Category Archives: legislature

Legacy

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It’s all down to these last three days.

The human business of writing laws is about done for this year, at least in a regular legislative session.  Four months ago these ladies and gentlemen (at least in the house) and senators (in the senate everybody is a senator, as the ages-old saying goes; there are no ladies and gentlemen),  trouped to chilly, gray Jefferson City, many of them fresh off their first election to the most important office they’d ever been chosen to hold and some back for the second half of a term of the highest office they had ever held. Or ever would.

Now, probably tired and long-shorn of the freshness of January, they look at 6 p.m. Friday, some with wishes they could have done more and some glad that the legislature did not do more.  The record of this session by and large has been compiled.

A key question that should occur to all who have sat at their desks in those great chambers as they look back on what the record of this General Assembly will be is, “Did we defend and improve the welfare of the people of Missouri?”  For that is the main job of government.

There will be lists of bills compiled and circulated, the wording coldly descriptive.  But behind the unemotional language, how are the people better off for all the words spoken, all the words written and all the words re-written?

Each lawmaker will have his or her answer to the question that best suits their purpose and their self-image.

One of the shortcomings of our Capitol is that it has large composite photographs of members of the House and Senate for each legislative session.  But there are no accompanying signs that tell passersby what issues those people discussed, fought over, passed and rejected. Each session has a legacy but anyone pausing to look at the forgotten faces of past sessions will never know it.

In some cases, it’s best that those pictures are without written context.  Would the results of any session be different if lawmakers knew there would be a sign next to their pictures for generations to come detailing what they did—or didn’t do—or refused to do—for the people?

Even without a sign, what has happened this year that these folks will be proud to tell their grandchildren about?  Or proud to have mentioned in the last newspaper article that will ever be written about them?

The final words of the legacy of the 2021 session will be written in these last three days.

 

 

An Untenable Position

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Missouri Gaming Commission Chairman Mike Leara was no doubt relieved by last week’s Missouri Senate defeat of an omnibus gambling expansion bill.

The bill would have saddled the cash-poor commission with even more things to regulate.

Senator Denny Hoskins’ bill would have allowed slot machines at truck stops and veterans and fraternal organizations (there is a big disagreement whether video lottery terminals are slot machines that we are not going to get into). It also would have legalized betting on sports in casinos.

The gaming commission is largely funded by admission fees paid by casinos.  One-half of the admission fees go to the commission and the other half stays with the thirteen host, or home-dock, cities. The bill did not address the problems caused by our long-outdated admission fee law.

The gaming commission had to cut more than two-dozen employees last year because the pandemic forced closure of our casinos for several weeks and admissions understandably lagged for the remaining months of the fiscal year.  The commission also reduced funding for the Access Missouri scholarship program administered by the commission by twenty percent.

The commission’s position has been further weakened by an almost decade-long thirty percent decline in   casino attendance, a drop from 54.3 million admissions in fiscal 2010-11 to 37.5-million in FY 2018-19, the last non-pandemic year. The pandemic year that ended last June 30 saw another drop of about ten million admissions, leading to the commission layoffs and reduction in the scholarship program. Admissions so far this year indicate another weak year for commission and home dock city income from casino patronage.

Pardon us while we get into some mathematics here:

The admission fee was set at two-dollars per person in 1993.

The commission, therefore, has been dealing for some time not only with declining income because of declining attendance but with declining value of the money it has collected in admission fees. Almost thirty years of inflation have reduced the purchasing power of fee income by about forty-five percent.

Those circumstances left the Missouri Gaming Commission with significantly reduced resources to regulate the casino industry, producing layoffs and taving Chairman Leara justifiably concerned about how well the commisison could regulate an entirely new form of gambling as well as regulate a large number of slot machines in veterans and fraternal organizations throughout the state.

The bill defeated by the Senate provided no protection against continued funding declines.

While the bill might have been seen by Leara as three lemons, it might be viewed somewhat differently by Missouri’s educators.

Other sports wagering bills in the last three years sought to tax sports wagering adjusted gross receipts at six to nine percent, far less than 21% rate on all other forms of gambling.  The effect of those proposals would have been to lower the state’s commitment of gambling funds to public education by tens of millions of dollars yearly. None of the amendments proposed during floor debate sought to change the Hoskins bill’s provision taxing sports wagering proceeds in the same way all other forms of gaming are taxed, a good first step in making sure next year’s sports wagering legislation protects other state interests as well rather than undermining them.

