Category Archives: campaigns

Reaping the whirlwind

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A couple of syndicated columns published in the last several weeks seem from this lofty office (my office is in a loft that overlooks the living room) on this quiet street to be a good assessment of today’s politics and how we got here.

Cal Thomas wrote of the Republican presidential campaign in “Sewer Politics” in a March 1 column that he was going to talk about gutter politics “but given Donald Trump’s horrid statements, the gutter would be a step up because things have descended into the sewer.  Never in modern times has there been a presidential candidate who has hurled more personal insults and hurtful accusations at his fellow candidates and others who disagree with him.  It should embarrass a normal person, but Trump appears beyond embarrassment.”

Thomas admits he is amazed by the continued strong support evangelicals are showing Trump and the general silence about that support by evangelical leaders. “This is what can happen when some pastors who are called to a different kingdom and a different King settle for an earthly kingdom and a lesser king,” he wrote.  However he praises Max Lucado, a best-selling writer who told Christianity Today he felt he had to speak out because of “Trump’s derision of people.”  He says he would not be speaking up except that, “he repeatedly brandishes the Bible and calls himself a Christian.”   Lucado thinks it is “beyond reason” for Trump “to call himself a Christian one day and call someone a bimbo the next or make fun of somebody’s menstrual cycle.”

Thomas suggests at the end that this election could become not a choice for the lesser of two evils but a choice “between the least evil of two lesser.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks, in his February 26 column, noted a rise in the last thirty years of people who are against politics, which Brooks says is recognition “of the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions.”  He says it’s the effort to balance or reconcile or compromise those interest, or at least a majority of them” by following rules established “in a constitution or in custom to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.”  He concedes it’s a messy, muddled process in which “disappointment is normal” because people have to settle for less than they want.”

He thinks the Tea Party is the best example of the anti-politics movement that wants to elect people with no political experience. “They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They’re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision-making if it helps them gain power.”  But, he writes, “They don’t recognize other people. They suffer from a form of political narcissism, in which they don’t accept the legitimacy of other interests and opinions. They don’t recognize restraints. They want total victory for themselves and their doctrine,” a process that has had “a wretched effect on our democracy.”   And, he argues, the anti-politics movement is sending this nation into “a series of overlapping downward spirals.”

How is it doing that?  First, by electing people with no political skills or experience, he says. “That incompetence leads to dysfunctional government, which leads to more disgust with government, which leads to a demand for even more outsiders.”

Brooks thinks these politically-inexperienced people “don’t accept that politics is a limited activity. They make soaring promises and raise ridiculous expectations.  When those expectations are not met, voters grow cynical and disgusted, turn even further in the direction of antipolitcs” leading to the election of people who “refuse compromise and so block the legislative process” which, in turn, “destroys public trust (which) makes deal-making harder.”

And along comes Donald Trump, a man Brooks thinks is the culmination of all of these trends: “the desire for outsiders; the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible; the decline of coherent political parties; the declining importance of policy; the tendency to fight cultural battles and identity wars through political means.”  He compares Trump to the “insecure school yard bully.”

Brooks says he printed out a New York Times list of Trump’s Twitter insults.  Thirty-three pages is what it took.  And he cites a study by political scientist Matthew MacWilliams that Trump supporters are likely to score high on tests that measure authoritarianism.

He concludes, “This isn’t just an American phenomenon. Politics is in retreat and authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide.  The answer to Trump in politics. It’s acknowledging other people exist. It’s taking pleasure in that difference and hammering out workable arrangements…”

Those of us who have or have had front row seats to the deterioration of politics in Missouri know precisely what Cal Thomas and David Brooks are writing about.

What it all boils down to is that the sewer politics we—and many of you—complain about is our own fault.  We have done this to ourselves and, quite frankly, we have been urged on in our destructive efforts by people in this columnist’s own medium, radio, who have found rudeness and disrespect profitable.  Analysts in years to come will undoubtedly find today’s era of antipolitics had many causes, but the root cause is that a large part of the general public bought into the idea that the way to solve government problems was to elect people who don’t respect government and the political system that has made it work.

Thomas and Brooks have identified the problem and how we got here.   So what is to be done about it?

Of all the public figures this reporter has watched in his forty-plus years of covering Missouri politics, John Danforth is the one he most respects.   A few months ago Danforth put out a new book.   It is worth reading.   In a future post, we will offer some of his reflections.

But in the meantime it might be good to think about the necessity of repealing term limits.  Missourians approved them but by their own actions on that very day and in every election since Missourians have shown they don’t really believe in them.  And it seems from this lofty view that the Brooks’ overlapping downward spirals accelerated in Missouri from that day.

The ABT factor

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Not that the presidential candidates have noticed very much  , but Missouri’s presidential primary is Tuesday.  Missouri tried to move its primary to an earlier date four years ago so it would be more relevant but the Republican party threatened to take away half of our delegates to the nominating convention if we did so the legislature decided it is best to be irrelevant in the Spring instead of being less relevant in the summer. 

This observer is not the only observer to observe that Republicans are becoming increasingly concerned that Donald Trump will have the nomination locked up before the summer presidential nominating convention.  And Trump loyalists are saying that if he goes to the convention with 1100 or so delegates (he needs 1237) and the “Republican establishment” denies him the nomination, there will be hell to pay, or something like that. 

