Author Archives: bpriddy

Term Limits—I

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The Governor of Illinois, who does not appear to be in charge of a state government whose problems make any of our problems in Missouri seem relatively minor, is leading the charge to get a term limits proposal on the ballot there in 2018.  He’s even set up one of those tax-exempt political action committees that doesn’t have to tell the public he is trying to manipulate who is financing his efforts.

But he is counting on Illinois making the same mistake Missouri made more than two decades ago by enacting term limits.

Governor Bruce Rauner even appears in the television commercials urging the public to throw out “career politicians” who “go to Springfield and don’t leave,” as some of the supposedly common folks in his commercials say.

Your observer has been asked from time to time to talk to groups and reflect on his career covering Missouri politics for more than four decades.  The speech usually focuses on the mistake Missourians made in the 1990s when they threw away their right to vote for their state senators and representatives because of corruption in government.

There are a lot of reasons term limits for legislators is lousy public policy and have become obviously lousy public policy in our state.  We’ve put the label on this entry that we have because we might come back to this topic at other times.  But let’s begin with these reasons term limits is a bad idea.

  1. It takes away a citizen’s right to vote.
  2. It aims at the wrong target.
  3. Voters might support it but they don’t mean it

And our neighbors in Illinois are about to fall for the concept the same way Missourians did.

Point one:  Passing term limits because one legislative leader has misbehaved or is perceived as misbehaving (although never criminally charged, as is the case in Illinois) means citizens are giving up their right to vote for THEIR representatives or THEIR senators.  Citizens in part of Jefferson City were deprived of his right to vote (for example) for Bill Deeken for a fifth term in the House a few years ago—although he might have been overwhelmingly popular for the work he did on their behalf because term limits say even the most effective representative cannot continue to serve his or her constituents for more than eight years.  Sorry folks.  Your right to vote for a candidate of your choice is a right only four times.   Likewise, voters in a central Missouri senate district were deprived of their right to let Carl Vogel serve them for a third term because their right to vote was limited to twice for Carl.

Point two:  Related to point one but in a different way. The problem in Illinois now and the problem in Missouri then had to do with POWER, not SERVICE. But term limits advocates here then and in Illinois now are focusing on the wrong target.  Illinois has a problem with House and Senate leaders who have been in POWER for decades and are so powerful that some believe they have more authority over government operations than the governor does, which is the real reason Rauner is so out front in the term limits campaign there.  Plus he’s up for his second term in ’18 and some polls show he’s less popular than he would like to be.

Point three:  Illinois voters are being asked to approve, in 2018, the same kinds of limits Missouri has, meaning the clock won’t start running until 2020 and lawmakers elected that year will not be allowed to run for their seats in 2028.  That means the long-time figures voters want to oust can be re-elected to serve another decade after voters approve limits.

And Missouri’s record shows voters WILL re-elect them.

Missourians approved term limits in 1992. Those elected in 1994 could not serve more than eight years in the House and eight in the Senate.   For house members, it meant that those elected in 1994 could be re-elected in ’96, ’98, and 2000.   For those in the Senate, those elected in 1994 could be re-elected in 1998 and then they would be done after two terms or four years.

The 2001 State Manual shows twelve of the thirty-four senators were serving terms three through eight because voters who agreed two terms is enough, when given a chance to elect them to two MORE terms after term limits kicked in, did so.  John Schneider was serving his eighth term because he had already served six before the term limits law went into effect that limited him to two more—and voters who had said eight years is enough promptly elected him to a total of 32.

In the House, 57 of the 163 members were serving their fifth term or more. If voters really believe eight years is enough, shouldn’t the voters have shown they really believe it by voting these 57 Representatives and twelve Senators out of office sometime along the way?

They didn’t in Missouri and there is no reason to believe Illinois voters will be any different. Voters were not honest with themselves here.  There’s no reason to think they’ll be honest with themselves in Illinois if they adopt term limits.

If term limits are to effectively balance the powers of the three branches of government, their focus should be on limiting the time a legislator can be in a position of power, not on the ability of voters to choose the people they want to be their voices in the capitol.

Let’s put it this way (and we know we should not ask a question if we do not wish to hear the answer, but think about this ):  What is the greater danger:  One lawmaker who controls drafting of the state budget for twenty years or one lawmaker that you know from your district who represents your interest for twenty years?  Who has the capability of doing the most damage?  Who is least accessible to your interests versus who do you and your fellow citizens have the most direct ability to influence with your votes?

That is the greatest flaw in term limits.  It diminishes voter influence rather than enhancing it. And it doesn’t address the real problem.

Instead of restricting the POWER of the Speaker of the House or the President pro Tem of the Senate, term limits restricts the powers of the voters.

Instead of moving to equalize campaign opportunities for incumbents and opponents by improving campaign finance and legislative ethics standards and instead limiting the time an individual can wield power, backers of term limits aim for the wrong target and convince voters to shoot themselves in the foot.

We did it in Missouri and we have been living with a worsening limp for more than twenty years.

And our neighbors to the east, Illinois, might be drawing the same bullseye on their boots.

Notes from a quiet street—VII /2016

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—random observations not worth the effort to type hundreds and hundreds of words.  Several dozen, though.

