We’ve got to have one of the worst state legislatures in the nation.
The rural, Republican-dominated Missouri Senate and House are so bad on so many fronts, but here are just two issues where they are jaw droppingly off kilter.
Restrictive voting
The House and Senate, as well as Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, have shown no interest whatsoever in allowing “no-excuse” absentee voting, expanding early voting or taking steps toward allowing voting by mail.
For Christ’s sake, even hidebound Kansas has early voting and voting by mail! What the f___?
In a recent article for The Beacon, freelance reporter Barbara Shelley said the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities “has for years unsuccessfully sought to allow Missourians to vote absentee without an excuse.”
The plea has fallen on deaf ears. Among the deafest are those of Ashcroft, son of John Ashcroft, who was the stiffest and most boring politician I ever met. (Nevertheless, he served as Missouri attorney general, governor and U.S. senator before ending his career as U.S. Attorney General.)
Jay Ashcroft
In an interview with Shelley, Jay Ashcroft said he would be open to legislation that somewhat eases restrictions on absentee voting, but then added: “I’m not certain how to do it or what exactly the language should be.”
The guy has been secretary of state almost four years now and has no idea how to ease restrictions on absentee voting?
Excuse me, but he’s got his head up his ass.
Clean Missouri
Two years ago, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment, called Clean Missouri, designed to make redistricting fairer (so the outstate rubes could no longer gerrymander the vast majority of House and Senate districts to their taste) and significantly tighten ethical factors, such as limiting campaign contributions and revolving-door activity.
Specifically, on the ethical front, the amendment bans all lobbyist gifts worth more than $5 and requires legislators to wait at least two years after the conclusion of the session of the General Assembly in which they last served before becoming lobbyists. It also lowers the $2,600 campaign contribution limit for state legislative candidates and requires legislative records and proceedings to be subject to the state’s open records law, known as the Sunshine Law.
Who can argue with any of that?
It’s hard to, and voters in deep-red Missouri agreed when they approved the amendment 62 percent to 38 percent.
I say again, who can argue with any of that?
Well, Republicans in the House and Senate, of course! They don’t like it one damn bit. It makes them sputter and fume and their faces puff up like their shirts are a size too small in the neck.
Both the House and Senate have now approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would repeal Clean Missouri and substitute a weaker version, and the repeal amendment will go on a statewide ballot later this year.
For once, though, the good ol’ boys who almost always get their way in Jeff City are on the defensive. To voters, it’s almost surely going to look like a simple proposition: If we vote down “Clean Missouri,” what’s the alternative? Dirty Missouri?”
Rocky Miller
At least one prominent Republican House member acknowledged publicly on Monday that advocates of repeal are peering up a very steep hill. “This will go down in flames if it goes on the ballot,” said Rep. Rocky Miller of Lake Ozark. “This will not pass at all.”
Thank you, Rocky.
I would love to know what local state senators and reps voted to overturn the people’s vote. They deserve to get some very nasty letters from their constituents.
You want names? My state representative, Jack Bondon (R-Loch Lloyd Light) worked last year and again this year to pass this junk through legislation, now heading for the ballot, which would drop lobbyists gifts to zero, a meaningless change that takes away a measurable trigger ($5); lower campaign contribution limits by $500, again a meaningless change that Missouri Republican mega-donors like David Humphreys and Rex Sinquefield would skirt in a heartbeat; and replace the Auditor and demographer with an unprofessional, supposedly bipartisan commission to redraw legislative districts. In other words, it would continue the practice of politicians picking their voters, not voters picking their representatives, which is the bedrock of a healthy democracy.
But the joker in Bondon’s deck – and Missouri Republican leadership – is their attack on transparency. Clean Missouri also requires most of correspondence with members of the General Assembly to be subject to the Missouri Sunshine Law – our state open records requirement. That’s how journalists, citizens and other agencies keep track of public officials doing public business, and who influences them. Their changes would do away with that. He doesn’t mention that, in his Legislative Notes, the periodic missive that he (and most legislators) get published in local newspapers throughout the state. Write to your local newspapers and call out Republicans on this chicanery. Oh, and Bondon is running for the state senate seat being vacated by Rex Rector (R-Extreme Right).
Thanks for that additional detail, Steve; you’ve done your homework.
I haven’t had time to try to run down the actual votes in the House and Senate and sort out how KC area legislators voted. Mike gave me a time-consuming assignment, and I might have to let him down.
Fitz, Nail it down, dammit!
(I’ve got to throw this damn editor a bone and try to get him off my back…Can’t be hung up here all day; the skies might clear and I might be able to get in nine holes!)
Oh, yes, Mike, I’m working on that…
Here’s how it went down in the Missouri Senate when that chamber voted on Feb. 10. The vote there was 22-9 (to repeal, of course).
Kansas City area Democrats John Rizzo and Lauren Arthur voted “no,” and Republicans Mike Cierpiot and Tony Luetkemeyer voted yes.
Two Kansas City area Senate seats are vacant because Gov. Mike Parson bought off two Democratic senators earlier, appointing them to cushy bureaucratic jobs. The defectors were Jason Holsman and Kiki Curls.
I’ll be getting on the House-side count “with all deliberate speed.”
It’s hard to drain the swamp when the keepers of the swamp don’t want it drained. The Missouri version of “Potomac Fever” is as stubborn as a mule to get rid of, but I wish Missouri’s voters well at the polls, although it’s a damn shame they are being asked to deal with this matter again.