We have been reminded from all sides that this year’s election is historic. Whether it is as historic as some of the rhetoric has tried to portray it will be determined by the passage of time, as time’s context defines history. But it is, at least, unique.
Especially for Missourians.
We might be—probably are—participating in a huge first step of a transition from polling place to mailbox or other ways of casting votes. While mail-in voting was approved by the legislature as a one-off experience in this pandemic year, this bell has been rung and it can’t be UNrung. It is hard to believe lawmakers here and throughout the country will not revisit this issue, smooth out its rough spots, and move to make remote voting in one form or another a regular practice.
Resistance can be expected. But the arrow is in flight and while its course might become longer than anticipated, it will not be diverted.
More locally, what we are seeing in Missouri this year has never happened before or has happened only once. For example—-
Governor Mike Parson is not running for RE-election. He was Lieutenant Governor when Eric Greitens resigned, moving him into the big office. This is the first time Missourians have been faced with a sitting governor running for election since Lilburn Boggs, who as lieutenant governor replaced Daniel Dunklin, who resigned after becoming Surveyor General of Missouri and Illinois. Boggs, who is best known for issuing the extermination order against the Mormons, was elected to a full term in 1836.
(As a side note, all of this occurred a decade after an unusual gubernatorial succession circumstance put one man in the governor’s office with no opponent. Our second governor, Frederick Bates, died in 1825. Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Reeves had resigned earlier to help survey the Santa Fe Trail. Senate President Pro Tem Abraham Williams, a one-legged shoemaker from Columbia, assumed duties as governor and under the constitution in effect at the time, called an election. John Miller defeated three other candidates. Miller ran for a full term in 1828 and to this day is the only governor elected without opposition. He served the longest continuous term until a constitutional change allowed Warren Hearnes to succeed himself in 1969.)
Never before have we had so many people seeking election to statewide offices they already hold but were not elected to hold. Parson, Lieutenant Governor Kehoe, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick were not elected to their present offices. But Mike Kehoe was headed back to private life as a term-limited senator and Fitzpatrick was facing ouster from the House because of term limits. When Parson moved up to governor, he promptly appointed Kehoe as Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State Treasurer then was appointed by Parson as Attorney General when Josh Hawley ended Claire McCaskill’s U. S. Senate Career. Fitzpatrick, the outgoing House Budget Committee Chair, was appointed by Parson as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer. The only statewide office holder who is running for RE-election, not just election, is Secretary of State Jay Ashcoft, who has stayed where voters put him four years ago.
The last time a sitting statewide office holder was elected, not re-elected, was 1996 with the election of Bekki Cook as Secretary of State. She had been appointed to succeed acting Secretary Dick Hanson after the Missouri Supreme Court removed Judi Moriarty from office. Hanson, incidentally, served in the office only a few days and as far as we know holds the record for shortest time in office of any statewide official.
Cook did not see re-election but four years later was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor. She lost to fellow Cape Girardeau resident Peter Kinder who went on become the only person to serve three full terms as Lieutenant Governor—a record unlikely to be broken if Amendment 1 is unfortunately approved next week.
President Trump’s repeated refusal to say he would assent to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses recalls an instance in Missouri when the legislature refused to allow such a transfer. Democrats had a stranglehold on state offices and on the legislature in 1940 when Republican Forrest Donnell was elected Governor. In those days, the Speaker of the House proclaimed the official winners of statewide elections and Speaker Morris Osburn refused to certify Donnell’s election. The loser, Democrat Larry McDaniel, and state Democratic Party Chairman C. Marion Hulen claimed voting irregularities made McDaniel a winner by 30-thousand votes, not the 36-hundred vote loser. The Missouri Supreme Court finally ordered Donnell be sworn in—six weeks late, and to serve until a recount showed he had lost. The recount became a disaster for McDaniel, who withdrew his challenge without consulting Democratic leaders who had urged him to fight.
The event is unlikely to be repeated. A new state constitution adopted five years later made the Secretary of State, not the Speaker of the House, the person who certifies election results.
Many who read these observations already have cast their ballots and already have contributed to this historic election. Thousands more will go to polling places next Tuesday to do their parts.
It’s not often that so many people make so much history. We hope you will have or already have done your part.