More sophisticated analysts than those living outside the political cauldron are pointing out who supports him and who doesn’t and what he wins within the voting bloc and what he loses.  But what we have noticed is something more basic. 

Voters seem to favor ANYBODY BUT Donald Trump even in primaries (through last Tuesday) that he has won.  Here’s the “Anybody But” results through Super Tuesday:

Iowa   76% Anybody But Trump

New Hampshire  65

South Carolina  67

Nevada  54

Alabama  57

Alaska  66

Arkansas  67

Georgia  61

Massachusetts  50 (although in the total vote, he lost by about 20,000 out of 631,413 cast)

Minnesota  79

Oklahoma  72

Tennessee  61

Texas  73

Vermont  67

Virginia  65

Kansas  77

Kentucky  64

Louisiana  59

Maine  67

Hawaii  58

Idaho  72

Michigan  64

Mississippi  53

At that point, Trump had 458 delegates.  But “Anybody But” had 564. 

But he hasn’t cracked 40% support in 17 of the 23 states even as the number of competitors has narrowed. The candidate who has yet to get half of the votes cast in any primary has to get about 54% of all of the remaining delegates to be chosen to have enough delegates for a first-ballot nomination. 

Despite what seems to many observers as a steep uphill climb, his supporters believe Trump could go to the convention with a delegate count that deserves nomination.  But if he’s short, merriment will ensue after the first ballot and the convention will have to decide if he can win the presidency with base support of only about one-third of the party faithful.  Some Trumpians, ignoring the two-thirds for “Anybody But,” already are talking tough about what will happen if the mainline party leaders “take away” the nomination from their guy.

Delegate selection for conventions differs from place to place.  Some primaries/caucuses are winner-take-all.  Most are proportional.  As long as there are three other people running, voters will be able to vote for “Anybody But.”  Trump would prefer voters not have three other people giving voters an ABT alternative, of course. But all three of the ABT contenders have given voters in different primaries different people to use to express their ABT sentiments. They’re useful to the process.

Unfortunately, “Anybody But” is unlikely to work on the November ballot.  Watching the rest of the primaries is going to be more fun than usual. Watching the Republican National Convention holds even greater promise for entertainment this year than in many years past.  It also will be interesting to see if disappointed Trumpians will stay at home and sulk on election day (assuming he doesn’t launch a third-party effort) or if the party will be able to convince them that “Anybody But” Hillary Clinton is enough to rally them from their funk .    

One thing we’ve never understood is how opponents in primary campaigns can say the vilest things about one another and then get real palsy-walsy afterwards.  We’ve never understood why the public should consider such behavior the least bit credible. We’ll be among the many who will be watching for the obligatory unity moment after somebody, Trump or ABT, gets the nomination and wondering why yesterday’s leper can become tomorrow’s savior.    

One of the most fun moments in our career as a political reporter was the day we went after some losers in a post-election unity news conference.   We might tell that story some other day.

To a candidate

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Congratulations.  You have put your name on the line and paid your fee and you are now a political candidate.

For some of you and the others who will add their names to ballots in the next few days, this is your first venture into a world that will test your integrity in ways you cannot now imagine (although some of you might already have flunked, based on whose money you already have taken or will get).  This might be your first step but you are bringing your family with you and while you envision the ads that show you and your family smiling confidently about your future and the future of your state, it is important that your family recognize they will share the lows as well as the highs in the months ahead.  And in fact, they might feel these things even more than you do.

How you run your campaign and how you respond to the campaigns others will run against you will test their character as well as yours.  And maybe it will be a sterner test for them than for you, believe it or not.

If you descend to the lower levels of campaigning, as is all too easy, you might find your family as well as some long-time friends questioning whether you are the person they have known and loved.  If you become the target of opponents or of the sewer rats who supposedly are completely independent of them, your friends and family might feel the attacks even more than you do.

We speak from experience of watching the process and of knowing winners and losers by the hundreds.  We know the state capitol or the national capitol can be places where ideals are sent to die.  We recall one office-holder from years ago who reflected on his re-election loss.  This person had been seen as a person with potential for greater things.  But the loss stopped that potential cold.   The candidate spoke of the double impact felt by a spouse.  Spouses, you see, not only share a candidate’s dreams of success and perhaps of higher office, but they have their own dreams that accompany that possibility.  When the candidate lost, the spouse saw the devastating effects on the candidate and also felt the death of their own vision.

If you win, do not think yourself more important than the family you take with you.  If you lose, be aware that you are not the only one dealing with the loss.

You might find the first of a series of new people who want to be your friends.  Do not kid yourself.  They are your friends only because they think you will do something for them, even if it is damaging to the general welfare.   They will want you be narrow, selfish, petty, and forgetful because it benefits them even to the disadvantage of many who will vote for you.   They will expect you to turn your back on your constituents, sometimes offering help in future elections so you can keep serving their interests.

You will be tempted to become something you are not today.  Of course, some of you have signed that candidacy statement because some of those interests already have invested in you and you already are theirs.  They prefer that you not develop a conscience during your candidacy or even your term of office.  And if you do, well, there’s no shortage of people who can be bought to replace you.

And finally, by signing the declaration of candidacy you have become something you might claim during your campaign that you are not.   You have become a politician.  If you win a few months from now, you will move from being a trusted friend at home to becoming a member of one of the most untrustworthy organizations there is—the government.