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We have made a slight correction in our earlier entry (September 27) about this being a historic election to reflect that both candidates for governor are divorced, rather than just one as we originally noted, making this election even more noteworthy as the first that matches two divorced candidates for the office (although one has remarried)

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The Tax Foundation says Missouri has the nation’s 15th most favorable business tax climate. The only one of our surrounding states with a better ranking is Tennessee.  Kansas ranks 22, Illinois 23, Nebraska 25, Oklahoma 31, Kentucky 34, Arkansas 38, Iowa 40.

We’ve been listening to candidates critical of Missouri’s slow economic growth (Business Insider said earlier this year we had the tenth worst economy in the country and the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said we were the 14th worst state for economic growth.) and promise that they would generate more jobs if we could just cut taxes on business even more.

Hmmmm.  How could our economy be doing so poorly after legislative policy-makers have made this state so business-tax friendly?

They might maintain, as some have maintained, that the silver bullet is Right-to-Work. The Business Insider rankings list non-RTW states with the first and third best economies (DC is in between).  Eight of the top 15 states are non-RTW (including DC), and 15 of the top 24 are non-RTW states.  And it says nine of the bottom eleven states ARE Right-to-work.

Rankings, of course, are what you make of them.

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A lot of critical words have been written about Donald Trump and his apparent avoidance of taxes and his proclamation that failing to pay taxes makes him smart.  Is it not fair to recognize he was only taking advantages of tax law provisions that allowed him to escape taxes.  He is hardly the first businessman or woman to have accountants smart enough to do that.  It is politically profitable to jump all over Trump and what many perceive as his arrogance on the subject.  Unfortunately it does not appear to be politically profitable for those in Washington and in our state capitols to change them. Hillary Clinton says she will do it, though.

We will wait for the second debate to see if Trump will close his own loopholes to show his solidity with the common people or if Mrs. Clinton will explain how she’ll do it without the blessing of Congress.

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As long as we’re watching the Official Political Bizarre Meter needle move into uncharted territory, we note the legislative session is now just three months away.  We have seen some pretty bizarre circumstances in four decades-plus of watching our lawmakers but having one House member serving with another member who, she says, raped her would move the needle pretty close to the peg.

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If voters approve the campaign contribution limit proposal on the ballot in November, there is likely to be a legal challenge.  Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, the approval by voters should send a message to a legislature that has made special efforts to avoid the issue.  We will learn how deaf the General Assembly can be to such a message if it passes and the court challenge is successful.

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The state Supreme Court has ruled that a company that sells frozen meals to airlines is not entitled to a refund of sales taxes it paid under protest.   The ruling certainly raised our eyebrows.

We had no idea until now that those pretzels had been frozen.

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A lot more work is going to get down around the house by Missouri baseball fans this October because both of our teams failed to make the playoffs. But the darkness of the baseball parks in St. Louis and Kansas City serves to remind us that baseball is a human endeavor.  Players age. Muscles pull.  Bones break.  Tendons tear.

Major League Baseball is divided into seasons to remind us that disappointment is temporary and hope is eternal.

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Speaking of Chicago where “hope” is pronounced “Cubs”:   We had a reason to look up the 1966 White Sox records the other day.  The leading pitcher that year is still part of the game although not in person. Tommy John is 73 now.  He won 124 games before the surgery; 164 after it in a 26-year career. Wonder if some statistician has added up the Won-Loss records after all the TJ surgeries done through the years.

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We were listening to the radio the other night and heard an announcer promoting an upcoming European cruise on the Dunooby River.

A couple of seconds later when it sank in, your observant listener about drove off the road.

Dunooby, spelled D-a-n-u-b-e.

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But let us not be too critical of the young announcer.  Remember that we live in a state that has towns like Versails and New MADrud.

Kander and Greitens and the right to kneel

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This will make some of you uneasy.  It will make some of you angry.

In this campaign year where two of our major candidates are making as much hay as they can by emphasizing their military service, it is worth remembering—-

Jason Kander and Eric Greitens served for the right of Colin Kaepernick and others to kneel during the National Anthem.

They served for the right of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to have the right to run for President of the United States and say things, true or lies, about each other.

They served for the right of some, on college campuses and elsewhere, to shout racial or cultural epithets at others.

They served for the right of some to picket at the funerals of their military colleagues.

They served for the rights of others to brand the Kaepernicks of this country as idiots and traitors.

They served for the rights of others to brand Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as liars and traitors.

They served for the rights of others to protest a culture that allows racial and cultural epithets to be applied to them.

They served for the right to be wrong from whichever side of right and wrong you choose to take. They served for this observer’s right to observe and for your right to react to those observations.

They served for the rights of all of us to see our country and our society with different eyes influenced by different backgrounds and experiences.  They served against philosophies that dictate only one idea of patriotism, nationalism, and religion can be allowed, often with fatal consequences to those to differ.

They served so that each of us can stand for the national anthem, if we wish to do so, in a country that allows us to decide what the song and the flag stand for or should stand for—-and thinking such thoughts is not an unhealthy exercise in a nation that is unafraid to admit it has flaws.  We are unafraid, aren’t we?  Or have we forfeited the freedom to be unafraid?