The Missouri Gaming Commission, faced with the likely return of this legislation in the next session in some form, would do well to evaluate its present financial situation that is significantly worsened by outdated gaming laws and suggest ways the legislature can protect the ability of the commission to do its job by bringing laws adopted in the last decade of the Twentieth Century into the third decade of the Twenty-first. Sports wagering legislation would be a solid vehicle to accomplish that.

See you Thursday night?

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Our political divisions have not always been as bad as they are.  They will be better again.

The Missouri Humanities Council will be holding a webinar at 7 p.m. Thursday called Show Me Statesmanship. The council invited me a few months ago to be part of it. If  you want to watch, sign up at the council’s web page.

Clearly, today’s political dialogue is more noted for its antagonism than for its comity. While many observers focus on the ugliness of our dialogue, this program focuses on times when opponents were not enemies, when differences need not to have been destructive, when personal differences did not preclude personal interaction.

The council asked some former Senators to be part of the program too: former President Pro Tem Charlie Shields, Jeff Smith, Scott Rupp, Jolie Justus, and Rita Heard Days. Several other senators were part of the discussion although they didn’t have speaking roles: Bob Dixon, Kevin Engler, and the late Wayne Goode and John T. Russell.

Statesmanship is not easy to achieve as an individual nor is consensus easy to achieve within groups. This program focuses on those times when seeming political opposites did join together to enact good public policy on significant issues. It concludes that those things could happen again, no matter how toxic we might consider our political environment to be today.

It was good to hear and tell those stories and I think all of us who took part in this program look forward to a time when these things can happen again more frequently.

The thought-provoking video runs about 35 minutes.  The producers have asked me to field questions and comments for the rest of the hour.  It’s a nice compliment although I am a little nervous about being some kind of Oracle.

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If It Ain’t Broke—the other view

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As we noted in last Wednesday’s entry, there is a “comments” box at the end of each one that for those who agree or differ with what is said. This is the first time we have published comments as a stand-alone entry.  But the issue of elections and voting is so central to our system of government that when the sponsor of the bill we questioned called last week with concerns about some of the things we had written, we decided that the comment, or response, should get more than space in the “comment” box that, having been entered after the original piece was published, would not get the attention the issue deserves to have.

Representative Peggy McGaugh’s background on election issues is considerable. She worked for 32 years in the Carroll County Clerk’s office, almost 24 of those years (six four-year terms) as the County Clerk.  She is a past-president of the Missouri Association of Counties and a former member of the Secretary of State’s Voter Integrity Task Force.

In response to your “If it ain’t broke” blog, find below a few answers from my view as one of the sponsors of the consolidated election bill going through the General Assembly this year.

This bill is a culmination of bills passed out of the House Elections committee with the involvement of the Mo Secretary of State’s office and the Missouri Association of County Clerk’s/ Election Authorities (MACCEA)  who do Resolutions each year for proposed changes to improve the law and better the process for Missourians.

*limiting changes to six months before an election would prevent nefarious or bad actors from pushing a specific narrative to change the outcome of an election.

 

*the ability to select election judges and poll watchers from outside of the boundaries of a jurisdiction was a request from MACCEA who have difficulty filling the positions in areas where one party dominates another when following Chapter 115 of equal representation of parties at the precinct.

 

*the direct recording electronic devices (DREs) are the electronic equipment being phased out in the bill.  The three counties that currently use them will move to a system that will include some type of paper ballot hand marked by the voter and counted by an electronic tabulator as you described.

 

*absentee voting by mail or in person will still occur six weeks out from any election using the same excuses as in the past.  This bill allows a registered voter to appear in the election authority’s office three weeks out from any election, apply for and receive their ballot without using an excuse and then thread the ballot through tabulator. This assures them that their ballot was received and counted without having to fib to get the convenience. 

 

*ballots will be considered cast when received in the election authority office if postmarked on or before election day and the drop boxes will be swept and gathered for counting up until the close of the polls on election day.

Thank you for bringing the merits of this election bill to your readers.

Keeping Missouri as a model of free, fair and transparent elections is our goal in the General Assembly.

I look forward to answering any other questions you might have.

