JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

If you didn’t know better, you’d think Missouri Republicans had experienced an overnight conversion and were attempting to mop up the mess they’ve made of Missouri government.

But that’s not what Missouri Republicans are known for, is it?

No, what they’re known for is subverting good government, hatching trick plays and, specifically, having honed gerrymandering to a fine art that has enabled them to maintain overwhelming majorities in the state House and Senate for a decade or more.

So it’s not surprising that Constitutional Amendment 3, which will be on the Nov. 3 ballot, appears to be something good, when it is decidedly bad.

Voters will have to be on top of their game in November and not rush through the ballot because Amendment 3 would overturn the Clean Missouri amendment, which voters approved by a 62 percent to 38 percent in 2018 after a successful statewide initiative petition.

It took an initiative petition because, God knows, the Republican-dominated General Assembly would never have attempted to make redistricting fair or to severely reduce lobbyists’ gifts to legislators. It took Clean Missouri to do that, and, like I say, voters overwhelmingly approved it, which means one thing: Republican voters as well as Democrats endorsed it.

But now, having been beaten at the polls two years ago, the Republican legislators are making a renewed run, this time by trying to enter through the back door. Earlier this year, they approved a bill, which Gov. Mike Parson signed, that put Amendment 3 on the November ballot.

The ballot title the Republicans came up with is extremely deceptive. It’s also extremely important because the ballot title is what the vast majority of voters will be guided by. Here’s the Republican language:

• Ban all lobbyist gifts to legislators and their employees;
• Reduce legislative campaign contribution limits; and
• Create citizen-led independent bipartisan commissions to draw state legislative districts based on one person, one vote, minority voter protection, compactness, competitiveness, fairness and other criteria?

Sounds great, right?  Ban lobbyist gifts? Reduce the campaign contribution limit? Create bipartisan commissions to draw state legislative districts? How could any of that be bad???

The critical element in play here is the third bullet, the redistricting.

Under pressure from the press and the public, the legislators have, for the most part, thrown in the towel on lavish dinners, drinks and trips from lobbyists. And the contribution limit for state Senate candidates would go down by only $100, from $2,500 to $2,400 per election, so that’s not critical.

It’s redistricting — the key to long-term power — that the Republicans are fighting to the death over.

The pea under the shell in Amendment 3 is that having “bipartisan commissions” draw state legislative districts is not new. Not at all! It was the very system that enabled the Republicans to gerrymander the House and Senate districts and maintain a firm grip on political power. The system was bipartisan in name only because Republicans, thorough their control of the House, Senate and governor’s office, were able to manipulate the redistricting process.

The most critical element of the Clean Missouri amendment was supplanting the “bipartisan commissions” with a “nonpartisan state demographer,” who would be selected in what appears to be a truly bipartisan fashion. (I don’t have space to delineate it here, but you can read about it on the Common Cause website.)

A nonpartisan demographer — a professional, not a politician — is anathema to the Republicans. So they hatched this cynical plan to try to pass off Amendment 3 as a new, fairer system, when in fact, it would take Missouri back to the old, crooked way of doing redistricting.

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Fortunately, some Democratic judges have, to some extent, derailed the Republicans’ outrageous maneuver.

Clean Missouri filed suit, seeking to force state officials to clarify the ballot title to represent what it actually would do, that is, overturn the Clean Missouri amendment.

Juldge Patricia S. Joyce

The first judge to get a shot at the language, Judge Patricia S. Joyce — a Democrat who is presiding judge of Cole County Circuit Court in Jefferson City — came up with the best and clearest ballot language:

• Repeal rules for drawing state legislative districts approved by voters in November 2018 and replace them with rules proposed by the legislature;
• Lower the campaign contribution limit for senate candidates by $100; and
• Lower legislative gift limits from $5 to $0, with exemptions for some lobbyists?

Note that Judge Joyce made the most important element, redistricting, the first bullet point, which it deserves and cries out to be.

Of course, Joyce’s language upset Republicans, who appealed Joyce’s decision to the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District, based in Kansas City.

On Monday, a panel of three judges — two appointed by Democratic governors and one by a Republican governor — further modified the ballot language.

If there are no more changes, this is the title voters would see on Nov. 3:

• Ban gifts from paid lobbyists to legislators and their employees;
• Reduce legislative campaign contribution limits;
• Change the redistricting process voters approved in 2018 by: (i) transferring responsibility for drawing state legislative districts from the Nonpartisan State Demographer to Governor-appointed bipartisan commissions; (ii) modifying and reordering the redistricting criteria.

The judges who made that ruling were Alok Ahuja, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Matt Blunt in 2007; Lisa White Hardwick, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Bob Holden in 2001; and Karen King Mitchell, who was appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon, the last Democrat to hold the office, in 2009.

Judge Lisa White Hardwick

Judge Karen King Mitchell

Judge Alok Ahuja

Although redistricting fell back down to third place, the language Ahuja, Hardwick and Mitchell approved at least makes it crystal clear for voters that Amendment 3 would unravel Clean Missouri.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday that state officials had decided, for the time being, not to appeal the latest ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court.

However, an attorney for Clean Missouri went back to the appellate judges Tuesday and asked them to reorder the bullet points and make redistricting the first bullet. If the judges agreed to do so, Republicans might change their minds about appealing to the Supreme Court.

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Obviously, I recommend a “NO” vote on Amendment 3. It is chicanery of the worst order and deserves to be defeated as soundly as the Clean Missouri amendment was passed in 2018.