A few days ago, the first enlisted black Marine to both be selected for the Naval Academy Preparatory School and graduate from the Naval Academy, wrote of this issue.  He served twenty-two years in the Navy and the Marines before going into television.  The Montel Williams Show last seventeen years.

Williams thinks some of Kaepernick’s behavior has been “childish and counterproductive” and ignores “the OVERWHELMING majorities of police officers who serve with honor and distinction.” But he also thinks “the threats and cruelty directed against many of these athletes should scare every freedom-loving American.”

“So too should those who propose to coerce or force these athletes to stand.  In this country, may I remind you, we allow individuals to define patriotism for themselves.  Unless you want scripted patriotism—North Korea, anyone?”

Reactions to incidents such as those inspired by Kaepernick tend to quickly ignore one of this country’s traditionally greatest strengths, as mentioned by Williams: We allow individuals to define patriotism for themselves.  AND, we allow others to think what they will about the way each of us defines patriotism.

New Yorker magazine writer Jeffrey Toobin thinks Kaepernick’s right to not stand for the anthem is rooted in a 1943 Freedom of Religion case that challenged the right of a school district to expel children from a Jehovah’s Witness family for refusing to salute the flag and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance which was then required by West Virginia Law. U. S. Supreme Court Robert Jackson’s opinion, writes Toobin, “demands that those in power allow others to think for themselves.”

“To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine, is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.  We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes.  When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great.  But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much.  That would be a mere shadow of freedom.  The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”  

And he reminds us that freedom of expression means a government—or a league—cannot tell citizens or players what they may say or think or express.

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

You are free to consider this entry disloyal and disrespectful of the things Greitens and Kander served to protect.  I am grateful that they served to protect my right to compose it.  You and I are free to go to a polling place in a few weeks and decide whether we want to vote for either of these men who served with millions of colleagues in uniform who surely were not uniform in their reasons for service so that we might differ with each other, with Colin Kaepernick, or even with them.

Let us not wrap ourselves in the flag so tightly that we cannot breathe the air of freedom.

Some campaign irreverence helps

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A day after the first Hillary and Donnie Show, a friend passed along an article from The Onion dated June 2, 2004.  The headline read:

Poll: Many Americans Still Unsure Whom to Vote Against

The Onion, for the uninitiated, is a satirical newspaper that turns conventional reporting upside down or inside out.  And its irreverence focuses on the absurdity of living life too seriously—which we as citizens, and citizens as candidates, tend to do in campaigns.

The Onion told us in 2004 that a Gallup Poll showed six percent of Americans were not sure whether to vote against Bush or to vote against Kerry.

According to the poll, 46 percent of the registered voters surveyed would vote against Bush if the election were held tomorrow, while 45 percent said they were ready to vote against Kerry. Factoring in the 2 percent margin of error, the two candidates are essentially deadlocked in the race to determine which candidate American doesn’t support.

The article’s deadpan approach also turned the scenario this way:

“The two major parties face a tough struggle,” Harmon said. “As the election approaches, both must convince undecided voters that the opposing party’s candidate is worse than their own. As both parties take more moderate positions in an election year, it’s getting harder to convince citizens that there’s a reason to get out there and vote against anyone.

The traditional press would have told readers and listeners that the survey showed Bush and Kerry locked in a statistical dead heat with six percent undecided. Real serious, sober reporting.

We looked to see what The Onion had to say after Monday night’s debate. Here’s its take:

…A Gallup report released this morning revealed that hopeless resignation has received a substantial bump in the polls. “Our real-time polling data from last night’s presidential debate showed a clear trend, with hopeless resignation charting higher and higher as the evening progressed—it really seemed to resonate with viewers,” said Gallup spokesperson Sarah Langley, who noted that hopeless resignation’s current surge far surpassed the boost it experienced following the conventions, spiking to the highest level of the election cycle. “Last night was easily the biggest moment of the campaign season for hopeless resignation, and I think most Americans recognized that. Clearly, many voters who were on the fence were convinced by what they saw in the debate.” Langley added that if current trends continue, hopeless resignation is likely to reach a historic high in the polls by Election Day.

It’s funny because it’s true, isn’t it?  As the Wall Street Journal “Best of the Web” column puts it, “Life Imitates Onion.”

Relax folks. Laughing at ourselves a little bit will help as we plummet toward election day in November.

 

A historic election for governor

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We were asked several weeks ago by someone observing our governor’s race if we’d ever had a divorced governor or if Missourians had ever elected a governor who had never held elective office. This year, Chris Koster fills the first category and Eric Greitens fills the first as well as the second.   We are not aware of any of our governors who had gone through a divorce before becoming governor. But we have elected some governors who had no previous experience in elective office—not even local dog catcher.

The last time Missourians elected a governor who’d never held elective office appears to be Lloyd C. Stark, who served 1937-1941.  He was with the famous Stark Nurseries family of Louisiana, in northeast Missouri.  His only previous statewide effort had been chairing a highway bond campaign in 1928.  Frederick D. Gardner, owned a coffin company in St. Louis and had never held any elective office before he became governor in 1917.

