Category Archives: elections

Redistricting and You—and Me

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You and I have no business questioning the Missouri Legislature’s quick obedience to an order from President Trump to redraw our congressional districts so longtime incumbent Democrat will have to leave his congressional office and presumably give President Trump an additional Republican seat in the House of Representatives.

At least that’s what the latest occupant of the Attorney General’s office thinks.

A group called People Not Politicians is gathering referendum petition signatures to put the legislature’s Trumpmandered congressional district map to a statewide vote. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says they have no business doing that. Congressional redistricting, she says, is sacred to the Missouri legislature.  She issued a statement to St. Louis Public Radio saying her lawsuit to block the referendum on the map drawn by the legislature is an effort to “stop out-of-state dark-money groups from hijacking Missouri’s electoral process and silencing the voices of Missouri voters.”

That is a stunning statement. Absolutely stunning.  A politician, especially one whose party has a chokehold on state government, saying “out of state dark-money groups” should be prohibited “from hijacking Missouri’s electoral process” is a landmark statement.  Since when is out of state dark money something either of our political parties is against?

We will believe accepting out of state dark money is a political sin when we see the state Republican party pass a law outlawing it. We expect Democrats would be excited to work with their GOP colleagues to take that step.

But all of us know the Sun will go dark before that happens.

As for “silencing the voices of Missouri voters:” Doesn’t her lawsuit keeping Missouri voters from having a say on the issue doing exactly that?

Did I even need to ask that question?

Missouri’s constitution allows its citizens to propose laws  and to question actions by the General Assembly. There is no carve-out for congressional redistricting.

Congressional redistricting is, indeed, the job of the legislature IF IT IS DONE LEGALLY AND THE DISTRICTS MEET LEGAL STANDARDS. The petition campaign represents the people’s voice expressing concerns about the legality of what the legislature did.

We have a character in Washington who believes he is above the law and above the U.S. Constitution and he’s looking around and seeing a lot of the public has come to the realization of how dangerous he is to our country—and he is scared to death that voters next year will elect a Congress that is not afraid of him.

His solution is to do everything he can to rig next year’s elections. Unfortunately, Missouri has said “Yes, sir (“sir” is one of his favorite words) how high do you want us to jump?”

It’s one thing for the legislature to pass a law protecting him.  But to say the people who elected the legislators to protect their interests have no right to object when those legislators choose, instead, to protect the interests of one individual who is deathly afraid of facing voter consequences for his actions is flatly un-American.

At least, it used to be—-

back when being an American was not anti-American.

The Hating Terrorists

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President Trump has branded antifa a terrorist organization. It’s just more hot air because there is no organization named antifa. If there was, the word would be capitalized and would have a campaign bank account and would have officers he could arrest.

But if he wanted to see the face(s) of his enemy, all he had to do was watch some non-football news coverage last Saturday when organizers of more than 2,600 No Kings protests say more than seven million people had something to say to and about Donald Trump.

 

 

Organizers claimed a total of more than 7 million people turned out at more than 2,600 protests across the nation.

He missed a great chance by not dispatching his ICE goons to those rallies to round up antifa terrorists as well as brown people or people with names ending in “z,” and some plain American citizens while they were at it.

In an Air Force One news scrum, Trump called he rallies “a joke.”

“I look at the people and they’re not representatives of this country,” he continued. “I looked a all the brand new signs paid for, I guess it was made by Soros and other radical left lunatics…The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people who worked out, when you look at these people, those are not representatives of the people of the country. “

“And by the way,” he concluded. ”I’m not a King…I work my ass off to make our country great.”

George Soros is one of Trumpisms favorite boogeymen. And the phrase “radical left lunatics” was tiresome the second time he said it. But it’s his phrase of the moment so he’ll beat all the blood out of it.

The Speaker of the House and some other Republicans are calling these events “Hate America Rallies.”  But polls and rally turnouts indicate an awful lot of people aren’t buying the name game that Trump addicts try to apply to these gatherings.

And we don’t know what television coverage he was looking at, but those demonstrations were NOT “very small.”  And he is likely to learn in next year’s mid-term elections if they were, in fact, ineffective.

Organizers of anti-fascist or anti-kings rallies have to be careful, though It’s ten months before the 2026 primaries, more than a year before the general elections, especially in the Trumpmandered congressional districts.  The people behind the “No Kings” rallies—-that’s what they prefer to call themselves regardless of those who try to convince the public that these folks hate America—don’t want to peak too soon.

As far as these people being haters?  Au Contraire, mon frere.  These are people who love America and they love it enough to hold mass rallies that so far have burned no stores, looted no television shops, and broken no large numbers of windows.  In the sixties, anti-war demonstrators sometimes stuck flowers down the barrels of guns that soldiers were carrying.  Today, maybe some will give flowers to the ICE goons.

What organizers have to be careful about is peaking too soon.  This is a time for Democrats to be finding their strongest candidates and rounding up big money from Democrat or Independent million-and-billion-aires.

Antifa might need to go into what the Continental Army called “winter quarters,” to conserve energy and to let Mr. Trump give himself more and more rope.

Republicans who might notice the declining favorability of the Trump administration might wish to quit dismissing these events as “Hate America Rallies” and recognize them for what they are—people who love America and are concerned with the direction that President Trump is taking America. Name-calling will not eliminate the threat these rallies could be to their side of the aisle in a few months and might, in fact, only fuel the efforts of the No Kings folks. Finding a platform that is BETTER than what the “No Kings” voices are expressing and offering candidates more loyal to their oaths than to their president might be a better use of their time and resources.

What is happening now is likely to only intensify as elections draw closer and if the present direction of national leadership follows its present arc.

Those of us who remember the demonstrations of the sixties know that dismissal is the wrong direction to go.

It is dangerous to shake a beehive and believe you can ignore the swarm.