Congratulations on becoming a candidate for public office.  Surveys indicate the public has a low opinion of what you are becoming and the current crop seems to show little concern about their status or the damage they do to public confidence in the American system of government.  It takes courage to want to step into that arena.  If you have done so to satisfy a personal agenda or to carry the agenda of someone who has, in effect, bought you with a big donation, you will in the end deserve the scorn that the public feels for what you are becoming.

A question you should be prepared to answer—if only to yourself—is “What am I doing that will increase public regard for government and the people in it?”  We hope you hear that question often, even after you win.

ESPECIALLY if you win. We have seen, however, that you will be able to easily ignore it.  The concept of integrity, you will find, is fragile and is easily altered inside the walls of a capitol.

We’ll probably reflect on that after the election.

Find some other place to lie

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Sometimes when you feel that the world has gone too serious for you, pick up Gary Scharnhorst’s book of Mark Twain’s letters to the editor, Mark Twain on Potholes and Politics.  Scharnhorst is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico whose collection of Twain’s letters has been published by the University of Missouri Press.

Twain’s letters to the editor are a delight.  He sent one to the St. Louis Sunday Republican that was published March 17, 1867 asking for public sympathy.  As a journalist, I was first caught by his proclamation, “I have been in the newspaper business a long time, and I have some little peculiarities natural to the profession, one or two propensities, in fact, which are pleasant to me but which I have a delicacy in indulging in without explanation when among strangers.”

Sometimes, he wrote, he sought “relief” in a secluded spot in St. Louis’ Lafayette Park but he kept seeing signs saying “Visitors are forbidden to walk or lie on the grass.” He set out to find someone to talk to about them and found a man he took to be a watchman he presumed was taking care of the grounds.  I can hear the voice of Hal Holbrook as Twain relates more of the story.

“When the sign says I cannot walk or lie on the grass, it is a plain intimation that I can walk or lie in the public roadways of the park, ain’t it?” 

He said, “Certainly, certainly—nobody ain’t going to interfere.” 

“Very well,” I said, “it is a great relief to me—just give me your arm.  You were going toward the other end of the grounds, I believe?  Just so.  Well, sir, I once had an uncle—got him yet for that matter—an uncle whose name was Isaac—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—named after the whole tribe, you know, and—don’t interrupt me, please—this Isaac was rather stupid, stupid as an owl, sir, but a muscular man, and a man of prodigious appetite.  Why, as to his strength, nothing like it was ever seen in the world before—Samson was an infant to him—he carried off a church once, and you know it created dissatisfaction and considerable comment, and he went back after the congregation—DON’T interrupt me, if you please—and his plantation contained, well, say eighteen hundred acres of beautiful land, beautiful! But it was out of the way, some, and with no other implements, sir, than a wheelbarrow and a common shovel, he removed that entire plantation in a single night and deposited it in a most eligible position alongside the railroad.  It was a splendid idea, sir, splendid.  It increased the value of his plantation more than ten thousand percent.; but, as you perceive, sir, it utterly beggared the man whose plantation he covered up.  Strong?  Why, my friend, just the mere ballast of sin that that man carried around him would have crushed a common athlete to the earth; crush him?  It would annihilate him, sir!  My uncle, sir, could carry more sin on an even keel, and draw less water, and steer better than—please don’t interrupt me, sir—and he was a most remarkable man!  But at last, noble sir, that fell accident happened, which cast a blight over my life, and banished the roses from my cheek, alas! Never to return, watchman.  Heaven knows it was a sad day for me.  Well, that day my uncle had taken the oath, and several drinks, and a handful of spoons and various other articles and was feeling very well—he was always of a cheerful disposition—when all at once a sort of spontaneous combustion got started in his stomach, because, you see, he had been drinking a lot of uncommon bad whiskey, and trying to tell the truth all the while, and the truth and that sort of whiskey don’t really mix readily you know—but you understand these things.  This spontaneous combustion got started, and it extended upward and upward and upward, until at last it left go like an earthquake and blew the whole top of his head to the moon!—brains and all!—I pledge you my word of honor, there wasn’t the hundredth part of a teaspoonful of brains left in that idolized frame. It was awful.  Well, the whole top of his head was gone, you know, and so there was nothing for it but to put a tin roof on him—don’t interrupt me, can’t you?—no way but to put a tin roof on him, which disfigured him greatly, but was perfectly safe although it attracted heat of course, and might have caused brain fever, only, as I said before, the brains were all gone—but now comes the dickens of it, you know—what to do with him!—what the very nation to do with  him!  He couldn’t mould bricks, he couldn’t be a doctor, he couldn’t make more than a mere ordinary sort of a preacher—it didn’t really seem as if he were fitted for anything better than a kind of Mayor or City Councilman, or something of that description, and so, gifted sir, you can imaging the desolation that fell upon all our hearts and drove hope and happiness from our breasts—till at last, Heaven be praised, the people, the high and noble, the wisdom-inspired people, saw what Providence had intended him to be and they sent him to Congress, sir! They sent him to Congress…”

Twain reported the watchman at that point had had enough and left in a huff, which left Twain surprised and “grieved.”  After all, the watchman had told him he couldn’t lie or walk on the grass but could lie and walk on the walks as much as he wanted to, it seemed discourteous of him to leave. “Can I lie with any satisfaction without I have got somebody to lie to?  Why, certainly not.  Did that idiot suppose I wanted to march around that dismal park and lie all to myself?  It is absurd.”   He asked the editor to request the signs prohibiting lying or walking on the grass to be removed.  Their restrictions, he said, “amounts to heartless inhumanity.”