We have had bachelor governors, which might prompt a question about who would become First Lady if Koster wins, an answer that will not be timely for now.  Jerena East Giffen wrote one of the books about First Ladies and later updated it to include Jean Carnahan, who wrote her own book about the Governor Mansion, which is considered the First Lady’s turf.  Giffen notes Governor John S. Phelps (1877-81) was married but his wife might never have filled the traditional First Lady role because of reported ill health—although Giffen suggests the couple was estranged. The hostess role for Phelps was filled by his oldest daughter, Mary Phelps Montgomery.

John S. Marmaduke (1885-87, died in office), a former Confederate General, was the fourth and last (for now) bachelor governor.  He also is the only son of a former governor (M. M. Marmaduke, who served briefly after Thomas Reynolds committed suicide in 1844) to reach that position (so far).  His niece, a widow—Mrs. Lalla Marmaduke Nelson—presided at the house.

Before Marmaduke, there was Robert M. Stewart (1857-61), who was known for his enjoyment of the fruits of the corn and the company of female inmates of the state prison who were brought in as housekeepers.

John Miller (1826-32) was a bachelor governor when the seat of government was moved to Jefferson City.  The first capitol in Jefferson City actually was designed as the governor’s house and included two rooms for the governor with space elsewhere in the building for the legislature to meet and for other state officials to have their offices until a real capitol could be built.

And the first bachelor governor was Abraham J. Williams (1825-26), a one-legged shoemaker from Columbia who was the President pro-tem of the Senate when Governor Frederick Bates died of pleurisy.  Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Reeves had resigned to join a party surveying the Santa Fe Trail, so Williams became the governor—at a time when the seat of government was St. Charles.  His main job was to serve until Miller could be elected.

So, yes, there have been times when Missouri had a novice governor and there have been times when there was no First Lady.  But governors generally did not dine alone.

Notes from a Quiet Street—VI

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—being another chapter of ruminations on things not worth full blogifying.

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Good Lord!!! When is Chris Koster going to quit telling us the Farm Bureau has done the unthinkable and has endorsed a Democrat and when is Eric Greitens going to stop talking about being God’s gift to veterans and start talking about the rest of us?   Or do candidates no longer feel any obligation to tell us how they’re going to work with the legislature to rebuild our infrastructure, keep college kids from accumulating debts they’ll carry into middle age, take care of our mentally ill, and see that we are safe from one another?

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That’s a key, you know.  The major national candidates seem to be running for dictator, not president. They’re all about what THEY are going to do, as if there is no congress that will be involved. Do we expect much more from our candidates for governor?

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And how many of the candidates who are blaming today’s woes on “career politicians” will admit that they want to be “career politicians?”   We haven’t heard one of them say they only want to serve two years (or four) and then rejoin the masses.

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Your obedient servant has been reading again.  The new book is Donald F. Kettl’s Escaping Jurassic Government: How to Recover America’s Lost Commitment to Competence.   He believes it is possible.

Kettl is a former dean of the University of Maryland’s Public Policy School and is a fellow of the Brookings Institution, named for Missourian Robert S. Brookings.  It’s considered pretty even-handed. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, after analyzing a decade of Congressional records, found Conservatives quoted its findings about as often as Liberals.

It’s a pretty interesting read for government groupies.  We’ll be talking more about it later, no doubt. Feel free to read ahead of us.

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This might be a good place to list from time to time how Missouri stacks up with other states in various programs.  Our first entries:  49th in support of public defenders, says the public defender office.  The Brookings Institution in August listed us the nation’s sixth best state for advanced manufacturing job growth and 9th for output growth in that category.  A new audit says Missouri has had the lowest public university tuition increases in the last eight years (for which Governor Nixon delivers a big pat on the back to himself—although supplemental and degree fees have gone up 112% to make up for that accomplishment).  But the state ranks 39th in state appropriations to higher education per student, 43rd in state funding per $1,000 personal income.  Governor Nixon says our unemployment benefits rank 43rd out of all fifty states. We had some other rankings in an earlier post: https://bobpriddy.net/2016/08/02/missouri-nothing-special/

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Did you know that the University of Missouri football team has won a national award?   This graduate of the school did not.  It wasn’t in the latest alumni magazine.  No press release about it has come to our email.

It’s not like the recognition came from some obscure special-interest group. Nope. This one came from ESPN.  And we wouldn’t have known about it if fellow UMC graduate Ray Hartmann hadn’t written about it.

https://www.stlmag.com/news/think-again/mizzou-football-players-racial-protest/

Thanks, Ray.

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Went to a class reunion recently in Illinois and listened to classmates talk about the disastrous state of Illinois government that they say is largely controlled by Speaker of the House Michael Madigan of Chicago, who has been the Speaker for 32 of the last 34 years. If you’ve paid attention to the news, you know that Illinois government is far messier than Missouri government (at least we don’t put our governors in prison).  These folks think term limits is the only way to get rid of political bosses like Madigan.  We told them term limits is the last thing Illinois should do to itself—that it’s been the worst thing to happen to Missouri government since post-Civil War loyalty oaths.  Madigan is 74 but my friends in Illinois worry that he’s immortal.

