Category Archives: legislature

Statistics

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The end of a legislative session gives us, the voters, a chance to evaluate what we hath wrought for ourselves through those we have chosen to represent us.   Sometimes what we hath wrought is writ in numbers that are Practical (as opposed to theoretical) Political Science 101.  Lend ear and eye to today’s lesson that begins with statistics.

The Senate Information Office gives out a summary of the legislative session minutes after adjournment each May, a series of numbers that probably wouldn’t mean much to Mr. or Mrs. Joe Missouri if they got these numbers in their mailboxes.  However, let’s spend some time thinking about those numbers and what they might tell us.  The numbers are only part of the story of about seventy days of a legislative session, of course.

What passed and what didn’t pass is the real measure of a session and the motivations of its participants.  Senator Emory Melton once told your observer that passing legislation is only part of the job.  Defeating legislation is as important. Capitol Press Corps members exhaust themselves each year telling that part of the story.  They have to believe that readers, listeners, and viewers care enough to pay attention to their stories. There are times when fatigue is so heavy that only that belief keeps them going.

Two-thousand-forty bills were introduced this year (1,457 of them in the House).  The Senate passed 113 of its 583 bills.  Twenty-five of them were consent bills, non-controversial measures.  That leaves 88 bills that faced confrontational debate, that faced efforts to amend them, and passed with recorded votes of the Senators.  Those 88 bills represent only fifteen percent of all bill introduced in the Senate. Of those eighty-eight, only 57 were approved by the House and sent to the Governor for signature or veto.

The Senate received 254 of the 1,457 House bills.  Of that 254, sixteen were appropriations bills.  Passing a state budget is one of only two responsibilities the legislature has each year.  Actually, its responsibility is even less than that.  It is charged with paying the state’s debts and setting aside money for public schools.  But the legislature could have gone home after providing the money to keep state services flowing to Missourians.  Eighty-one of the 254 surviving House bills were approved by the Senate and sent to the Governor.

Of the 2,040 bills introduced, only 138 made it all the way through the session.  That’s only 6.8 percent.

But there’s more.

Twenty-eight proposed constitutional amendments were introduced in the Senate, 59 more in the House.  Of those 87 proposed changes to the state constitution, only one got final approval.

So, as we interpret the Senate Information Office scoresheet, 139 of 2,127 measures introduced were able to get majority votes in both chambers, 6.5%.

The raw figures are a little deceiving because (a) several bills were identical and (b) several bills passed were combinations of several different bills.  But still, the number of issues that got overall legislative approval is quite small.

Some will look at that final number and think the legislature has wasted a lot of time and money.  While there might be a certain amount of truth in that suggestion (why the House and the Senate each have their own information offices AND partisan information staffs for each party always struck us as an extravagance), the numbers speak of the legislative process.

Sometimes the title of a final version of a bill is an indication of the difficult path legislation follows.  Here’s a pretty extreme example:  CCR#2 SS/SCS/HS/HCS/HBs 3021, 2979, and 3054 with SA1, SA2, SA5, SA6.

Theoretical House Bill 3021 went through a committee hearing.  Other bills had identical wording and also were heard. Several amendments were offered, leading the committee to combine the amendments and the identical bills into a new House Committee Substitute for 3021 and the other two proposals.  During floor debate, several more amendments were added so the sponsor introduced a new substitute on the House floor incorporating all of the amendments to make the bill a cleaner proposal for the Senate to consider.  A similar process happened in the Senate, where a committee combined several committee amendments into a Senate Committee substitute bill that picked up more amendments during debate, leading the floor handler to incorporate the changes into a single clean Senate Substitute that was approved with even more amendments, at least four of the six (actually there had been eight) that were offered being adopted.

The changed bill went back to the House where the sponsor wasn’t sure of the acceptability of the Senate changes so he asked for the formation of a conference committee made up of four members of the House and four members of the Senate to consider the changes and recommend a final version it thought would be acceptable to both chambers. In this case, the first conference committee report faced enough uncertainty that it was sent back for another review and a second report indicated the amended Senate substitute was, indeed, acceptable.  Since the bill originated in the House, it had to be approved there first before the final version was approved by the Senate and sent to the Governor for his consideration.