Your correspondent and his own “peculiarities natural to the profession” of journalism loves that letter.  The failure of mixing truth with too much bad whiskey. A tin-headed member of Congress.  The futility of a “march around that dismal park” lying only to himself.

It was a letter to the editor in 1867.  Is it a parable for the election year of 2016?

———-

(editor’s note:  We’ve seen Hal Holbrook and his “Mark Twain Tonight” show many times, spent a wonderful hour interviewing him once, and helped arrange for him to perform in Jefferson City on the last night of the 2014 legislative session.  Unfortunately, few members of the legislature stuck around to see him.

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After his two-hour performance, he spent quite a bit of time with some folks backstage and later had dinner with several of the concert folks.  Your correspondent, exhausted from the last week of the session, had to skip the dinner.  But the president of the concert association, Mark Comley, related that during dinner he told Holbrook one of the memorable routines he had seen Holbrook perform many years earlier was the story of the “Begum of Bengal,” the story of a pipsqueak boat captain challenging a great trading ship from the orient.  He said Holbrook grew quiet for a while and then, there at the table, performed the story!  Mark figured Holbrook had been going through his voluminous mental files of Twain stories during that quiet time.  If you’d like to see Holbrook/Twain tell the story, go to this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V65G_xA5eKc&list=PL7fTLA1i5h4Bhnlv1nhFTtsvSBUFb5myF&index=10

The story of the “Begum of Bengal” starts about 4:20 in.

He’s 91 today, February 17, and as far as we know still does his show on stage.  He’s been Mark Twain longer than Samuel Clemens was Mark Twain. He is simply one of the greatest performers in the history of American theatre.  And that’s no lie.)

 

This might be TOO ethical

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A long-cherished political tradition is at risk at our state capitol but it might not be too much of a risk. 

St. Louis Representative Gina Mitten has introduced a bill banning candidates for statewide office from chairing House or Senate committees while they are seeking that statewide job.   She says the situation invites abuse because it links the influence committee chairpeople have over legislation at a time when donors might be influenced by the committee’s actions. 

Does that happen?  Surely not. 

Mitten says the situation does not “pass the smell test.”  She’s not proposing the candidate leave the committee.  She just wants the candidate out of the chair.  The candidate can still dominate the discussion and gain as many headlines as would be gained while in the middle seat.  But the candidate’s authority over the fate of the legislation presumably would be erased. 

Mitten isn’t messing around either.  Her bill would ban any chairperson who doesn’t step aside from running for statewide offices for two election cycles.  (Maybe they could become lobbyists.  Other bills moving in the General Assembly would force lawmakers wanting to become lobbyists to wait a whole year before darkening the halls of the capitol. One entire year. Is there any doubt that requirement would solve the problem of ex-legislators getting too close, too soon, to their former colleagues?)

Mitten counts four sitting committee chairpersons who are running for statewide office this year.

Her bill would end decades and decades of practice.  Both parties have done the thing she wants to stop.  It has not been unusual for somebody wanting to improve their visibility and have a chance to grab some headlines to talk to the Speaker of the House or the President pro Tem of the Senate about forming a high-profile committee they can chair, especially if it is about an issue that is important to the candidate’s or the party’s political base.  An interim committee is best because there’s less competition for headlines than there is during the regular session.  Plus, interim committees can hold hearings throughout the state, increasing that visibility among voters who otherwise wouldn’t be paying attention to a committee hearing in Jefferson City and therefore wouldn’t know or care who is leading the crusade.  

Her bill might have a little bit better chance this year than it would have had in years past because the legislature is on a righteousness kick when it comes to lawmaker ethics.  But it probably won’t have much of a chance.  She’s a Democrat in a monocratic Republican legislature. 

She introduced House Bill 2398 on January 27.    As of February 9, the Speaker had not assigned it to a committee.  One might think it would go the House Ethics Committee, of course.  She’s the vice-chairman. 

The spirit of the St. Louis

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There’s always somebody. Somebody not good enough for us no matter their circumstances. Somebody we can always tell, “Go back where you came from.”  Some of the campaign rhetoric this year reminds us of the story of a ship named for our second-largest city.

Let’s go back to Germany, 1938, where the Nazi government’s increasing persecution of Jews caused many to try to flee. Representatives of several western nations met at Evian, France in July, 1938, to discuss the worsening situation. Major nations such as the United States, France, and Britain refused to loosen their immigration laws to allow more refugees from Germany, even as Germany was tightening its laws against Jews wanting to flee. German policies against Jews broke into violence with the Kristallnacht on November 9-10 and in ensuing months, thousands of Jews were arrested.

Nine-hundred-thirty-seven Jewish passengers were aboard the S. S. St. Louis when it left Hamburg, Germany on May 13, 1939, hoping to find safety in Cuba or the United States.  But Cuba allowed fewer than thirty to disembark.