Their county’s state representative is seeking his fourth term this year. His predecessor served six terms before being elected to the state senate. Giving up the right to re-elect your own state representative or senator to get rid of one representative from another district is, as we unfortunately have seen in Missouri, a foolish thing to do.

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The highway signs on the way back told us to drive in the right lane unless we were passing.  But, doggone it, the passing lane is always so much smoother.

Could Missourians at least approve enough of a gas tax increase to fix the driving lanes?

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We have tried—and have failed—to recall a single candidate for significant office in Missouri or elsewhere who blamed himself or herself for their loss.  It’s always somebody else’s fault—the media, unfair statements from an opponent (ignoring their own unfair statements about that opponent), a “rigged” election system even after the loser had to win a primary under the same system to become a general election loser.  We’ve never heard any losers admit, “The people didn’t buy my stuff.”

Donald Trump already is putting together his list of excuses.  He’s already saying the election will be “rigged” if he loses. And, of course, the blasted media for reporting what he says.  Interesting, isn’t it, that the system that let him brag about how many primaries he won and how many votes he got wasn’t “rigged” then?

We haven’t heard who might be on Hillary Clinton’s list if she loses.  The press, of course, would probably be there. We suppose the vast right-wing conspiracy would be on it, too.

I’ve got news for these folks.  We in the news media don’t mind getting blamed.  In fact, the last thing most real reporters want is to hear a candidate crediting them for an election victory.

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The Russian Olympic doping scandal and the banning of most Russian athletes and the NCAA’s investigation of the University of Missouri basketball program appear to have something in common.

Today’s athletes and coaches get punished for the sins of their predecessors.  That strikes us unfair.

We’re not sure how this could be done legally, but wouldn’t it be better for the NCAA to develop a way to fine an offending coach an amount (plus a penalty) equal to the amount of the scholarships the offending players received during the coach’s tenure and maybe require the offending players to refund to the University the amount they received for their scholarships?.  Or something like that.  Making the players refund their scholarship money might be a little draconian, though.  We’re not sure if they should know better when they’re 17 or 18.

And maybe an athletic director should get slapped around a little bit, too.

A fruit basket of legislation

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The 2016 legislature is now fully history with the completion of the veto session that saw a baker’s dozen bills passed despite Governor Nixon’s vetoes.  The end result is kind of like the fruit baskets that some hotels put in the rooms of important people when they check in.  Apples, oranges, bananas, cheeses, crackers—stuff like that.

So let’s check our 2016 veto session basket and compare some of the apples, the oranges, and other goodies that have been left for us.

As one friend put it last week, the legislature passed bills that make it easier to get a gun but harder to vote.   However, you will still have to pay a sales tax on the gun that you can take to your yoga lesson or your dance class, which won’t be able to charge you a sales tax.

(Hmmmm.  This situation obviously cries out for legislative correction next year.  If something as benign as a yoga or a dance lesson cannot charge a sales tax, why should something as essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the AR-15 you can take to those lesson to protect yourself against the threat of violence from people learning yoga—a non-Christian discipline brought here, no doubt, by IMMIGRANTS—and the fox trot—invented by a man who once appeared in a play with the suspicious name of “Mr. Frisky of Frisco”—require a sales tax payment?)

The legislature corrected what seems to be the politically-incorrect “Indian giver” policy that the government that giveth disaster payments can taketh part of those payments back in income taxes. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? Governor Nixon didn’t think so. The legislature did.

(We are aware that some consider the phrase “Indian giver” quite offensive and we apologize for its use.  We could not think of a less offensive, widely-understood, phrase that fit the situation.  NPR has looked into the history of it: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/02/217295339/the-history-behind-the-phrase-dont-be-an-indian-giver.  We don’t know if it lets us off the hook for using it, but reading the story is informative.).

While the legislature has given tax breaks to those who can afford yoga or dancing lessons, it has passed the bill that Nixon said would run up the costs of health care for Missourians who have trouble paying for healthcare.  Among the numerous provisions in Senate Bill 608 are ones that would charge low-income Missourians eight dollars if they seek help at an emergency room when somebody decides they’re not really having an emergency, and to fine people who are in the Medicaid (MOHealthNet here) program who for whatever reason miss an appointment.  No other appointment is allowed until they’ve paid a penalty that can reach $20, not a small sum for those covered by Medicaid.

After the veto session, Nixon announced he was withholding $59 million dollars appropriated in the spring session for several programs because the tax cuts approved in the veto session would leave the state short of money to fully fund those programs. Senate Majority Leader Mike Kehoe’s blistering critique of the withholds says Nixon’s claim is “absolutely false and is a poorly camouflaged attempt to hide personal pride and political retribution behind the guise of a policy decision.”  Three observations about that:

  1. We have noticed that the bill setting up fines for Medicaid patients who miss doctors’ appointments does not seem to indicate where that fine money would go.  Perhaps legislative leaders who have bemoaned the withholdings might think of passing a bill putting those fines into the state’s general revenue account, thereby lessening the need to reduce programs by $59 million.
  2. In July, Nixon announced he was withholding $115.5 million because projected state income did not appear likely to be enough to support those appropriations.
  3. Just two years ago, voters approved the legislature’s request to let it reinstate in the budget money withheld by the Governor, in effect overriding the withholds. While legislators criticized Nixon for withholding the $59 million, they passed up chances to override any of the $115.5 million in withholdings he made in July, hardly a show of confidence in the power they sought and got.

