JEFFERSON CITY -- An amendment that would ban red-light cameras in Missouri cities advanced in the state Senate Monday afternoon, after many stops and starts over the past two years. For Sen. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay, the vote was a long-time coming.

Lembke has been proposing such a ban -- and many alternative forms of regulating red-light cameras -- ever since he came to the Senate last year, but he hasn't been able to get much support. But a recent Missouri Supreme Court decision finding fault with the red-light cameras in Springfield, Mo., helped convince some of his colleagues that his concerns are valid, Lembke said.

The proposal is a long ways from becoming law. The Senate on Monday attached it to an omnibus transportation bill that has a variety of controversial sections, including a ban on texting and driving. The bill has been referred to a Senate committee that must pass it before the full Senate votes. Then it would go back to the House for another vote.

Still, Lembke was pleased his amendment -- which passed 23-8 -- has come this far.

"We've been going back and forth on the issue of regulation," Lembke said. The Springfield court decision, he said, "put the issue back on the radar screen."

The Senate also passed an amendment on the bill proposed by Sen. Tim Green, D-Spanish Lake, that would ban the photo-radar being used in the city of Charlack for speed enforcement on I-170.