The St. Louis headed north, hoping to dock in the United States.  But this country had enacted a restrictive immigration law in 1924.  The state department worried that the Jews would be security risks or be dependent on government handouts if they were allowed in.  Passengers could not get tourist visas because they had no home address.  And there were a lot of other German immigrants waiting for entry.

After more than a month the St. Louis headed back to Europe, although not to Germany.  Britain agreed to take 288 of the passengers.  The remaining 620 went to Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, countries still at peace.

It was while the St. Louis was still at sea, its passengers still hoping to find asylum or at least safety in the United States that Heywood Broun, one of the great newspaper columnists of the time, wrote “There is a Ship” for the New York World-Telegram. It was published June 9, 1939.

——-

There is a ship. It is called the St. Louis.  If suddenly the vessel flashed an SOS to indicate that the crew and the 900 passengers were in danger every other steamer within call would be hurrying to the rescue. That is the rule of the sea.

And no vessel which got the flash would pause to inquire the economic, political, religious or national position of those in distress.  It would want no more than the position of the ship.

And the captain on the bridge, according to the prevailing tradition, would ask the engineer to put on all speed so that the work of rescue could be completed as expeditiously as possible.  And this would be true of the skipper of a totalitarian merchantman, one from a democratic nation or a ship flying under the flag of a monarchy, liberal or otherwise.

But there is a ship.  It carries 900 passengers—men, women and small children.  This is a group of God-fearing people guilty of no crime whatsoever.  And they are in peril.

They are in peril which threatens not only their lives but their very souls and spiritual freedom.  It would be better for them by far if the St. Louis has ripped its plates in a collision with some other craft, or if an impersonal iceberg had slashed the hull below the water line.

Then there would be not the slightest hesitation in a movement of all the allied fleets to save these members of the human race in deep and immediate distress.

But this is not an iceberg or a plate which has been ripped away.  The passengers—men, women and children—are Jewish. It is not an accident of nature but an inhuman equation which has put them in deadly peril.  It is quite true that when the St. Louis gets back to Hamburg these 900, with possibly a few exceptions, will not die immediately.  They will starve slowly, since they have already spent their all.  Or they will linger in concentration camps—I refer to the men and women.  God knows what will happen to the children.

And so the whole world stuffs its ears and pays no attention to any wireless.

There is a ship. And almost two thousand years have elapsed since the message of universal brotherhood was brought to earth.

What have we done with that message?  After so many years we have not yet put into practice those principles to which we pay lip service.  Nine hundred are to suffer a crucifixion while the world passes by on the other side.

At any luncheon, banquet or public meeting the orator of the occasion can draw cheers if he raises his right hand in the air and pledges himself, his heart and soul to the declaration that he is for peace and amity and that all men are brothers.  He means it, generally, and so do the diners who pound the table until the coffee cups and the cream dishes rattle into a symphony of good feeling and international sympathy.

But there is a ship. If one were to look upon it with cold logic it would be better for every one of the 900 if the vessel suddenly buckled and went down in forty fathoms.  That would be more merciful.

Against the palpable threat of death we can muster brotherhood.  But against the even more plain sentence of life in death we pretend to be helpless.

Our answer is, “We must look after ourselves.  What can we do about it?  Life is greater than death.”  We agree.  Here is our test.  What price civilization?  There is a ship.  Who will take up an oar to save 900 men, women and children?

——-

Heywood Broun died at 51 years of age on December 18, 1939. About the time he wrote this column, he had forsaken his professed agnosticism after extensive discussions with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and had become a member of the Catholic faith.

Germany invaded the safe countries of Western Europe on May 10, 1940. The Netherlands surrendered five days later. Belgium gave up May 28.  And France fell June 22.   The Holocaust Museum in Washington estimates 254 former passengers on the St. Louis died during the holocaust, most of them at Sobibor and Auschwitz.  Fewer than one-hundred eventually made it to the United States.

The St. Louis was a German naval accommodation ship until it was damaged by the bombing of Kiel in August, 1944.  She was fixed and was a hotel ship in Hamburg for a while before being scrapped in 1952.

But the ghost of the spirit of the ship still hangs over us.

Jews in 1939.  Mexicans and Syrians in 2016.

There’s always somebody.

Putting up appearances

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A former White House correspondent once recalled that one of the Presidents he had covered was adept at “looking like” he was doing something.  

The legislature has been telling us this is the year it’s doing something about ethics and the House has quickly sent a package of bills to the Senate where the majority floor leader is expecting action within a couple of weeks. It probably is unfair to suggest at this point that the legislature is “looking like” it’s doing something significant but it might not be unfair to wonder if it is doing as much as it should.  

It might be fair to say lawmakers are putting themselves in a good position to have something to brag about in their re-election campaigns. But a fair question to ask is, “What difference will these things really make?”  Will the hallways during legislative sessions look any different?  Will the influence of special interest groups be lessened?  How will these changes make the lives of the people on this quiet street better?  

Maybe the answer to that last question can honestly be, “They won’t,” but they might provoke a slight climate change at the Capitol.  The climate change, however, is unlikely to melt any political icebergs. 

One change approved by the House bars members of the legislature from becoming lobbyists for a year.  One entire year.  Not one term.  Or four years.  One year after a legislator leaves, that person can be back renewing old buddy relationships with about eighty percent of the people who were colleagues 365 days earlier.  But it does end suspicions at least somewhat that someone will vote for a bill one day and then go to work for the organization behind it a few weeks later. 