Representative Peggy McGaugh

Proudly representing Ray, Carroll and Chariton Counties   

    

We appreciate Rep. McGaugh’s thoughts. Her page on the House of Representatives website contains contact information should anyone want to send her an email.  If you do, please follow the same guidelines you follow them when writing to us—be kind, be courteous, be respectful.

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I respectfully beg to differ

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(We live in a time when disagreements seem unresolvable, when disputing forces seem more interested in fighting than serving, when disagreeing is, to use a term we wish had never come up, weaponized. Dr. Crane reminds us that disagreement can be a positive part of our existence, if respect is part of it, as he asks—-)

ARE YOU ON OPPOSITE SIDES?

Doubtless each of us knows someone in his circle of acquaintances who is intellectually contrary. Such as one delights on every occasion to take the opposite side.

If he is within a religious community he will take his stand firmly for atheism.  If he is one of the scoffers, he will argue just as valiantly for the church. He is a standing minority report. He is a crooked stick that will not lie in the woodpile. Like Goethe’s Devil he is the spirit who constantly denies.

This type of person is the steady, normal crop in the field of humanity. We would not get along without them. They keep the kettle of thing stirred, which otherwise would settle and spoil. These are they that keep the course of social life pure as a running stream and prevent it from becoming like a green stagnant pool.

They supply ginger for political campaigns. They are the party out of power. They are the watchdogs of progress. Without them religion would harden into a cruel tyranny of superstition, falsehoods would be crystallized into power, and ancient fraud live forever.

They harass mankind into being honest.

If it ain’t broke—

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Break it.

We have a place at the end of each of these musings for you, dear reader, to straighten out the author on points in which his thoughts obviously and erroneously vary from the truth.  In your opinion.

Feel free to utilize that space, especially with this entry because your worthy author seems to be missing badly the whole point of the legislative effort to rewrite some of our election laws.  Those doing the rewriting say our election system is flawed and need to be made better. Others  think the re-writers are limiting rather than enhancing voting rights and opportunities.

We must be missing something.  Big.

—because Missouri’s Secretary of State has offered zero complaints, as far as we know, about last year’s elections. We have heard zero complaints of voter fraud here.  No federal lawsuits were filed in Missouri contesting the outcome(s).  In fact, our Attorney General, who was so vigilant at spotting fraud and shortcomings in several other states’ elections, has offered not one legal peep about things here.  The two-third majorities were maintained in both chambers of the General Assembly, so it appears there was no nefarious plot to undermine the lawmaking structure of our state.

More than three-million people voted, the first time that many people took part in a November election. It beat the 2.9-million who voted in the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. The raw number might have been a record but the percentage of eligible voters fell short of projections and short of the 78% vote when Bill Clinton was elected over George H. W. Bush, who had the worst performance for a Republican since Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Bush was hurt because Ross Perot had the best performance for a third party candidate here since John Bell Williams, also in 1860.

So what was broken last year?

Why is there a provision saying no change in voting laws can be made within six months of a presidential election?  Just last year the legislature made a change in response to a pandemic that was making many people nervous about going to polling places.  Mail-in ballots were allowed but they are outlawed in this bill. We have not heard any loud yelling, seen any frantic arm-waving, and heard of any lawsuit filed complaining this system generated anything but greater opportunity for citizens to exercise one of our most cherished rights, especially during one of our greatest health crises in history.

The good thing is that this is just a statute.  And this ban on changing laws within six months of an election can be repealed, just as the bill repeals mail-in ballots.  And we wouldn’t be surprised to see a repeal of the repeal if the party makeup of the legislature ever happens.

Present law allows the election authority—the county clerk or the metropolitan election authority—to appoint two judges from each major party to serve at each polling place. The proposed law says the political parties will recommend potential judges but says they don’t have to live within the jurisdiction of the election authority.  So the election authority, which is given the power to throw out people it deems unqualified to be judges, instead of going back to the parties can instead appoint somebody from outside the voting area—namely the county or the city?  Could the election authority, for example, dismiss local election judge candidates (we see nothing in the bill allowing an appeal of that action) and install, let’s say, a perceived looney advocate for a national candidate instead?

Please tell us we have just hatched a conspiracy theory.  We hate conspiracy theories and have no desire to be associated with one.

Another section allows the chairman of each county political party committee to designate a watcher for each place where votes are counted (that’s present law).  But the new language says the poll watcher does not have to live within that jurisdiction.  See the above question.