Lincoln

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(Before we dip our pen in acid for this entry, please let us observe a bit of a milestone. This page represents page 3,000 of these entries. Today we will plod toward word number 1,300,000. We are sure that we are the only one who has read every word and every page.)

If you’ve been along for a long, long time, maybe you should send yourself a sympathy card.

Now, on with the show:)

Lincoln

Some people just have the right names.

Lincoln Hough SOUNDS like a Republican Senator’s name.

He is one.

But he’s in trouble—

—-because Lincoln Hough is not above thinking. And speaking his mind.

Because he had the nerve to suggest that the Missouri Senate was going against everything the Missouri Senate has stood for, he has been slapped down by his party.

Hough objected to the final dismantling of the Senate’s legacy as a deliberative, respectful, collegial part of government when his party’s majority leadership rammed two questionable bills through a short special legislative session to satisfy the self-serving demand of an increasingly dictatorial President and a desire by his party to mangle the concept of majority vote.

His party leaders have increasingly through the years stifled minority opposition to issues by passing motions to limit or prohibit discussion.  Hough is one of two Senate Republicans who had the courage to vote against the bills in the special legislative session, and to vote against ending debate on them.  Within minutes after the session adjourned, the leader of the Senate majority went to his office and fired him as the chairman of arguably the Senate’s most important committee, the one that writes the Senate’s version of the state budget.

Lincoln Hough told The Missouri Independent that as far as he was concerned, the Missouri Senate died at 1:42 p.m. on Friday, September 12 when debate was blocked on the bill weakening the First Amendment right of citizens  “to petition their government for a redress of grievances,” as it is put in the Bill of Rights.

This was one of the darkest weeks I’ve served during my time in the senate.

If the votes that I cast this week that I believed were in the best interests of my constituents in Springfield, the State of Missouri, and the institution of the Missouri Senate put me at odds with the President Pro Tem of the Senate cost me my chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee then so be it. I wouldn’t change any of them.

I’m looking forward spending my time and energy during my last session on the floor of the senate working every day to restore this institution to place of honor I inherited from Senators Richard and Wasson.

Ron Richard, from Joplin, is the only person in Missouri history to serve as Speaker of the House and President Pro Tem of the Senate. Bill Wasson was Hough’s predecessor in the Senate.

I believe in a process where members are given an opportunity to have a conversation about a piece of legislation, two, to ask questions about a piece of legislation, and, three, propose changes through an amendment process on the floor. When all of that is circumvented, that’s a problem.

This was not the first time Hough had voiced opposition to his party’s legislation by steamroller. He objected to shutting down debate at the end of the regular session in May on a bill repealing two issues voters had approved last year—protection of abortion rights and expansion of sick leave.

He called those actions and the special session experience “a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

His party leader wasted no time dropping the axe. Less than half an hour after the session adjourned President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin went to Hough’s office and took away his appropriations committee chairmanship. He has been the vice chairman and then chairman since he came to the Senate six years ago.

She said, ‘we are tired of fighting with you. To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’

O’Laughlin assured Springfield television station KYTV there really aren’t any hard feelings involved.

“Every good business has a succession plan. We should not expect less for the Missouri Senate. Leadership on the budget includes not only planning expenditures, but being responsible for outcomes. Eight senators are terming out next year and that is a full 1/3 of the Republican caucus. Planning and executing those plans is a complicated process requiring constant work and oversight. In my view we need an appropriations chair who can get acclimated to the job before the turnover occurs. It has been my plan to appoint a chairman who can gain experience and continue on after the seats change next year. In my view this gives them the best chance of success.

Senior senators can help in this process prior to terming out. I implemented that plan yesterday and it is one I spoke to Senator Hough about last November. He is one of the most talented senators l’ve met and the change has nothing to do with votes as some have conjectured. Serving Missouri is not just about prestige but also about doing what is best for Missourians. I greatly appreciate Senator Hough and the immense amount of work he has performed on behalf of Missourians.

That might be true. Or it might be so much eyewash. Regardless, the optics—to use a phrase that has gained some purchase in our politics today—are pretty bad.  As for continuity, the vice chair of the committee is Chillicothe Senator Rusty Black, who is in his first Senate term and faces the voters for a second term next year. Three other Republican members of the appropriations committee are in their first terms and one other was just elected his second term last year. The committee also includes four Democrats, none of them eligible for committee leadership unless an unlikely switch of majority occurs. But committee members are hardly rookies and will have even more experience after the 2026 budget process.

Hough told The Missourinet O’Laughlin’s statement is “completely disingenuous,” noting that she had not replaced any of the other term-limited chairs of other Seante committees.

Here’s something else that speaks for the character of Lincoln Hough.  He has a picture of Harry Truman in a prominent place in his office.

He hasn’t done it because he’s some kind of a maverick. He’s done it because of the history of his office.

He put up the Truman picture after I saw David Balducchi’s article in the Missouri Historical Review in April, 2021 detailing Truman’s brief Missouri directorship of the National Reemployment Service. From October of 1933 until mid-May of 1934, Truman spent three days a week in Jefferson City where his office was in rooms 419A and 419B of the Capitol.

I took the article to Senator Hough’s office in those rooms and as soon as he read it, he set about getting a nice farmed picture of Truman with a note included in the frame noting Truman’s use of that space.

It was while Truman held that job that Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast offered him a chance to run for the U.S. Senate, a move some say Pendergast engineered because Truman had been too honest in his job as Jackson County Presiding Judge and Pendergast expected him to lose the Senate bid at the same time his administrative judgeship ran out so a Pendergast crony could be installed in the county position. Truman surprisingly won the first of his two terms before he became President.

