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The answer is both simple and appalling: It’s because it isn’t ultimately those legislators who decide what bills live or die in Jefferson City. The real power lies with monied special interests — in this case, the insurance lobby — whose political contributions control those lawmakers like puppets on strings.

The sex abuse survivor bill’s supporters say they will bring it back again next year. They should. But the fact that it’s this difficult to pass a reform that has such wide and bipartisan political support highlights a much broader problem with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s political system.

Under current ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ law, child sex abuse victims have until they turn 31 to sue their abusers. Experts have long said there should be a much longer statute of limitations for civil liability in such cases, or no limitation at all, because of the nature of this particular offense. Victims may suppress, for many years, memories of such horrific abuse suffered when they were children.

That’s why most states today have extended or eliminated their statutes of limitation for such action. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is one of just 18 states in which the victim must sue before turning 35.

The measure that failed to pass this year would have given abuse survivors until age 41 to sue. It passed the House with a vote that was split only because of unrelated provisions; it had little or no opposition in the Senate, yet failed to win passage.

“I’ve never received a ‘no’ vote on that legislation, ever,� said the bill’s frustrated sponsor, state Rep. Brian Seitz, R-Branson, as reported by the .

But there was opposition from some powerful unelected players in the state Capitol. The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Chamber of Commerce testified against the measure in committee and the tort reform and insurance lobbies opposed it. That’s because the measure would, by design, mean more litigation against sexual abusers, which in turn means insurance companies would have to pay out more in judgments against individuals or entities covered by insurance policies.

How do such narrow business interests overcome public and political support for this commonsense reform? With their checkbooks.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has campaign contribution limits to individual politicians but no limits on contributions to PACs that support individual politicians. It creates a neat little that effectively allows business lobbies to give as much as they want to any sitting lawmaker.

Then there are ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s term limits for legislators. Whatever the merits of those limits, they inevitably mean elected politicians aren’t in the Capitol long enough to become nearly as savvy at working the system as are the professional lobbyists who rub shoulders with them and who are under no such term limits.

“In the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Capitol, there’s a power structure,â€� says Seitz, as quoted by the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Independent: “At the top are the lobby groups. Secondarily, the bureaucrats. Thirdly, the leadership of either party. Fourth, the House and Senate. And fifth, the janitor.â€�

He added that “the difficulty with getting commonsense legislation through is, does it have lobby backing? Is there lobby money behind it? Is there opposition from a lobby group?�

If Seitz and other lawmakers want to change that situation, they should start by closing the PAC campaign-contribution loophole and looking for other ways to limit the power of lobbyists.

Meanwhile, backers of the sex-abuse survivors bill should gear up for a unified, very public push to overcome that lobbyist influence next year and get this thing passed. Otherwise, in the words of state Sen. Brad Hudson, R-Cape Fair, a co-sponsor of the legislation: “We are going to become a sanctuary state for pedophiles.