But it sets up an interesting situation to look forward to in January when supplemental appropriations requests are usually filed that seek to fund some programs that will run short of money before the end of the fiscal year.  By then, Nixon’s term in office will be measured in days. The legislature could consider about $175 million in appropriations that wouldn’t be approved until he’s gone—if the legislature has the confidence of Kehoe’s convictions that at least some of those funds shouldn’t have been withheld.  The attitude of Nixon’s successor could play a role in that process but the legislature nonetheless will have an opportunity to exercise its traditional and its new spending authority.

And we and it will be watching to see if Kehoe’s assertion that Nixon will by then have released some of those funds to “go into the bottomless pit of entitlement growth, mostly likely in the form of additional Medicaid,” as Kehoe claims Nixon has done before, diverting the withheld funds “away from children, schools and roads” to increase entitlements.

But if the legislature is as confident as Kehoe is that the withholdings are unnecessary, why did it do nothing about the spring withholds during the veto session?

The yoga, dancing, Medicaid fines, and seemingly contradictory attitudes and actions on withheld funds might be the cheese and crackers in this basket.

The Medicaid fines are another example of the Missouri legislature telling the federal government to “go fish.”  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, federal agencies, say those missed-appointment fees are not allowed. Oh, well, as has been said too often in the General Assembly, just pass the bill and let the courts figure it out.

The legislature has not been averse in recent years to suggesting the feds take rod and reel and go away.

It’s been seven years since the Missouri legislature put its thumb to its nose and told the federal government it was not going to play along with the Federal Real ID ACT of 2005.  The tolerant TSA has said Missourians can still use their state drivers licenses to get on airplanes or get into federal courthouses and hospitals, although only until January 22, 1918. (We’ll see who blinks first.) But you better have an alternate ID (a passport is good) to get into nuclear power plants and military bases. The legislature passed a law in 2009 that bans the state from complying with the Federal Real ID law.  Some lawmakers are at least talking about the wisdom of that move.  Or the lack of it.

You understand the logic in this, don’t you? The legislature wants Missouri voters to present a photo ID to vote for people seeking federal office but doesn’t think that photo ID should meet federal standards that would let those voters visit their children at federal sites such as Fort Leonard Wood.  We’re not sure if we’re talking about two kinds of apples or whether we’re talking about a pear and a cumquat.

Regardless, voters will have the final say in November when they decide if they want to make it harder to cast their ballots in the future by having to show a non-federal compliant photo ID card.

There are other items in the fruit basket but these seem to be the ones on top. There’s one more but it seems to be a meat and potatoes type of thing, (well, meat) not a fruit basket issue. However—

House Bill 1414 seems to say that information gathered by the state under a federal law on animal disease traceability will have to be kept secret by the state agriculture department.  Furthermore, whistleblowers can be sued for as much as $10,000.  In fairness, we note that your observer did not observe any of the committee testimony or hear any of the debate, but we’re probably going to have more uncertainty in the future when we stand in front of the grocery store meat counter or consider processed meat meals in the frozen food section because this veto was overridden. And we might ponder as we stand there wondering what we are not allowed to know about the food before us how the Missouri legislature could tell someone in the state agriculture department that exercising their free speech rights in the interest of the public health and welfare might cost them $10,000.

Has our legislature put a lemon in the fruit basket?

The objections of the governor notwithstanding

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Jay Nixon has been the legislature’s favorite punching bag for most of his eight years in office. And the legislature has delivered some farewell belts in this year’s veto session.  Whatever legacy Nixon might claim in December or January after his eight years in office, his legacy as the most overridden governor in Missouri History will be large.

Several causes can be attributed to that record, not the least of which is that the legislature is two-thirds-plus in both chambers Republican and Nixon is a Democrat who talks as if he gets along well with the other side while the other side says he’s been aloof and uncommunicative.

The first veto overridden in Missouri was in 1820 when our first Governor, Alexander McNair, vetoed the bill establishing the compensation of members of the legislature.

Until Jay Nixon, whose override total will be in the 90s by the time the legislature is done with him, the override champion was Daniel Dunklin, who served in the 1830s.  In those days, the legislature granted divorces.  And overrides could happen by simple majorities in each chamber.  The 1875 Constitution established the two-third vote for overrides.

Understand that divorce in those days was hard to get.  In fact, divorce didn’t become a matter for the courts exclusively to handle until 1853.  A lot of women just packed up and went somewhere else rather than try to get a divorce, a divorce being something of a family disgrace in those days anyway.  A woman—or a man–who could not afford, financially or socially, to get a court-ordered divorce, sometimes asked the legislature to grant one.

But Dunklin wasn’t sure the legislature had the power to grant divorces.  He vetoed a dozen bills granting divorces including one that granted thirty-five of them.