Another bill forbids elected officials from being paid political consultants.  In other words, the Speaker of the House or former Speaker cannot run a political consulting office on the side and collect fees from fellow House members wanting more terms, especially if he makes donations to the House members from his leftover campaign funds, then collects those donations back as consulting fees.  In other places, this is known as money laundering . 

Another proposal bans lobbyists from giving gifts to legislators.  Lobbyists can still sponsor junkets but the lawmakers have to pay their own way.  No more tickets to baseball, football, basketball, hockey games would be allowed, though, unless everybody is invited. 

One lawmaker refers to the ethics bills on the move early in this session as “baby steps.”  But they ARE steps and we haven’t seen steps of any size taken for a long time. 

However, we already have seen that the legislature is adept at ignoring the T-Rex in the room.   The House has not touched proposals on campaign donations and the senate leader says the issue will not be considered in his chamber.  

So the message is clear.  A free ticket to a football game is a sin.   A check for $100,000 is sacred. So legislators seeking re-election this year can tell the folks at home they supported steps to “clean up” government.   And because the state is likely to remain the only one with no donation limits, they’ll have plenty of money to advertise their efforts to re-establish virtue at the Capitol. 

One lawmaker has been quoted as saying, “Campaign contributions…are political speech. That is not part of the discussion.” Give that lawmaker some marks for candor. 

Free Speech is important in political campaigns.  But it’s not free, is it?  Some people can afford tens of thousands of dollars of “free” speech.  Some people can afford five dollars of “free” speech.  Both can speak but guess which one is most likely to be heard.  Pretty clearly, the refusal of the legislature to consider balancing the scales of political speech is an indication of who they’d rather listen to and who’s invited to the conversation.  

Let us not confuse free speech guaranteed in the constitution with political speech guaranteed by the checkbook.  Until the imbalance is corrected, those who serve in The People’s House might want to acknowledge they’re serving in The SOME People’s House. 

Baby steps are being taken.  But the footprint of the T-Rex emphasizes how puny they really are in today’s Missouri politics. 

Missouri Monocracy

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Monocratic rule refers to complete political power or control resting with one party.  We have it in Missouri now and with the opening of candidate filing getting closer—February 23—it’s worth examining.  We hope to avoid indications the discussion will take a partisan tone although current conditions make partisan references unavoidable. 

It could be argued that the normal system of checks and balances does not check and does not balance under monocratic rule.  We have been here before although it has been many decades since the partisan breakdown in our legislature has been as lopsided as it is now, or worse. 

We are going to base most of our comments on the state senate, not because that’s where we lived for about 25 of the forty years we spent reporting from the Capitol but because it’s a small enough sample for the time we wanted to spend on this superficial study of a complex issue. 

Let’s start here:  Missouri’s legislature is controlled by one party that holds at least two-thirds of the seats in each chamber.  Missouri is the only state that has no controls on how money flows into the political campaign system.  It is easy to connect those two statements but it might not be entirely fair to do so. Life and politics are too complicated to be summarized that way.

One-half of the senate seats will be up for election this year.  Five seats will be open because three senators have reached the end of their limited terms and two have quit early.  Four of the five open seats are held by Republicans, one by a Democrat.  

All 163 seats in the House will be in play. 

Eight of the seventeen races for the state senate four years ago were not contested.  Two years ago, ten of the seventeen races for a seat in the senate were not contested (one had a write-in candidate who got six percent of the vote so we have considered that race “uncontested.”).  That makes eighteen of the thirty-four senators who are serving right now had no general election challengers or effective challengers in their last election.  

A quick survey of the House showed seventy-four members were elected two years ago without opposition in November.  That means 92 of the 197 seats in the General Assembly are from places where voters did not have a choice whom to elect and where candidates’ positions went unchallenged.  Forty-four percent of the people who are supposed to represent one-hundred percent of people in the state of Missouri in its government were elected without serious question about what they think, who’s behind them, or how they will balance the needs and competing interests of all of the people in their districts. From the perspective on this quiet street, that is an indication that Missouri politics is sick. 

Of the eight senate contested races in 2012, five winners received 51-56% of the votes.  Two were in the mid-60s and the victor in the other one got 82% in a district acknowledged as being overwhelmingly one way.  

Of the seven contested races in 2014 (not counting the write-in race), three had winning percentages of 50.088-56%.  Three percentages were in the seventies and one just barely missed that number. 

In the end, one party gained enough strength in both chambers of the legislature to make the other party mostly inconsequential unless something like last year’s right-to-work debate shutdown starts a minority forest fire the majority can’t put out.  That can and did happen in the Senate.  It’s pretty difficult in the House. 

Vetoes by a minority-party governor can likewise be largely inconsequential because of the two-thirds majority by the other side.  The check and balance system breaks down.  And has broken down.

The argument can be made that the voters decided they want a system where checks and balances are minimized and by looking at the raw membership numbers that seems apparent unless the thought arises that in more than half of those senate elections, voters were not offered a choice and candidates faced no scrutiny from an opponent. But as the folks at the state lottery tell us, “You can’t win if you don’t play.”  The failure of both parties to even try to contest races for a majority of the seats in the Senate and many seats in the House points to flaws in the Missouri political system that those who most benefit from the flaws seem in no hurry to fix. 

