You and I have no business questioning the Missouri Legislature’s quick obedience to an order from President Trump to redraw our congressional districts so longtime incumbent Democrat will have to leave his congressional office and presumably give President Trump an additional Republican seat in the House of Representatives.
At least that’s what the latest occupant of the Attorney General’s office thinks.
A group called People Not Politicians is gathering referendum petition signatures to put the legislature’s Trumpmandered congressional district map to a statewide vote. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says they have no business doing that. Congressional redistricting, she says, is sacred to the Missouri legislature. She issued a statement to St. Louis Public Radio saying her lawsuit to block the referendum on the map drawn by the legislature is an effort to “stop out-of-state dark-money groups from hijacking Missouri’s electoral process and silencing the voices of Missouri voters.”
That is a stunning statement. Absolutely stunning. A politician, especially one whose party has a chokehold on state government, saying “out of state dark-money groups” should be prohibited “from hijacking Missouri’s electoral process” is a landmark statement. Since when is out of state dark money something either of our political parties is against?
We will believe accepting out of state dark money is a political sin when we see the state Republican party pass a law outlawing it. We expect Democrats would be excited to work with their GOP colleagues to take that step.
But all of us know the Sun will go dark before that happens.
As for “silencing the voices of Missouri voters:” Doesn’t her lawsuit keeping Missouri voters from having a say on the issue doing exactly that?
Did I even need to ask that question?
Missouri’s constitution allows its citizens to propose laws and to question actions by the General Assembly. There is no carve-out for congressional redistricting.
Congressional redistricting is, indeed, the job of the legislature IF IT IS DONE LEGALLY AND THE DISTRICTS MEET LEGAL STANDARDS. The petition campaign represents the people’s voice expressing concerns about the legality of what the legislature did.
We have a character in Washington who believes he is above the law and above the U.S. Constitution and he’s looking around and seeing a lot of the public has come to the realization of how dangerous he is to our country—and he is scared to death that voters next year will elect a Congress that is not afraid of him.
His solution is to do everything he can to rig next year’s elections. Unfortunately, Missouri has said “Yes, sir (“sir” is one of his favorite words) how high do you want us to jump?”
It’s one thing for the legislature to pass a law protecting him. But to say the people who elected the legislators to protect their interests have no right to object when those legislators choose, instead, to protect the interests of one individual who is deathly afraid of facing voter consequences for his actions is flatly un-American.
At least, it used to be—-
back when being an American was not anti-American.