His message of January 5, 1833 explaining to the Senate why he vetoed a bill granting Mary Ann (Lawrence) Dunlap a divorce from husband David, says he did so for two important reasons:

one the Constitutionality, the other the expediency of a bill to grant a divorce by the Legislature. Can the Legislature constitutionally exercise the power claimed to pass this bill? If it can, then is it expedient to engage in this species of Legislation? I will make but one remark as to the expediency. When parties are divorced by the Legislature, it is valid only in the State granting it. When divorced by the Court, it is valid in every State in the Union…With this remark, I will dismiss the question of expediency; and however opposed I may be to the practice of legislating in such cases, I would not withhold my assent to this bill, were there no Constitutional objections.

Dunklin was concerned that legislatively-granted divorces infringed on the constitutional separation of powers.

To which of the departments does it “properly belong” to exercise the power to grant this divorce? If to the Legislative, then the Judicial cannot exercise the power, if to the Judicial, then the Legislative cannot exercise it. Before I proceed to answer the question, let me remark, that the Legislature is not asked to reinstate a right forfeited to the government; nor to remove a disability created by the government; but to absolve one of the parties from obligation to perform certain duties, (such as continence and kindness), contracted by previous marriage—Then I ask, to which of the departments of government, does it “properly belong,” to exercise the power to grant this divorce?

Marriage, he noted, is a civil contract that carries certain obligations.  But he argued the obligations were not only a matter between the two parties who entered into the contract. But Dunklin noted that the public also has an interest in the benefits that results from contracts, a circumstance that involved the political as well as the legal branch of government.  Therefore, was the political arm of government entitled to take jurisdiction because “of the nature of the contract itself?”

If, he argued, a marriage contract is a matter of “law or equity,” the powers to grand divorces lay with the courts, not the legislature.

Dunklin dug into the laws of other states.  And what he found is interesting in today’s divorce climate as well as the diversity of attitudes that existed in his time.  In Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the process was bifurcated.  The judicial departments settled the facts, then the legislature decided whether those facts were sufficient to grant a divorce.  In colonial Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the early constitutions gave the power to the governors and the legislative councils although that was later changed giving the power to the judiciary. Dunklin found five states with constitutional provisions addressing the issue.  Only Virginia and Maryland had the power specifically assigned to the legislatures although the courts had the authority to rule on the legality of marriages.  In the other seventeen states, the judiciary had powers over divorces and in fourteen of those seventeen states, that authority rested exclusively with the judiciary.  Only Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky had the confusing judicial/legislative question.

Dunklin concluded:

Here is great weight of authority shewing that the power to grant divorces, ought to belong to the courts of law; yet, it does not conclusively prove, at least to my mind, that the power could not, consistently with the nature of the contract, be exercised by the Legislature. Then, why withhold my approval of this bill?—It is because every branch of this government has concurred in assigning the power to grant divorces to the Judiciary…But it may be said that it is as reasonable to question the constitutionality of that law as the constitutionality of this bill. To prove that law unconstitutional, will require it to be shown that the marital right is exclusively political, and that the Legislature has the exclusive right to exercise powers over it. The only authority for such an opinion, that has fallen in my way is the practice of the States of Virginia and Maryland, while the practice of the other twenty-two States is directly to the contrary. Were it not for the law “concerning divorces and alimony,” I should have no constitutional objection to approving this bill. But if that law be constitutional (and I believe it to be so) then it is incompatible with my duty, according to my construction of the 2d Article of the Constitution of this State to approve this bill. It is therefore returned to the Senate, where it originated.

Governors who veto bills outline their reasons in veto messages like this one, as Governor Nixon did with the bills or parts of bills he vetoed this year.  And the legislature in 2016, has done to several of those vetoed bills what the legislature did in 1833.  It has overridden the vetoes, “the objections of the governor notwithstanding.”  Mary Ann and David Lawrence split.

Echoes of Dunklin’s investigation into marriage and the state’s place in determining what obligations there are in a marriage, in fact what marriage IS, are still being heard in various forms in today’s legislature. And differences of opinion remain between the governor and the legislature.

Governor Dunklin’s record as the most overridden governor in Missouri history stood for almost 180 years. We wonder if some scribe in the year 2196 will write about Jay Nixon the way we have written about Daniel Dunklin.

One hundred and eighty years.  Now, THAT’S a legacy.

Whaddya wanna bet—

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—that when the legislature returns to the Capitol this week to consider extending Governor Nixon’s world record as the most veto-overridden governor in Missouri history that those who want to make it harder for Missourians to vote will trot out the absentee voting mess in St. Louis as an example of the voter fraud that the bill will stop?

It will be a bogus argument for a bogus bill.

If you haven’t been pay attention to this issue (and who can think of anything else when we have Hillary and Donnie going about the land?) here’s a quick tutorial.