Controlling party justification of monocratic rule by noting two-thirds of the legislators are members of that party is, in effect, a dismissal of the needs or wishes of thousands of citizens who voted on the losing side or who had no choice through which to express themselves. The justification seems to follow the sentiments of UCLA football coach Red Sanders who said, “Men, I’ll be honest.  Winning isn’t everything.  It’s the only thing.”  (The quote is often attributed to Vince Lombardi, who did say it, but he was quoting Sanders.)   

Sanders seems to be the inspiration for today’s political climate.  Our experience indicates some people care only about winning.  Others care only about fighting.  Those who care only about serving are easily lost in the dust and smoke of the battle.  

Eight of the fifteen senators who had contests in their last elections won with 56% of the vote or less. When it comes to questions of policy and agenda, should they be softer on strictly hewing to the party line if they are to represent ALL of the people in their district?  In a more altruistic climate, the answer would likely be “probably,” which is about as positive as one can get in real world politics.  But what motivation is there under our present system to even go that far when the only thing that counts is winning and the losers seem to count for nothing?  

Only five winners got more than two-third of the votes in their districts (not counting the write-in district), which raises the question of how big a majority one needs to achieve to be able to dismiss the needs or wishes of the other side and make decisions or arguments on a completely partisan basis, or on the basis of the interest that seeks a benefit that is superior to any benefit losing voters might be entitled to as fellow citizens of the state. 

Much of this discussion is, of course, an exercise of political idealism likely to carry no weight in the blacksmith shop where the party with the big sledgehammer shapes the shoes everybody’s horse must wear.  But from time to time, someone must be naïve enough to mention it lest we become a state without hope for those out of power. There are a lot of voters who talk about these things although they have no way to rewrite the rules.

How, then, to bring some balance to a system that seems to lean strongly toward saying “winning is the only thing?”   Deeper thinkers than those of us on this quiet street can have more profound answers but one seems pretty obvious.  As long as Missouri has no limits on the flow of money into campaigns, there is only an incentive to funnel funds directly to candidates, making our political system one that is undeniably influenced heavily by those who seek to buy policies and those who find those funds the lifeblood of their careers. Those who benefit will and do deny that they are bought.   And perhaps they feel in their heart that they are correct and many probably are.  But if they are not bought, they surely must realize that in their contests they were able to afford better armor, stronger weapons, and faster horses and gratitude for those gifts takes many forms, not the least of which involves carrying the patron’s colors.  

While the focus on campaign funding has been the candidate and the individual donors who believe big donations mean big access, the political parties struggle.  We wrote about the situation last August 20 (The Party). 

Some suggest the rules should be changed to favor the contest, not the contestants–in modern terms, to seek a system that rejuvenates political parties that can field more candidates and give them stronger support. Will such policy solve the problems of the political system and neutralize the (dis)advantages of monocratic rule?  We have talked to no one who believes it is a complete solution.  But to some people, such a change stands a better chance of equalizing the floor of the arena and it stands a better chance of furthering conflicts based on a battle for ideas rather than on a fight for advantage.

Some of our associates think that “winning is the only thing” is okay in high-stakes sports but it makes for poor political systems. In politics, they think, the “winning” philosophy is a short-term goal that does not serve the long-term strength of a government and the needs of its people. One has cited the poem “Alumnus Football” by the great 1920s sportswriter Grantland Rice, which concludes:

            For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game.

And they suggest the people benefit—all of the people benefit—when the fairness of the game is improved so that more can play it and can afford to play it well.  But they are skeptical about the willingness of today’s “winners” to make the game itself more representative of all of the participants.

Missouri faces a decision this year about whether we will continue a monocracy, where one side makes all of the decisions, versus regaining a democracy, where all of the people are involved in making decisions.  The monocracy will decide if there is such a choice. 

A loophole

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Our lawmakers have some proposals before them that will try to limit campaign contributions.  We haven’t talked to many of our friends and neighbors who are confident they’ll pass them because there’s no strong political will to kill the political golden goose.  But they’re encouraged that the House leadership wants early debate and are willing to give lawmakers the benefit of the doubt.  For now.  They are concerned, however, about the campaign finance part of the issue.

In our experience, we’ve never seen a bulletproof campaign finance law.  The crafty contributor always finds a loophole somewhere and exploits it and the legislature is usually slow to plug the hole. 

But let’s suppose a bill is passed that puts caps on donations for various offices.  For simplification, let’s assume that the bill passed this year says a person cannot contribute more than $500 to a candidate running for a legislative seat.  For our purposes here we won’t get into dark money, the secretly-donated money that goes through independent committees to hide the identity of donors and the amount they donate.    We’re going to keep this simple. Dark money is a later topic.

Now, suppose you have a basement full of money and you think a $500 donation limit is absurd.  So you find ten people, give them $500 each and have THEM make donations to your chosen candidate.  Here’s how to stop that (we think) end-run around the limit. 

The new campaign finance law would consider any money given by one person to another for the purpose of making a campaign donation as income to the recipient that shall be reported on special employer withholding forms and shall be reported by the surrogate donor on another form as taxable income. The confidentiality provisions of tax return law will be waived so that the Missouri Ethics Commission will have access to that information for purposes of reporting and possible prosecution under tax fraud laws by the Attorney General or an outside counsel hired by the commission. Further, the commission would have subpoena powers and powers to investigate apparent unreported transactions. 

