Republicans to vote against it on Wednesday night.

Senator Brian Nieves, the sponsor of the gun bill, said he believed that Mr. Koster’s letter shifted the tide. “Two weeks ago, I would’ve placed a very large wager in support of override,” he said. “Chris Koster made a perfect tactical move and released his letter at the perfect time, when there wouldn’t be time to sufficiently rebut his argument.”

Hundreds of protesters had descended on the Capitol on Wednesday and packed the legislative chambers to push for overrides.

Mr. Nixon attributed the many challenges to his vetoes to the partisan atmosphere in the assembly. “My sense is that there has been, over a period of time, a shift a little bit into more of a political discourse than a governing discourse,” he said Wednesday.

He said he hoped that the rebuff of the tax bill would change that. “My certain hope and expectation is that we get to a focus on the issues that really matter as far as making better education, creating new opportunities for our kids,” he said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/us/missouri-legislature-fails-to-override-tax-cut-veto.html?partner=rss&emc=rss