It seems kind of appropriate that a portrait of a man who was too honest to suit his own party’s political boss in 1934 should be inhabited by a state senator today who had the courage to call out his party’s willingness to do the biddings of a President who acts as a political boss today.  Hough:

It’s pretty easy to pass legislation in the Missouri Senate if you don’t have to talk about it, and you can just bring it before the body and say, we’re not, we’re not going to have any discussion whatsoever. It seems that if you have any independent thought, or even just raise a question, you have a problem with this Republican Party and that is not the Republican Party that, 15 years ago when I first ran for the House, that I was part of.

There is a penalty sometimes for courage. Hough wasn’t told when he was fired as appropriations chairman if he is even still a committee member.

He lost a Republican primary bid for Lieutenant Governor last year.  I noticed on Facebook a few days after the session ended that someone thinks he’d be a good Congressman. At a time when President Trump’s support seems to be slipping within the Congress, a Republican such as Lincoln Hough, who has an independent streak, might be the kind of Republican the party needs for its future.

A Republican named Lincoln with a big picture of a Democrat named Harry in his office.

Those are pretty good optics.

 

Sellout

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The Missouri General Assembly has sold out the people of Missouri and more than two centuries of our heritage in following President Trump’s dictate on congressional elections.

The quick obedience of our legislature came less than a month after Trump issued a wholly unconstitutional rant on his social media page on August 18—

Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.

While we might have had other presidents who THOUGHT that, only Donald Trump has said so clearly and unmistakably that he is a dictator, the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution be damned. He, he claims, can order states to do his bidding.

It is nothing short of a political tragedy that our Governor and our Missouri General Assembly have so unabashedly acknowledged that he is what he says he is and they will take orders from him, to the detriment of their constituents.

The legislative journals will be testimony for decades to come how completely the people from our home towns that we chose to represent us have sold out to a president who respects no bounds, including those of the United States Constitution, as well as forfeiting the rights of independence asserted by our State Constitutions for more than two centuries.

To be clear: What Trump and our legislature have done is NOT for the good of our country or our state. Their actions are an abdication by the majority of their oath of office to defend the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Missouri:

“I do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office……”

The attitude by legislators who have endorsed the Trump congressional district map raises serious questions whether the people in the House and the Senate that we elected to serve and to protect US have “faithfully performed” the duties of their office—which do not include following the dictates of a President of the United States who demands service only for the good of Donald J. Trump, a man either ignorant of the Constitution HE swore to uphold or who flagrantly ignores Section Four, which reserves the power to the states to regulate elections and the counting of votes and they in no way must do what the President tells them to do.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The loophole in the language, however, does allow the legislature to carry out a President’s wishes and there’s nothing to stop a power-hungry President from telling the legislature to do his bidding and the majority of the legislative members can rationalize reasons for doing so—which they have done although the legislature is under no legal obligation to do so.

The legislature also has ignored the wording of every Missouri Constitution in the 204-year history of our state by agreeing Missouri, and other states “are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

States are not agents. They are independent subdivisions and Missouri has repeatedly claimed that distinction. Article Ten of the Bill of Rights, often cited—especially by Republicans—establishes that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Missouri has always firmly claimed those powers, beginning with our first constitution.

1820: “We, the people of Missouri, inhabiting the limits hereinafter designated, by our representatives in convention assembled, at St. Louis, on Monday the 12th day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic, by the name of ‘the State of Missouri;’ and for the government thereof, do ordain and establish this constitution.”

1865: Article 1, Section 5: That the people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, and of altering and abolishing their Constitution and form of government, whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness; but every such right should be exercised in pursuance of law, and consistently with the Constitution of the United States.

1875:  BILL OF RIGHTS. In order to assert our rights, acknowledge our duties, and proclaim the principles on which our government is founded, we declare-.

Section 1. Political power, origin of. —That all political power is vested in and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. [Same as Const. 1865, Art. 1, Sec. 4.]

Sec. 2. Internal affairs, regulation of. —That the people of this State have the inherent, sole and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof, and to alter and abolish their Constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness : Provided, Such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.  (same, in substance, as language from 1865 Constitution)

1945 Constitution: Bill of Rights:

Section 4. Independence of Missouri—submission of certain amendments to Constitution of the United States.—That Missouri is a free and independent state, subject only to the Constitution of the United States; that all proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United States qualifying or affecting the individual liberties of the people or which in any wise may impair the right of local self-government belonging to the people of this state, should be submitted to conventions of the people.

Free and Independent state?  Not anymore.  Not as long as a President can say “jump” and the Missouri legislature leaps.

How high would it leap?  Senator Lincoln Hough of Springfield is the answer. Hough has been a trusted figure among the Republican super majority. You don’t get much more trusted than by being put in charge of the committee that decided what gets how much of a $50 billion budget.

He and Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove  voted against both the petition proposal and against Trump’s gerrymandered map.

Hough has told The Missouri Independent that Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin within minutes of the vote removed him as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee because he defied orders to vote for the petition and redistricting bills.

Hough told The Independent, “She said, ‘​w​e are tired of fighting with you.’  To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’”

“What I’ve seen at the end of last session, and what I saw this week, is a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

The Senate as an institution nationally and in this state has always—until now—held itself to be the careful, deliberative chamber that allowed all voices to be heard, even if those voices tried to defeat or  modify legislation.  What happened in that chamber last week ended that important role in which one chamber of the Congress or of the legislature cooly evaluates the value and the honesty of legislation.

The Senate leadership, not even pretending to honor that tradition and that role in the system of government checks and balances that our nation’s creators gave us, destroyed that tradition. It twice voted to silence opposing voices and go straight to a vote, the outcome of which was guaranteed even with the two GOP defectors (Republicans control 2/3 of the seats in both chambers).

O’Laughlin several days ago fell back on the questionable excuse that the bills should be rammed through the special session to protect “Christian conservative values.” We are still waiting for her definition of them.

Whether the government should force Christian views—-or the perceived views of politicians who consider themselves Christians—on others seems clearly violative of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The Pew Research Center recently released its survey on religion in Missouri, showing 62% of Missourians identify themselves as Protestant Christians. Catholic Christians represent 14%.  Historically Black Protestants make up five percent. Four percent of adults identify with other religions—Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindus and other world religions.