Here’s an example of how this would work: Scrooge McDuck goes down in his basement to bathe in his money pile and decides he wants to donate $5,000 to the Goofy for Governor campaign.  But he can only give $500 under the law.  He decides to drain off an additional $4,500 and give the money to nine other people—Huey, Louie, Dewey, and Donald and Daisy Duck plus to Horace Horsecollar, Ludwig Von Drake, Pluto, Clarabelle Cow, and Humphrey Bear and they each will donate $500 to Goofy.  This law would require Scrooge to file withholding tax forms on each of the other nine.  They would have to file a state version of a 1099 form as outside income.  The ethics commission under this law would have access to those specific forms (but none of the other income tax forms).  The commission could look for something fishy (which for our purposes we will refer to as “a Nemo”)  so it can charge the giver and/or the recipient with tax fraud.  If the Attorney General was the recipient of some of this end-run money, he or she would be disqualified from prosecution because of a conflict of interest and the commission would be able to hire a private lawyer.

Out here, a couple of miles from the capitol, this seems to make sense. 

This plan also has another important benefit.  It avoids any criticism from voters that the legislature has increased the general income tax.  And the proceeds from any fines or penalties could be used to bolster the state’s weak transportation funding.  

Of course, the real boost could come when we create a service fee on dark money funding.  But that’s a loophole for a different day.    

Disclaimer:  We are not saying any candidates for governor are Goofy.    

Notes from a quiet street

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(formerly known in our working days as “Notes from the front lines,” compilations of observations that do not merit full bloggitry)

The chairman of the Special Senate Committee to Generate Headlines for a Senator Running for Attorney General, wants the committee to subpoena patient records from Planned Parenthood, a private organization, and to hold some people in contempt for refusing to submit themselves to grilling by the committee.  Planned Parenthood says it will resist any subpoena from the committee as improper meddling in a private business’s affairs and because the records are protected by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects the privacy of personal health information. 

“Phhhhtttttt!” says the leader of the entire senate. He’ll support the SSCGHSRAG’s subpoena, federal law notwithstanding.  

Some folks with whom we have discussed this situation suggest the position of the SSCGHSRAG might be more consistent, although probably still questionable, if the legislature would let the state auditor subpoena records from political campaign committees, including the independent committees that hide contributors from public knowledge, and the activities of legislative staff members who work for political campaigns “in their spare time,” and find those who don’t cooperate in contempt. Some would consider such a step as (pardon the cliché) leveling the playing field.

State law says those who are held in contempt of a legislative committee that they consider taking a contemptible position can be fined and jailed. 

The auditor has no such power and the consensus is that the legislature’s response to the idea that the auditor should have it also would be “Phhhhttttt!”  

                                                            —

One of our neighbors is a fellow we’ll call Felix, one of those folks who drives around with a school alumni license plate, a school decal in the back window, and little school flags sticking out of the windows on football or basketball game days. He’s 67, about five-foot-eight, and will weigh, probably, 143 pounds after watching an entire football game in a rain storm.  He was concerned for a few days not long ago when he read about two bills filed for the 2016 legislative session. 

One would take away scholarships for football players who refuse to play a game to show their support for fellow students protesting a perceived injustice.  The other would make it legal to carry guns on campus.  

Felix worries about what would happen if he got into an argument with a six-foot-seven, 350 pound offensive lineman who had just lost his scholarship but had a gun.  He was relieved when the scholarship bill was withdrawn by the sponsor because that took away one of the issues to argue about.  Now all he worries about is whether the six-foot-seven, 350-pound lineman with a scholarship would beat the tar out of him or just save his energy and shoot him.  

                                                            —–

A divorced couple in St. Louis County is in court to decide who gets custody of two frozen embryos they enjoyed creating in happier times.  

Someone asked us the other day, “Since the state says life begins at conception, shouldn’t there be another law for frozen embryos to be considered wards of the state, making the state responsible for their maintenance and any support payments in case they do lead to babies without the sperm donor’s consent? “ She continued, “The state is avoiding responsibility for the situation it has caused.” 

Another person at the table opined, “Well, you can’t get an answer if you only write half of the equation.”  

                                                00000

And a personal note:  We have found in our first year of retirement that our detachment from the intense climate of the capitol during legislative sessions has helped us understand why folks like our neighbors hold those we elect to represent us in lowered esteem.  Perhaps it is because those who serve lose the perspective they had while they lived on quiet streets like this one, before they started hearing all of the capitol voices telling them how important they are. 

We remain convinced, however, that most of those who are beginning their work at the capitol now are good people. Unfortunately they are operating within a badly-flawed system that only they can fix.  And the temptation to leave a system that favors their presence as-is has been too difficult to overcome.  

We have known these people for a long time, them and their predecessors.  And we can tell you that away from the capitol, perhaps around a barbecue pit or sharing a table at a coffee shop, they’re okay.  But the environment in which they will be operating for the next four months is not necessarily he climate that is best for the neighbors they leave at home Monday through Thursday. 

This scribe is no longer the business associate (never a partner) that he once was.  Now he’s the neighbor left behind.  It’s been interesting to feel perspective change.