And what it is, is the last week of the second session of the 99th General Assembly of Missouri. This week had been a two-fer until Monday afternoon when the invasion of privacy case against the governor was dismissed. Reporters until then had to try to keep one eye on the legislature’s actions and the other on the court actions in St. Louis.
This session seems to have had less pointed—and tiring—partisanship than some sessions in the past, perhaps because both parties have focused on a governor who has few friends among lawmakers instead of on the politics of each other. Legislative leaders, particularly Speaker Todd Richardson and Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, have worked hard to keep the general assembly focused on its job, even when its job in the House of Representatives has included an investigation of the governor.
Both Richard and Richardson are leaving the legislature early next year when their successors are sworn in. Richard has had his eight years in the House and his eight years in the Senate and the people in his district will never again have a chance to let him represent them again because of term limits. Richardson could run for the Senate someday. But he has not filed for any office for this year’s elections.
Their jobs won’t really be done as of 6 p.m., Friday, though. The special session that can focus entirely on the governor begins half an hour later. Lawmakers will have a month to decide if he should be impeached—and the attention of an investigating committee is increasingly focused on the governor’s dark money operations, some of which have produced attacks on legislators who have not forgotten or forgiven. And new revelations keep accumulating about the governor and dark money.
This has turned into a legislative session nobody signed up for. Events since opening day and the later State of the State message from the governor have scrambled whatever the legacy this session leaves. Maybe that legacy will include a bequest for the 100th General Assembly to handle.
One of the densest shadows over this session is that of dark money. Lawmakers have talked of doing something about it for years but haven’t done it. It has become, regretfully, oxygen to too much of the political system.
Memory tells us that the best time to change a poor status quo is the year after an election when the pressure of winning another term is lessened for a few months. Perhaps 2019 will be a good time to recall a couple of memorable things attributed to the colorful former Speaker of the California Assembly, Jesse M. Unruh, who said, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”
But his more important observation is, “If you can’t take their money, drink their booze, eat their food, (have sex with) their women and vote against them, you don’t belong here.”
Maybe next year’s lawmakers will be the ones to do more than complain about dark money. Trouble is, many of them will have benefitted from it.
The Missouri Capitol has many mottos that were carved into its walls more than a century ago to inspire the public and its public officials to noble actions. Maybe it’s time for a new one, starting with, “If you can’t take their money…..”