One-third of the responding adults say they are “nones,” religiously-unaffiliated. Five percent are atheists and eight percent are agnostic. “Nothing in particular” adds up to 20%.

If our legislature was interested in a representative congressional map, especially one based on those “Christian Conservative Values,” the map would be 5-3 Republican based on the perentages in the Pew study. Instead, it has caved to political greed and created a 7-1 map that does away with the only ordained Christian in our delegation and one of only of two active Christian ministers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Then it punished one of the caucus’s own members for taking a principled stand while the rest of his party colleagues sold out.

Whether it is a matter of religion or just raw politics, the Senate by its actions, got far under the covers with our President, and—in effect—endorsed his great desire to be a dictator.

Ultimately, these actions will reach the federal courts. Sadly, we no longer have confidence that the ultimate federal court will find our legislature’s bowing to a President seeking total power is far out of Constitutional bounds.

Some of the protestors at the Capitol when the House voted pointed to the state motto, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.”  Pretty clearly, the legislature has chosen the welfare of Donald Trump as its priority.

You and I have been sold out by those closest to us that we trust to defend our freedoms from a President who wants to become a tyrant.

Remember those who have done this to us. Remember it next year when they ask for your vote.

We do still have the right to vote for our legislators.

For now.

Your Vote Won’t Mean a Thing OR it Might Mean Everything

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—if the legislature passes a crazy initiative petition reform proposal suggested by Governor Kehoe.

Gerrymandering our congressional districts to eliminate one of our Democrat members of congress—because President Trump wants no congressional limits on his power—is not the only threat to our republican (small “r”) form of government on legislators’ desks in the special session.

It is widely recognized that the petition process by which citizens can demand a new law be passed (because the legislature won’t pass it) has its problems and it has its perils that arise from mass expenditures of money to, in effect, buy part of our Missouri Constitution or part of our state statutes.

But a proposal that means 7/8 of Missouri’s voters’ ballots will have no meaning whatsoever is simply absurd.

The governor wants a law passed that says any proposal put on the ballot by citizen petition not only must achieve a majority to pass, it must get a majority in every one of our eight congressional districts.

One of the problems with the current process is that votes in our heavily-Democratic metropolitan areas have been enough at times to pass a proposal opposed throughout the rest of the state.

Governor Kehoe did not address that issue in announcing his recommendation in issuing the call for the special session. He said, “For far too long, Missouri’s Constitution has been the victim of out-of-state special interests who deceive voters to pass out-of-touch policies.  It’s time we give voters a chance to protect our Constitution.”

The answer to this problem is NOT, however, in killing a sacred part of this country—majority rule.

If Governor Kehoe’s idea had been in effect last year, we would not have sports wagering coming to Missouri regardless of how many millions of dollars the gambling interests spent. You’ll recall that the industry spent more than $40 million to get its petition issue passed by 3,000 votes. The industry fits like a glove the governor’s description of “out-of-state special interests who deceive voters.”

The proposal lost in three counties that have casinos—Lewis, Cooper, and Cape Girardeau. It carried in the metro areas that have casinos by tens of thousands of votes. Only one outstate county with a casino—Pemiscot—approved, but by only about 340 votes. It failed not in just one congressional district but probably in five (we haven’t seen a breakout according to district but the county-by-county plus St. Louis and Kansas City totals are available).

This is a ridiculously BAD idea.  Under this idea, a petition-proposed law or amendment could pass in seven of our congressional districts but fail by a single vote in the eighth. That single vote would negate every other vote in every other part of the state.

The proposal deals with a problem that is largely of the legislature’s own doing. By refusing to pass bills that have significant public support, our lawmakers are clearing the way for citizen petition campaigns. Sports gambling is the biggest and most recent such failure. The refusal to pass a law has led the gambling to put sports wagering in the Constitution and therefore make in extremely hard to deal with the problems this new form of gambling cause by changing a law. If it’s in the constitution, correction is manifoldly more difficult.

Here’s something else that’s kind of tragic—

This proposed law does not require a public vote.  You and I will have no right to vote on whether the state should be able to take away our votes, even if we are in the majority, at least not as the proposal is now written.

Law by petition has its problems.

Such laws do not go through the rigorous examination and refining process of legislative procedure. That can be frustrating for those hoping for a change in something. But writing a law that says specifically what it is meant to say, no more and no less,  is a finely-developed talent. Once it is written, it goes through committee hearings where shortcomings can be highlighted and corrected. Then in each chamber of the legislature, it goes through a “perfecting” process that again can be a rigorous review before it is finally passed.

But that doesn’t mean the right of petition given us by our ancestors more than a century ago should be rendered meaningless by this proposal.

The system does need some careful tweaks, but not surgery by meat cleaver. One tweak is a requirement that entities wanting to put a petition issue on the ballot should file only one version of the proposal with the Secretary of State whose elections staff spends time reviewing for correctness.

The Secretary of State’s web page has numbers that dramatically point to the problem. Last year, 174 petitions were filed. Nine were rejected, 24 were withdrawn, and 139 were approved for circulation. Only four were submitted with signatures and put on the ballot. Four out of 174. Large numbers were slightly different versions of the same matter. But each required review by the Secretary of State staff.

A law saying a group gets one shot would be helpful. If there are problems, then the group can submit a better proposal. But the shotgun approach needs to stop.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has some ideas about improving the process:

Limit abuse of process, by instituting modest filing fees and banning duplicate or near-duplicate submissions.

Ensure broad geographic support, strengthening the constitutional “district distribution” requirement so that petitions reflect statewide, not concentrated, backing.

Ban foreign or out-of-state fundraising, and stiffen penalties for fraudulent signatures or circulator misrepresentations.