It seems that in St. Louis, some people played games with the absentee ballots in the August primary and now a judge has ordered a do-over election to decide who will be the Democratic nominee in the 78th House district, and thus the winner of that seat because there’s no Republican opposition.  Incumbent Penny Hubbard had more votes than challenger Bruce Franks, Jr.  But a St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigation found two people who said people claiming to be Hubbard campaign workers filled out ballots for them. There were at least sixty times when a single voter submitted two applications for an absentee ballot although they said they had not applied twice. The newspaper says more than a dozen people whose absentee applications claimed they were incapacitated sold reporters they never made such a claim and don’t know who did.  And two former election board employees said Hubbard’s husband “routinely delivered stacks of election ballots” to the board.

People who went to the polls on August 2 elected Franks 1997-1787.   But when the absentee votes were counted, Hubbard had 416 and he had 114, enough for her to defeat Franks by ninety votes in the overall total.

House Bill 1631, the voter photo ID bill, would require people to have a photo-identification card when they go to the polling place to cast a ballot.  If they don’t they have to get in another line and somebody will take their picture.  Under present law, all any of us have to do is show the poll clerks the card issued by our county clerk, or in the case of the big cities by the election board, and we can cast our ballot.

This law would not go into effect unless voters in November decide they want to make it harder to cast their own ballots in future elections. Missouri voters have twice in our experience given away their own right to vote so it would not be surprising if they decided in November to weaken their right again.

Part of the fallout from all of this St. Louis stuff has become part of the Blunt-Kander race for the U. S. Senate.  Blunt is a former Secretary of State and Kander is the incumbent Secretary of State.  Partisans on both sides are sniping at the other about this issue when they should be arguing about the national issues that Senators deal with or are not dealing with.  But that’s part of the political circus.  If you focus enough attention on the sideshow, you might be able to distract public attention away from the donkey and elephant show that has left the center ring a shambles.

But the St. Louis mess is just too easy for the ID advocates to jump on as they try to justify in the veto session overriding Nixon’s veto of the photo ID bill—even though the St. Louis mess has nothing whatsoever to do with casting ballots at the polls.

Rounding up absentee voters, especially in nursing homes and in neighborhoods where many elderly people live, is a time-honored part of elections everywhere. And some of the practices that the newspaper has highlighted might be worth exploring by the legislative elections committees. Perhaps requiring election authority-issued photo IDs of those who solicit absentee ballots is worth considering as a start.

But trying to tie the voter photo-ID bill to the 78th House district problems would be nothing more than, well, bogus.

But that’s not the first time that word has been applied to voter photo-ID legislation in Missouri.

Broken column, broken men

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Something in the half-awake moments early in the day seems to generate the kind of ideas that do not emerge in the hours of full wakefulness. Perhaps it is a mix of unformed dreams with leftover thoughts.   So it was this morning.

The days lately have been dominated by putting together the source list for the next Capitol book, going back through boxes of records to retrieve the ideas of others that have been synthesized into the narrative of the history of Missouri’s Capitol so they can be given proper credit.  Throughout that process, a broken granite column has been summoning the author to rediscover it. 

In 1915, while workers were turning lines on paper into a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle that would become the Capitol, the huge granite columns from an east coast quarry were arriving on flatcars on the railroad tracks below the bluff where the capitol was being built.  A derrick would hoist each column to the top where they could be moved inside the eventual chamber of the House of Representatives and erected.  Little construction could be done on that part of the building until those columns were in place. 

One day, the derrick broke, dropping a column back down onto the flatcar, which truly became a flat car.  The column broke apart. Nobody was hurt. We do not know what happened to all of the pieces—some might have been shoved into the nearby river.  But at least one large piece wound up on top of the bluff where it was rolled to the side out of the way.  A new column was quickly ordered and supplied.

For years and years that column was partly visible, partially buried in the sloping side of the bluff.  The story was told that it was one of the columns from the capitol that burned in 1911.  So one day about thirty-five years ago or so, the eventual author, joined by a friend, UPI Bureau Chief Stevenson Forsythe, and Jefferson City Senator Jim Strong searched it out.  Clearly, it was not a column from the old building.   It remained as polished and as shiny as the day it broke, as polished and as shiny as the columns in the Missouri House.  

Now, as the third version of the manuscript—or maybe the fifth; we have made so many changes it’s hard to say how many versions there have been—is going through the latest honing and sourcing, the broken column is calling.  “Find me,” it said in those hazy half-awake-half-sleep moments.    

As far as we know, it is still there.  But now it is covered by more than three decades of leaf debris, roots, vines, dirt, and other debris.   And memory of the location has dimmed.    

And in that half-light of awareness this morning a new thought came, a purpose for that broken column, a reason to find it.    

Many memorials have been added to the capitol campus since the three of us scrambled part way down that slope that day.  Perhaps it’s time for a new one that honors the seven men who died building the capitol and the hundreds of others whose hands and sweat transformed lines on paper into the three-dimensional symbol of all that is good and not-so-good about state government.

  S. C. Hyde         

 Ira H. Green       

 Samuel Ritchie    

 Tony Templeton          

 H. Robert Deighton    

  Henry T. Smith                      

 August Baker       

 Two of these seven were killed in at the quarry in Carthage where the stone was being prepared for the building.   A broken column engraved with the names of seven broken men who did not live to see the magnificence that the hands of other men completed for them would not be inappropriate as we mark the building’s centennial events.  

If that column is still there, I’m going to find it.   

                                                            000