Are we reading another section of the proposed election law changes to say that we are doing away with electronic voting machines?  And going back to paper ballots?  We must have missed all of the complaints about how voting machines corrupted the elections in Missouri in 2020.

As we understand it, (from section 115.237—please pardon the technical language) the bill refers to “direct-recording” machines but not to electronic COUNTING machines. When I voted last November, I used a pencil to filling a little oval on a voting card and then fed the card into an electronic tabulating machine.  That’s okay but anything of a higher technology is not to be allowed.  Correct?

Absentee ballots can’t be cast until three weeks before the election and can only be cast at a designated location—seemingly a further limitation on mail-in voting—and require a photo identification (Did I miss anything about absentee voting by the military far overseas?).  BUT the bill does eliminate lying about the reason for voting absentee.  Last year Nancy and I voted absentee, citing our age which made us especially susceptible to the virus. Had we been required to say we were going to be out of town that day, we would have sworn that we would be and would have driven outside the city limits, turned around, and come back, thus being honest.

Should we be bothered by a provision that absentee ballots that do not arrive by the time polls close on election day will not be counted?  They “shall be deemed cast when received prior to the time fixed by law for closing the polls on election day.”  This applies to absentees mailed from halfway around the world as well as absentees left in a drop box.  This is kind of an awkward issue, isn’t it? We have heard for years discussions about the timing of sending out absentee ballots to our military in time for them to be voted and returned within proper time limits to be counted and we don’t know that there has ever been a system that guarantees every vote case before election day is counted whenever it arrives home. Given the mess our postal system is in today (we are never sure when we’ll get our mail anymore), maybe it makes sense to be a little more flexible than the bill allows.  As for drop boxes—-what is to keep an election authority from waiting for two hours past poll-closing to empty drop boxes in areas inclined to vote against the election authority’s wishes?   Doesn’t sound as if those votes will be counted even if they went into the box the day before election day.

In the days when we were in the chambers listening to debates or in the hearing rooms when bills were considered and justified or attacked by sponsors and critics, we might understand better the motivations behind this bill.  But we’re just another old guy on a quiet street—who is a voter—and we don’t have that kind of access.

So we wonder what all the fuss is about in making these changes after three million of our 4,338,133 registered voters found a way—-with the bipartisan help of the 2019 legislature—to cast ballots in a 2020 election that produced absolutely none of the bombast, accusations, and conspiracies that were generated in other states, usually by people who don’t live in those states.

Let us know.  This obviously isn’t Twitter. You can use as many helpful words as you wish.

 

 

Finally—

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Somebody has come up with a way for the legislature to improve financing of our roads and bridges while also anticipating the growth of electric vehicles and their impact on future transportation infrastructure funding. The idea is halfway through the legislative process but some observers think the road ahead is uphill. And the hill is the House of Representatives.

Your loyal observer observed the last part of Missouri Senate debate on the bill sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz of Sullivan last Thursday morning, shortly before the Senate adjourned for spring break. Schatz, who thinks returning to gravel roads is not much of a solution to our present road upkeep problems, has gotten his gas tax increase bill through the Senate but he had to work for it.

Passage of the bill was reminiscent of some of the bi-partisan collegiality and compromise in which the Senate takes pride but which has too often in many recent years been missing.

Earlier in the week, Schatz’s plan for a 15-cent per-gallon fuel tax increase ran into a roadblock thrown up by the conservative caucus, a group of senators that seemingly opposes any kind of a tax increase any time (the present tax rate of 17 cents a gallon ranks Missouri 49th in the country in fuel tax level).  Our last gas tax was a phased-in tax that peaked in 1996.

MODOT doesn’t buy much asphalt, cement, or winter salt and the equipment to spread it for 1996 prices these days.  But it sure could use the estimated $460 million a year the increased tax will produce when it’s fully effective.

The compromise bill phases in a 12.5 cent increase through five years.  For those who think roads and bridges can be built and maintained for free, there’s a provision that lets people save all of their receipts printed at the pump and then claim a full rebate of the new taxes.  It’s a nice touch to mollify some no-tax folks, many of whom won’t keep track of all of those receipts to claim 2.5 cents per gallon at the end of the year.

We calculate that somebody traveling 12,000 miles a year in a vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon would get back $15, not much money for the hassle of saving all those receipts.