Increase transparency, with public comment periods and clear, plain-language explanations available before signature gathering begins.

Generally, these aren’t bad ideas although the funding ban might be a little shaky because of  First Amendment speech problems and whether limits on raising the money to do the speaking infringes on the right to petition by groups who say they can’t enjoy that right unless they can raise money from whatever source.

The secretary’s idea, however, of allowing one congressional district to be, in effect, a killing entity that makes votes in all of  the other districts meaningless is simply undemocratic.

These are statewide issues and the votes from throughout the state mean something today. But they won’t tomorrow if this proposal passes. “Broad geographic support” sounds good. But it’s shorthand for “forget majority rule.”

Missourians already have given up their right to vote. Twice. First, it was term limits that means we have no right to vote for a lawmaker who has served us well and that we would like to represent us for more than eight years. Second is the adopted initiative petition proposal requiring votes every five years in Kansas City and St. Louis on whether to continue their earnings taxes. One provision of that issue says none of our other cities can ever ask voters to approve a similar tax for their city. Proposals might not pass, but we have a law—again, submitted by initiative petition—that says we can’t even vote on it.

Now we are being asked to approve an idea that says a statewide majority is useless if one-eighth of the state, by as little as one vote, can wipe out the votes of everybody else.

The governor’s plan doesn’t take onerous amounts of money out of the process. Doing so has to be through a way around First Amendment protections of free speech and right to petition. Nobody has figured out how to do that in a way that the court system will buy.

A undemocratic proposal that says votes from 7/8 of our state can be rendered meaningless by the barest of majorities opposed in one district is just plain wrong.

Suppose we applied the idea to legislative races saying no one can be elected to the House or the Senate if one precinct in their district fails to give them a majority. That’s “broad geographic support” brought home to roost.

If they’re not willing to put themselves in that predicament, they shouldn’t put everybody else in the state in it.

 

A REALLY Special Session

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Our lawmakers are back in Jefferson City to help decide what kind of a country we will have, and what kind of country we will be. That’s a pretty strong observation. But if we are honest, it is also pretty strongly true.

Governor Kehoe has called them back because President Trump worries he won’t have continued absolute power for the last half of his term unless legislatures in various states take unprecedented action to change congressional district lines to eliminate Democrats.

Forget what the voters decided in the 2024 Congressional elections. Make sure some of them can’t have the representative they elected because a President who brags about his popularity is worried that, in truth, he is so unpopular in poll after poll that Americans might vote in 2026 to impede his seizure of absolute power.

The Missouri legislature wants to take Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s elected job away from him by splitting his district so about half of his biggest supporters can’t vote for him in 2026.

It is interesting that Republicans, who have so many chest-thumping evangelical Christians supporting them, want to eliminate a member of Congress who is a Christian minister. Perhaps Emanuel Cleaver isn’t Christian enough. Perhaps they think he is spiritually lost or spiritually bankrupt because he’s a Methodist, a mainline Christian group that has split in a dispute about whether God creates gays.

Wouldn’t you think that a president who peddles Bibles, poses holding a Bible in front of a D. C. church, and says in commercials that he has several Bibles and it’s his favorite book would want someone like Congressman Cleaver in Washington as a moral force?

That’s Trump’s problem. He is not a moral force himself. In fact, there are plenty who wonder if he has any morals at all.

Donald Trump, who is so scared of losing power that he will disrupt the entire system of picking a representative government, wants the legislature to just turn over the keys to the democratic process in Missouri to him.

He talks about American exceptionalism but cares not for the government system that gives us that distinction and he will do anything to make sure his power goes unchecked for as long as he and his political offspring can keep it.

Have the people of Missouri asked for this change in who represents them?

No.  There has been no public outcry that our congressional delegation has betrayed the people who elected it. But those we have chosen to represent us at the state level are facing a demand that the legislature go against its own public’s wishes so Missouri can help keep a man in power who day after day advances policies that are antithetical to a heritage that millions have lived and died to defend and to perfect.

Now we have the spectacle of our chosen state representatives and our chosen state senators meeting to undermine our representatives in the national government that we voted to support less than one year ago, and in the process throw out a Black Methodist minister who has served our state with great honor and decency in Washington since January 3, 2005, a man dedicated to public service in the pulpit as well as in the places of power—a dozen years on the city council in our largest city, eight years as its mayor, and more than two decades representing Christian values and his district’s needs.

He rightfully threatens to fight this ill-conceived realignment in court: “It will render people in Kansas City essentially silent and powerless,” Cleaver said. “The reason I’m saying this is Kansas City is roughly 70-something percent Democratic. If you tear Kansas City apart — put one portion of the Kansas City area in one district, the other in another — the chances are they have no representation.”

He is correct although today’s majority party does not seem to care.

What hammer does Donald Trump hold over our lawmakers that makes them so craven in doing his bidding? It’s a big one. It’s the power to withhold or even take back the billions of dollars in federal funding that underwrite about half of the state budget.

It is awfully hard to look down the barrel of that gun and not wilt. Trump wants no defiance from Missouri and from other Republican states. He and those who are pulling his strings daily prove they care not one whit for most of us but expects our voices in government at state and federal levels to say only two words: “Yes, sir.”

Some key questions emerge: Is there time to make all of this happen?  Can opponents drag out the special session before the bill passes and the court battles begin and how long will that process take before it clears state courts and goes through the federal court system, which will take even more time?

When will filing for these offices begin if this issue is tied up in courts?  Candidates cannot file in districts that will not legally exist until the courts rule which map will be THE map. When will primary elections be held, ditto? When will lawsuits challenging the results begin and be processed? Will the court fights be  done  before time for a November election?

This is going to be a long and ugly process that will do nothing to improves public confidence in Missouri’s, and the nation’s, government.

One man wants to take away one of our members of Congress with a new map THAT IS UNLIKELY TO BE PUT OUT FOR VOTER APROVAL before an election is held specifically to oust a congressman who has been elected eleven times by people in a district that Trump wants the Missouri legislature to destroy.