We’ve observed previously in some of these conversations the growing number of vehicles that do not contribute to the cost of maintaining our road and highway system, which is why we are gratified to see a provision in this bill that increases present EV fees by twenty percent during the next five years.

As we understand present law, the owners of Alternative Fuel Vehicles have to buy a decal from the state. For cars that are not powered by electricity, that decal is $75. AFVs weighing 18 tons or more have to have a $1,000 decal in the window.  For plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the decal costs half of the fee for vehicles that powered by fossil fuels.

But is that half-off fee proper for EVs fair to the road system?  That’s where another welcome part of Schatz’s bill kicks in. It establishes the “Electric Vehicle Task Force” within the Revenue Department to recommend future legislation on ways EVs can appropriately contribute to the infrastructure they use.

There is never an ideal time for a tax increase as far as the public and some members of the legislature are concerned.  But two or three pennies a gallon will mean that the state can afford do more than to apply cold patches to potholes and keep fingers crossed that rusty bolts on bridges will hold on a little bit longer.

I’d rather pay a little more at the pump than read about school buses winding up in a rural creek on the wsay to school.

There’s no guarantee the House will accept Schatz’s plan or recognize the compromise work that got it passed (every Senate Democrat joined with some of the members of Schatz’s party to pass the bill).  From our lofty position, however, it seems to be a prudent, responsible approach to dealing with a major problem today while laying the groundwork for dealing with our electric-powered future.

 

Talktalktalktalktalk

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You might think that somebody who has endured the number of filibusters your faithful observer has endured would join those who think they should be banned or in some way limited.

You’d be wrong.

Those who favor limits of some kind appear to miss a point.  A limited filibuster is not a filibuster.

Filibusters are not intended to be entertaining although there were some of those that your observer endured that had their moments—the night then-state senator Sam Graves started reading the names of the high school graduates from his district and started over every time he was interrupted.

Or when Senator Marie Chappelle-Nadal decided to make a filibuster an audience-participation event and invited people listening to the Senate’s internet feed to send her text messages suggesting topics, or asking questions she could answer.

Then there was Senator Matt Bartle’s one-man version of Jimmy Stewart’s imitation of one in “Mr. Smith goes to Washington.”  He lasted something like 17 hours, taking advantage of quorum calls to dash off to the bathroom while the Senate was idle and waiting for enough Senators to get off their office couches and sleepily go into the chamber just long enough to be counted “present.”

I can recall several of them that lasted so long I had to leave the Senate press table to go to the Missourinet newsroom to do the morning newscasts.  At least a couple of times I listened to the internet feed while I was putting the newscasts together.  I think there might even have been a couple of times when I returned to the Capitol and the senators were still burning legislative time off the clock.

They’re most effective in the final weeks when time is running short and the debate calendars are running long with bills that are ready for final votes. The House limits the amount of time someone can hold the floor so the Missouri House doesn’t have much chance of having all that fun.  But the Senate has no such limits.

And it never should.  Nor should Congress.

The filibuster can be a futile time of railing against the inevitable—as can happen when one party has a two-thirds majority and therefore doesn’t need to compromise on anything and can just wait until the minority, or part of the minority, chews up precious hours of debate time and finally runs out of energy.

They’re most effective when the numbers are closer.  Many filibusters are resolved when opposing sides finally decide to find some compromises that previously had been rejected and start talking about lessening the most objectionable parts of the legislation.  But when one party is so dominant that it doesn’t need to compromise on anything, compromise is hard to see

When that happens, the participants in a filibuster hope some members of the other party will start seeing the time their bills needed to gain passage is disappearing, and they start pressuring their majority colleagues to stop this thing so there will be a chance for passage of other bills before the final adjournment.

As unpleasant as most of them are, as many times as this veteran observer of them realized hours of his life were disappearing in the ocean of blather and boredom (the same hours would disappear more pleasantly at home and in bed), they are an important part of government, a protection against steamrolling the minority or a faction of the majority.  When you have no other weapons; when you are heavily outnumbered even by members of your own party; when you want to kill an abhorrent idea or even one that could be better if the overbearing sponsor doesn’t want anybody tampering with his precious idea—-talk becomes the only weapon.

Filibusters are awful things.  But today’s pest is tomorrow’s ally. The tables might turn and those who are forced to listen today might be the talkers tomorrow and it’s important to recognize that possible reciprocity.  Respecting in others the tool you might need to use someday yourself is important.