Here is the final question:

How much does the Missouri General Assembly want to disgrace itself for a man who has been considered by almost 150 of the nation’s most distinguished historians one of the worst presidents in history—-eve before he started swinging a sledgehammer in his second term.

Despite the words of a long-ago popular song, Freedom IS a word for everything to lose.

Our legislators will tell us at the end of this special session if they think it is, as the song also says, “just another word.”

Petting the buffalo, feeding the bears

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The first time we visited Yellowstone National Park, we noticed a line of vehicles parked on the shoulder of the road. That can only mean there’s an animal, or animals, in the neighborhood.

We pulled in behind a pickup truck where two baby bears were on their hind legs and being fed apple slices from a slightly lowered driver’s side window.  While the driver fed the cubs, the passenger got out with his camera and came around to the left front fender and took pictures.

In a few minutes, the pickup truck pulled away and the baby bears came our way. When they stood up their noses reached the bottom of our car’s windows and when they got no satisfaction on my side, they went around to Nancy’s side. Eventually, we realized our doors were not locked and hastily locked them.

We never saw Mama Bear until she lumbered up out of the woods, and stood up and put her front feet ON THE ROOF of our car.  I still have the photograph I took looking out my window at a big brown bear chest and its white stripe.

She didn’t shake the car or anything, just stood there for a little bit before going back into the woods with the kids.

We quickly observed how lucky was the clown with the camera taking pictures at the pickup truck that Mama Bear didn’t come out then. They move awfully fsst, these bears, perhaps faster than a guy who might not have sensed her rush out of the woods until the last second and couldn’t get back into that truck.

Some tourists do some incredibly dumb things in Yellowstone. More often these days we hear about some idiot who decides to pet that nice buffalo and realizes much too late that Yellowstone is many things but it’s not a petting zoo.

So it is that we wonder if Donald Trump’s demands that congressional districts can be redrawn to protect him and his disastrous reign might not be a case of feeding bears and petting a buffalo.

Redrawing the districts just might urinarily agitate not only Democrats, but also be the final straw for some of his Republicans and—most important—quiet independents, who could be the Mama Bears and the intolerant buffalo in those district elections. In this political climate, sure-things are not necessarily sure.

The polls have indicated some softening of R voters who might not vote or—for this election only—hold their noses and vote for a Democrat. Republicans, as is true with all other voting blocs, do not lack independent thought and might decide this is a time to really stop the steal.

The biggest bloc that could come into play are the outright independents who might have found Trump marginally less objectionable than Harris last year but this year might see redistricting as the straw-breaking issue for them, too.

If Donald Trump really was confident in his domestic and foreign policies, he wouldn’t be pulling this stunt.  But he isn’t, so he’s unthinkingly feeding bears and trying to pet a buffalo.

The 19th century English poet William Cosgrove Monkhouse, wrote an appropriate limerick for this occasion—although it involves an animal not found in Yellowstone National Park:

There was a young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;

They returned from the ride

With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of the tiger

Independents, disaffected Republicans, and angry motivated Democrats could combine to make a huge Tiger in 2026. Trumpists might want to consider carefully how much they want to use their twigs to poke it through the bars. Creatures such as bears, buffalo, and Tigers seem docile enough.

Until……

 

Sometimes—-

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I wish I was a reporter again. God! I used to love to ask important people, “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” although I didn’t use those words. The point of the questions was the same.  I loved those moments, as good reporters do.  It’s what we are there for, actually.

Bloomberg News has quoted the leader of the Missouri Senate saying President Trump wants our congressional districts redrawn “to be sure Missouri’s representation matches Missouri’s Christian conservative majority.”

If I were still a reporter, I would have several questions. .

What are the values of a “Christian conservative majority” that are lacking in any of our present congressional districts—or members of Congress?  Is it just a matter of Democrats serving from two of those districts?  Does the election of Democrats indicate a majority of the people in a district lack Christian values, particularly “Christian conservative” values?

Given that our two Democratic controlled districts are centered in our biggest cities, is she suggesting St. Louis and Kansas City are to some degree not Christian?

Are these congressional districts that are not conservative Christian Muslim?  Shintoists? Buddhists? Sikhs?  Atheists?  One of the Congressmen is a Methodist Minister. Is he not Christian enough?  He’s the one in the crosshairs. How about Methodists generally?  The denomination has split recently. Which side is most Christian?

How does the Trump administration reflect the Christian values of being our brother’s keeper, of being the Good Samaritans, of helping the poor, of healing the sick? How does President Trump fit into that description of Christianity?

How is ICE and its behaviors a reflection of “Christian conservative values?”

How does she square Paul’s letter to the Galatians that proclaims, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

—Or even how well the leader of our government fits the admonition from the Old Testament Prophet Micah:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

It seems from here that there are shortages in the justice and mercy categories. And humility is not a word in the Bible he’s peddling.

One of the joys of being a reporter is being curious about things and having access to people who can discuss answers to that curiosity.

I was away from the Capitol for about five years after I left my life in the newsroom and when I went back to the Capitol to try to convince the legislature to do things the casino industry won’t let it do, I realized how much I missed the intellectual give-and-take of the place. A reporter’s job is to question and questions by reporters should not be automatically interpreted as hostile as often as they are, especially today when some political skin seems horribly thin.

How can we understand the religious attitudes that are dividing us if we refuse to ask or refuse to answer questions that test what we believe. And how Christian is it to claim that there is no room for different interpretations whether they are personal, denominational, social, or political?

Religion is an especially touchy subject these days when it has become a political tool or weapon. I struggle to accept those who think differing views make someone less Christian.

As I have often remarked, “Nothing screws up faith more than religion.”

I’d like to know what religion has to do with congressional redistricting.  I doubt that Donald Trump has made that one of his reasons for trying to gerrymander-rig the 2026 elections.