They work better when the competing parties respect each other enough to be willing to work out their differences.  But when the two sides are so antagonistic that talk is impossible, extensive talk becomes even more essential.

Filibusters are part of our democratic-republic form of government.  They might not be nice but they’re essential.

Sometimes they result in talking a bill to death.  Other times they talk a bill into a better life.

Tools, after all, often have dual purposes.  And the filibuster is an important tool in our political system.

How a Possum Stopped Radicalization 

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We’ve seen something such as this before:

A political party seized by a charismatic leader with radicalized followers at a time of national division sees voter suppression as one of the keys to maintaining its power and threatens to drive the other party into oblivion.  But the party develops an internal fracture between the radical wing and the more traditional element and there are fears that IT will be the party going into oblivion.

From this contentious time there emerges a possum and over time, it rescues both parties.

This was the political situation in Missouri fifteen decades ago.

During the Civil War, the interim government—Governor Price and several members of the legislature had fled to Arkansas to set up a government in exile that finished the war headquartered in Texas—Radical Republicans left in control in Missouri adopted a loyalty oath to make sure Missouri would have only Union-loyal officials in charge.  The Radical movement had begun about the time the Republican Party began in the mid-1850s, their name coming from their demand for immediate end to slavery. During the war, they were opposed by the moderate wing of the party led by Abraham Lincoln, who had run fourth in the 1860 election in this state, as well as by Democrats, who were more oriented toward southern sympathies.

The Radicals confirmed their control of Missouri government with the election of Governor Thomas Fletcher in 1864, thanks in part to the organizational skills of St. Louis lawyer Charles D. Drake who in 1863 argued for a new state constitution and disenfranchisement of all Confederate sympathizers. Carl Schurz, a future U.S. Senator and a leader of Missouri’s German citizens, called him “inexorable” and said Republicans “especially in the country districts, stood much in awe of him,” which might sound familiar today.

Radical Republicans pushed through The Drake Constitution, named because of his influence, in 1865. It contained a harsh loyalty oath that basically denied citizenship rights to anyone who would not pledge that they had given no support to the rebellion. Regardless of loyalty during the war, even if a person were a Union General, citizens could not vote, practice a profession, or serve in positions of public trust unless they swore to that oath. Drake and his Radical Republicans produced a list of 81 actions that defined disloyalty. For six years the Drake-led Radicals controlled politics in Missouri and Drake became a United States Senator.

Missouri’s moderate Republicans were reeling during those years and Democrats feared for their own party’s existence.  And this is when the possum was born that saved both political groups.

Drake’s Radicals began to see rising opposition from those who called themselves Liberal Republicans—remember this was 1870 and the two words, “liberal” and “Republican” were not an oxymoron.

The Liberals had had enough of Drake and his Radicals by the time the State Republican Convention was held in Jefferson City on August 31, 1870.  The Committee on Platforms filed two reports, a majority report from the Liberals favored immediate re-enfranchisement of former Confederates.  The Radical, minority, report favored a statewide vote on the question. With former Confederate supporters banned from voting, the outcome of the election pretty clearly would have maintained Radical Control.  When the convention adopted the Radical position, about 250 Liberals walked out and nominated their own ticket with Benjamin Gratz Brown its candidate for Governor.  The Radicals nominated Joseph McClurg for a second two-year term.

Democrats, still weak shortly after the U. S. Supreme Court threw out part of the loyalty oath, decided not to put up a statewide ticket.  William Hyde, the editor of The St. Louis Republican, a Democratic newspaper despite its name, is credited with creating what became known as “The Possum Policy.”  Instead of running its own slate, the Democrats threw their support behind the Liberal Republican candidate, Brown.

Walter B. Stevens, in Missouri, the Center State, 1821-1915, records an exchange of telegrams after the State Democratic Convention decided to support Liberal Republicans in which former U. S. Senator John Brooks Henderson—who did not run for re-election after voting against convicting President Johnson of impeachment charges—told Brown, “The negroes of this state are free. White men only are now enslaved. The people look to you and your friends to deliver them from this great wrong. Shall they look in vain?”

Brown wired back, “The confidence of the people of this State shall not be disappointed. I will carry out this canvass to its ultimate consequence so that no freeman not convicted of crime shall   henceforth be deprived on an equal voice in our government.”