Apparently, six Christian districts and two heathen districts isn’t good enough.  We’ll be watching how legislators suddenly take a heathen area and with a few strokes of their genuine Donald J. Trump Sharpie, legislators will turn a heathen part of the state into a Christian one.

I’m pretty sure that is not something James Madison and his fellow creators anticipated when they wrote the Constitution. And I’m also pretty sure the court system has never ruled that congressional districts must be drawn intentionally to reflect Christian values.

I’m just an observer now. But, man oh man, there are times when I wish I could walk up to someone who thinks they’re important and ask things like this.

One Christian to another.

 

Be Careful What You Wish For 

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It’s an old idiom with several variations but it has a currency in today’s politics as some states are hopping to President Trump’s demands to redraw congressional districts so a cooperative Republican majority will not offer any checks or balances to his policies throughout the rest of his term.

Republican friends, you would be well-advised to tread carefully into this Trumpswamp.

We have witnessed numerous lawsuits stemming from the seven redistrictings we have covered or observed. The authors of the realigned districts always deny they have gerrymandered districts either to protect an incumbent or to oust an incumbent the majority party wants to target.

But this is different. The President has specifically asked legislatures to gerrymander districts to make sure more Republicans are elected to the U. S. House in 2026. He has a small and shrinking majority there now and he is seeing some ferment within his MAGAites and his response is not to correct any of his own behaviors but to ask state legislatures to make sure he doesn’t have to.

Some leaders of the Missouri legislature would not be surprised if Governor Kehoe calls a special session to redraw our congressional districts to oust one of our two Democrat members of the House, in this case the Rev. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, one of our senior congressmen.

They tried to do that once before, putting him in what I called a “dead lizard” district (because its outline looked like a dead lizard, lying on its back with its feet up) that stretched as far east as Marshall, thus putting more rural conservative voters in play. But the legislature made a mistake by letting him keep too many of his Kansas City constituents and he won anyway.  It is unlikely the legislature will make that same mistake this time.

In the past, legislators accused in lawsuits of gerrymandering denied doing so intentionally, forcing critics to prove their defenses untrue.  This time, however, there will be no denying intentional gerrymandering; the President has ordered it.

It will be blatantly intentional, therefore harder to defend.

There are other issues in play, too. They must consider whether they are enacting a boomerang.

First, there is the question of the population basis for the new plan. Trump wants a new census that can be used in apportionment. That’s a reason to delay redrawing the lines. His desire to exclude some people in that census will draw lawsuits. More delay.

Why, therefore, the rush?  No census. No determination of the census’s legality. How can the numbers used to calculate new districts be accurate without that census and the determination of its constitutionality?

Whether the districts will exist a year from now, in the 2026 election cycle, depends on the court attacks on the plan—and there will be attacks. The timing of the challenges, the hearings, the appeals, the appeals hearings, the rulings and the appeals to an even higher level will chew up a lot of time.  The legislature can approve the plan. But whether it will withstand vigorous court challenges on numerous fronts from the accuracy of population numbers as well as the overt partisanship behind it is uncertain. Whether opponents can run out the clock on the plan also is uncertain.

It also is possible that Trump’s continued misadventures politically, legislatively, socially, and judicially will have further inflamed his existing and his new critics by election time in ’26 and voters will take it out on Republicans generally and the Republican running to oust an incumbent Democrat in particular.

If this plan goes into effect, Democrats can launch numerous attacks and use it to put forward attractive candidates than will have a significant ready-made issue to make a strong run at Republicans. It could backfire.  Some concerns already are being heard in the GOP ranks.

Sometimes it is better to let incumbent dogs lie (read that how you prefer) than it is to stir up a public that is capable of switching to the other party on election day. Experience shows that the public is a fickle creature.

It’s a risk/reward situation for Republicans no matter how they cut it. They should consider the potential hazards of getting what they wish for because they easily could get what they don’t desire, especially if Trump continues in the next year to alienate his base and Americans generally with his Big Ugly Bill and subsequent actions and legal problems.

Present trends seem to indicate his behavior is doing potentially prospective Republican candidates no service, something incumbents might consider as they ponder their own futures. Is he worth the risk in which they might be placing themselves?  And if they decide he isn’t, will they have the courage to stand up?

Rigging the Election

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A normally sane person might think that a person who has claimed a rigged election is wrong would be reluctant to try to rig one himself.

But we are living in Trumpworld.

President Trump wants red states such as Missouri to adjust their congressional districts so more Republicans might be elected next year. A president’s party historically loses congressional seats in midterm elections and Trump and his party don’t have any seats he can spare.).

Texas Republicans have jumped at the opportunity to make the master happy although the GOP already dominates the state’s delegation in the U. S. House of Representatives 27-12.  That’s not good enough for Trump. The effort has led to a confrontation with their Democratic colleagues that has become, our mind at least, a national embarrassment for Texas politics and politicians.

What’s going on here?  Trump is scared.  Of what?  National Review correspondent Audrey Fahlberg said recently on CNN, “The White House is driving this because clearly they are worried about losing the midterms.  They’re convinced that if House Democrats flip the House, that Trump is going to get impeached again…The ‘big beautiful bill’ is not polling super well right now, so they’re going on offense here. They’re driving this into motion in Texas. They’re looking at other states, as well. We may see this continue in states like Florida, Indiana.”

And Missouri appears likely to get into this, too. Republicans have six of our eight House seats but apparently that’s not enough. Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin has told the Missouri Independent that it is “likely” the governor will call a special session to redraw lines so Republicans would be likely to take away the seat held by one of our senior members, the Reverend Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. He’s one of two Missouri African-Americans in our congressional delegation.

Missouri is not out of whack in the D/R balance of our congressional districts.  Last year, President Trump got 58 percent of the popular vote in Missouri. Kamala Harris and minor candidates got 42 percent.  A 6-2 congressional breakdown fits those results.