The Democrats’ “Possum Policy” helped Brown defeated McClurg by about 40,000 votes, effectively ending the Radical Republican reign in Missouri.

The Liberal Republicans, created for the sole purpose of ending radicalism within the party, could not survive on their own. Governor Brown’s Secretary, Frederick N. Judson, reflected, “A party based upon a single issue, called into being to meet a single emergency, could not in the nature of things become permanent…and though its party life was short, it is entitled to the imperishable glory of having destroyed the last vestige of the Civil War in Missouri. A nobler record no party could have.”

National Democrats failed to follow the Missouri party’s “Possum Policy” and in 1872 nominated a presidential ticket of Horace Greeley, the New York newspaper publisher then in failing physical and mental health, and Benjamin Brown of Missouri—-a move that antagonized the national Liberal Republican movement and led to a crushing defeat for Democrats as Liberal Republicans opposed to the Grant administration had no place to go and so supported it anyway. With that, Liberal Republican movement died nationally.

In Missouri, the re-enfranchised Democrats elected Silas Woodson to succeed Brown as Governor, beginning Democratic control of the governorship until Republican Herbert Hadley was elected in 1908.

Missourians adopted a new constitution in 1875, throwing out the punitive Drake Constitution.  It lasted until our present State Constitution was adopted in 1945, the longest-standing constitution in state history.

Republicans paid a price to overcome the radicalization of their party 150 years ago but paying that price made sure that the rights of thousands of people were no longer endangered or no longer remained limited.

Being out of power did not and does not mean being without influence. History tells us we became a better nation because political courage manifested itself at the right time within the Republican Party.  In the long term both parties saved themselves.

We are not advocating that the Republican National Committee adopt a “possum policy” in 2022 or in 2024 to stamp out radicalization within the party nor are we saying splitting the party will be the solution now that it was then. But history reminds us of the dangers of radical politics and the sacrifices that have to be made, sometimes on both sides of the aisle, to make sure it does not overwhelm us.

Will This Be Mike Parson’s “Lost Speech?”

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It was a pretty good speech, the one Governor Parson delivered Wednesday. It was the annual State of the State speech.  Governors have been giving them since Alexander McNair did the first one on November 4, 1822 at the start of the Second General Assembly of the State Of Missouri. The speech lasted about 17 minutes.  Governor Parson’s speech lasted about 42 minutes.

As far as we can determine, his speech was historic because it was the first SOS address that did not take place before a joint legislative session meeting in the House chamber.  Even in the St. Charles Capitol, where the House and Senate met in adjoining rooms, the Senate joined the House for McNair’s 1822 speech.

And, as far as we can determine, it was the first time a State of the State Address was not given during a joint session.  In fact it wasn’t given during a session of the legislature at all.  Neither chamber was in session. Another historical point.

Mark these circumstances down to an external historical event that had become too internal—the COVID-19 pandemic.  The House leadership decided Wednesday morning that the House could not be used because of fears the event would turn into a super-spreader of the virus.  The situation was so out of hand in the House that it didn’t even meet the previous week.

That near-last hour decision provoked a big scramble that resulted in moving the speech to the Senate where there is far less room for social distancing on the floor or in the galleries. We’ve heard there were concerns the Senate could muster a membership majority for an afternoon joint session.

As a result, neither chamber was in session. The Senate gave permission for the speech to be given there, much as it gives permission for the Silver-Haired legislature and other mock legislatures to use the chamber. Reports indicate about one-third of the Senate membership stayed away.

The House Information Office, which has a pretty sophisticated audio/video system it uses for special events in the House, managed to move all of its gear into the Senate galleries and strung all of its cables, and mounted all of its cameras in a matter of a few hours and produced a high-quality video feed on the governor’s Facebook page (maybe I’ll tell you sometime how close the Missourinet once came to beginning daily video feeds on its webpage many years ago).  I watched it.  I thought it was flawless.

The galleries of the Senate chamber were uncomfortably crowded with Parson cabinet members, guests who would become show-and-tell examples of certain points the governor wanted to emphasize, other special folks and as many House members as wanted to crowd in.

Normally, the House and the Senate appoint a special escort committee to escort the Governor into the House chamber.  But with neither chamber being in session there could be no escort committee—another possible first.

At the appropriate time, the back doors opened and in walked a masked Governor Parson.  Alone.  No handshakes on the way in, as usually happens.  Fist bumps only during the walk down the much-shorter than usual center aisle.

Forty-two minutes (and probably about 6,000 words) later, the governor put has mask back on and he and Teresa walked hand-in-hand back up the aisle and out of the chamber.  I’d never before seen a governor and First Lady walk back down the legislative aisle after a State of the State speech.  Another touch of history on that day.

There was no State of the State message in the First General Assembly—

—because we weren’t a state then.  Congress had given Missouri permission to elect a state legislature and state officers and draft a proposed State Constitution in 1820.  McNair gave the first state governor’s inaugural address on September 19, 1820, almost eleven months before Missouri was a state.  His three-minute speech was so short that a goodly number of legislators were still in a grog shop down the street in St. Charles and missed it. They wanted him to have a do-over and he refused.  Then came the 17-minute SOS in 1822.

As we have researched the history of the Capitol, we have come across a lot of State of the State messages in legislative journals.  Some are amazing.  For a good part of our history the governor did not deliver the message. He sent the message to the House, often with the Secretary of State or his personal secretary carrying it.  Then somebody read it.  And read it and read it.

And read it.

Long ago we learned that the average person speaks at about 150 words per minute.  It’s a natural pace for most of us. Any faster and the listener is tense, waiting for the next work.  Any faster, and clarity of speech might suffer.  So, using the 150 wpm standard, here’s how long some previous State of the State speeches have lasted.

On November 22, 1836 (the legislature in those days met after the harvest and quit in time for spring planting, “Lieutenant Governor and Acting Governor” Lilburn Boggs delivered a speech that covered seventeen pages of the House Journal. The word counter on my computer says the speech was 8,873 words long. Whoever read it probably took about an hour to give.  It’s hard to imaging many applause breaks since the big buy himself wasn’t reading it.  So there was little to keep people awake.  Maybe they didn’t suffer as much as we think because in those days church sermons of two or three hours were not uncommon and the listeners were sitting on split log benches without backs.

John Cummins Edwards, the youngest governor in Missouri up to that time, used 6,681 words in 1846, a more modest 45-minute speech, probably.

Sterling Price’s Christmas Day State of the State speech in 1854 was 7,114 words long, would have lasted a couple of minutes longer than Edwards did.  His speech took 12 pages of the House Journal.  We’re not sure if this was the first time it happened, but after the speech, the House ordered thousands of copies printed, including 2,000 copies in German—as more and more Germans started flowing into Missouri from their country that had been torn by revolutions for several years.

We ran out of energy on the John Marmaduke speech in 1887. It took up 19 pages.

Joseph Folk was a populist who was elected in 1904.  He was so full of ideas for cleaning up a corrupt government that his SOS took 14,071 words to express. All those words probably took two hours and 22 minutes to read.

TWO HOURS AND 22 MINUTES!

Forrest Donnell, the governor that majority Democrats tried to keep from taking office in 1941, gave his final SOS  on January 3, 1945. He could have spent a lot of time talking about his accomplishments steering our state through most of the World War, but he didn’t.  4180 words, 28-30 minutes.

The first State of the State given by Warren Hearnes in 1965 took 3,063 words.

By the time Donnell and Hearnes spoke, governors were delivering their own remarks. That is likely to be the greatest motivation not to talk endlessly.

The longest SOS we ever covered was Joe Teasdale’s first one.  Since the Missourinet broadcast it, we clocked it.  An hour and 17 minutes.  It seemed interminable.  And it was still more than an hour shorter than Folk’s message.

But unlike all of those other State of the State messages, the one given by Governor Parson this week might become a “lost speech.”   Why?

Because it wasn’t given to a joint session. In fact it wasn’t given to a session of either chamber of the legislature.

As we write this, we haven’t seen the journal from yesterday, Thursday, yet. But since the speech was given outside of the legislative day, it doesn’t qualify to be in the journal.  If that’s how it turns out, the speech will achieve still another historic first—-there won’t be an official record of it in either journal.  Perhaps a century from now somebody who has the questionable intelligence to spend hours reading legislative journals will wonder why there was no State of the State message in 2021.

There was one. Pretty good one. Well-delivered. Well-covered by the media. But if it’s not in the journals, it will be Mike Parson’s “lost speech.”

UPDATE:  The unapproved journals of the House and Senate for the day of the speech, which are available on the web pages of the chambers, do not include the speech.