The Missouri legislature is more than 2-1 Republican so a walkout by Democrats similar to the Texas walkout wouldn’t stop the GOP from aiding and abetting Trump’s need to have a pliant Congress. The Missouri House Minority Leader, Ashley Aune of Kansas City, has told the Independent, “Everyone I’ve talked to, especially on my side of the aisle, expects to go down and get steamrolled…during a special session.”

In about a month, legislators will reconvene to consider overriding any vetoes dispensed by Governor Kehoe after the regular session and a special  session could meet concurrently with that veto session. It’s been done a few times before.

We can anticipate one of the arguments opponents will make. Our state constitution’s Article III, Section 45 says:

 When the number of representatives to which the state is entitled in the House of the Congress of the United States under the census of 1950 and each census thereafter is certified to the governor, the general assembly shall by law divide the state into districts corresponding with the number of representatives to which it is entitled, which districts shall be composed of contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be.

The average citizen is likely to think this language is clear—the state constitution provides for redistricting after each census but has no authorization for redistricting midway through a census decade. The language about “contiguous territory as compact and as nearly equal in population as may be” has been used from time to time to challenge redistricting plans that critics think wander too far from “contiguous” and “compact.”

Missouri has revised congressional district maps after the decennial census is taken beginning, as noted in the language, after the 1950 census. The only time the legislature redistricted between census counts was in the 1960s with a case that went to the United States Supreme Court that ruled against a redistricting map. A key part of the ruling said:

Missouri contends that variances were necessary to avoid fragmenting areas with distinct economic and social interests and thereby diluting the effective representation of those interests in Congress. But to accept population variances, large or small, in order to create districts with specific interest orientations is antithetical to the basic premise of the constitutional command to provide equal representation for equal numbers of people. “[N]either history alone, nor economic or other sorts of group interests, are permissible factors in attempting to justify disparities from population-based representation. Citizens, not history or economic interests, cast votes.”

If we understand Trump’s demands, he wants the Missouri legislature to create “districts with specific interest orientations.” The U. S. Supreme Court is much different than it was in the sixties so we’ll have to see if this precedent carries any weight with today’s Trump-dominated court.

Not all Missouri Republicans are in lock step with Trump. One is Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove, a member of the so-called Freedom Caucus, a minority group within the Republican Party that took control of the chamber and blocked action on hundreds of bills in the last three years. Another is the Speaker Pro Tem of the House, Chad Perkins of Bowling Green who worries that “a 7-1 map is easily a 5-3 map in a year that doesn’t go the way that conservatives want it to go.”

Perkins also makes the point that Democrats should not moan and wail too loudly about Republican attempts to hold their advantage by changing districts in the middle of a decade because the Democrats in Illinois and California are doing the same thing to gain an advantage to offset any pick-ups Trump might make in other states.

The latest wrinkle in the planned rigging is Trump’s order for his Commerce Department to run a new census that does not include undocumented immigrants, the U. S. Constitution notwithstanding.

Article I, Section 2 does not seem to allow what Trump demands, at least for your observer’s untutored reading.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. 

The Constitution recognizes the census taken every ten years as the only legitimate census. By including “the whole number of free persons,” it does not exempt immigrants, which at the time the Constitution was written was a considerable number. Indians were not counted (although they were probably the freest people in the nation’s history until the Europeans showed up). Slaves WERE counted but since they were not free they were considered only three-fifths of a person—a provision the southern states demanded so representation would be balanced with states in the north.

And the article says the only census that will be constitutionally recognized is the one done every ten years.

Trump’s order is not helpful to his demand that new congressional districts be drawn. Right now. The first part of Amendment 1, section 2 says the districts will be drawn based on census figures.  The census has to come first, then the districts, a constitutional provision that seems to say Texas is jumping the gun and Missouri would be doing the same. Doing a census the way Trump wants it done could be pretty difficult and time consuming because a lot of Latino people whether here legally or illegally are making themselves as scarce as possible.

To coin a phrase, Trump seems to be engaged in unconstitutional bundling.

Trump’s political cynicism does nothing to reduce the general public’s distrust of our political system. In fact, he has played upon it to get elected.

Politics sometimes has been a mud-and-blood-and beer wrestling match although not as untrustworthy as many see it today. Some observers have suggested this state of decline began with Ronald Reagan’s inaugural remark 44 years ago that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.”

Reagan had it right but he sure didn’t foresee the much different way the statement is true today.

The central issue in this frantic competition to diminish a minority within a state’s congressional delegation is this:

We have a President and a GOP House and Senate that recognize their statements and their actions are counter to the public’s increasingly self-recognized best interests. They are uncertain that the public, if given the chance, will let them keep doing to the country and its people the things they are doing.

Thomas Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress had the answer many of today’s  politicians want to ignore:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Read that last sentence again.  When a despotic government becomes destructive of the inalienable rights of citizens like you and me, WE have the RESPONSIBILITY to resist and to form a new government that provides for our “future security.” The Trump bunch is afraid the people might want to do that now that the see that Trump was less than honest (to put it mildly) in his campaign.

Too many in today’s politics care less about life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness than they care about power, especially power that can be abused to benefit the few by harming the many. Re-drawing congressional district lines by those focused on power more than on the government our forefathers imagined helps assure that the people have reduced chances for benefitting from their inalienable rights.

There is an odor of desperation in the air on the part of those who believe in power above service as they see public sentiment for them weaken.

The redistricting game is being played by people who have come to believe they cannot win if they do not rig next year’s elections for Congress—-and they’re flouting their ambitions right before our eyes when they consider a mid-term re-drawing of congressional district lines based on ignoring counting “the whole people” to protect a President who now seems far less confident in his future than he did six months ago.

They might be imperiling themselves if they proceed, these legislators, as we will discuss in our next entry.