Not all bills go through that gauntlet but creating the laws that will govern six-plus million people in Missouri every second of every day can be a painstaking process.  Yes, there are times when even more pains need to be taken to get it right, but most of the time the process works.  And yes, sometimes the process works better for some Missourians than for others and, yes, more could be done if less time was spent on fighting over issues that pander to one voting bloc or another.   But it is all part of a process that gives elected humanity equal opportunities to display its worst nature as well as its best. And in the end, voters have a chance to display their worst and best natures and their decisions are reflected in the way the process functions.

In a competition of ideas, ideals, agendas, and ideologies, the gauntlet bills must run is exacting and highly competitive.  We’ve commented from time to time that it is a miracle that anything is accomplished.

Watching that process or being part of that process is an absorbing thing that draws you in and won’t let you go.  And then the gavel falls at 6 p.m. on a Friday evening and the numbers are added up and the pressure goes away and the process has more or less worked again.

When you don’t have to be quiet

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Spent some time at the University of Missouri-Columbia the other day and picked up the school year’s last edition of the student newspaper, The Maneater. A special part of the paper was devoted to the turbulent year on the Columbia campus.  The staff ranked events in various categories including the Top Five Worst of the year.

The Biggest Embarrassment was the Missouri Students Association.  The Biggest Letdown was the performance of the football and basketball teams.  Among the other “worsts” was Biggest Frustration.

It was the Missouri legislature.  The school administration for understandable political reasons can’t say things that students can. This has been a turbulent year for the young men and women on the Columbia campus.  Only a few were involved in the campus disturbances last fall but all of them have to live with the results of what the few did and the political fallout from those weeks.  We thought Maneater staff writer Amos Chen’s appraisal of the Missouri legislature was worth passing along because it comes from one of the thousands of students who were swept up in the politics of the year.  Here’s what he wrote:

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” 

Through their frustrating actions over the past year, the Missouri legislature has more than proven Reagan’s famous words true.

In August, former Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin was called to testify before the Senate by Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, about the relationship between University Hospital and Planned Parenthood.  All this, despite the Missouri Attorney General’s Office later finding no evidence of wrongdoing.

Schaefer was back at it again in January when an email from former UM System President Tim Wolfe surfaced where he claimed Schaefer pressured him to deny then-MU associate professor Josh Hawley’s request for a leave of absence to run for Attorney General.  In a revelation that surprised absolutely nobody, Schaefer also happens to be running for that position.

That’s before getting to the “piece de resistance” of the entire affair—Missouri lawmakers response to the Concerned Student 1950 protests against racial discrimination, and former assistant communications professor Melissa Click’s call for “muscle” making national headlines. 

In March, the House Budget Committee became the latest to jump on the “let’s screw over MU” bandwagon, passing a budget slashing $1 million in funds for MU.  The budgetary hearing produced gems such as an amendment by Rep. Rocky Miller, R-Lake Ozark, reducing state funding for MU from $169,305,944 to $1 (not a typo).  The amendment was later withdrawn, not because Miller thought it wouldn’t pass, but because he was afraid it would.  I would write a joke about this but nothing I think of could possibly match the absurdity of this piece of political theater.

The Senate later came to its senses and restored the cuts, but it retained a $1 million decrease to administration to make sure the university knew who the real boss around these parts is. The final draft cut the UM System budget by $3.8 million.

From dubiously motivated witch hunts to politically influenced legislation, the actions of the Missouri legislature over the past year rightfully earns these legislators the title of Biggest Frustration.

We offer this with no endorsement or comment.  Sometimes the voice of someone who didn’t start a fight but whose life is affected by it says something.

Sometimes we wonder at the end of elections and at the end of legislative sessions whether the candidates or the lawmakers gave any thought to how their actions did anything to improve the public attitude toward government.  Amos seems to have given an answer.

A solution in search of a problem

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Or: Whatever happened to early voting?

The legislature has decided to ask voters if they want to make it harder for them to vote.  If voters decide, probably in November, that they want to go through some additional procedures before they’re allowed to cast their ballots, the change will be felt in the 2018 election cycle.

Today, voters show up at the polling places and present their locally-issued voter registration card, sign a document, and get a ballot.  If the change is approved later this year by voters who think they also should prove they are the person listed on their registration card, they’ll have to show some additional identification that satisfies the judges at the polling places they are who they say they are.  Opponents finally got the previously stiff-backed sponsors to build a little flexibility into the proposal. But the basic issue is whether Missourians will support a solution without a problem.

The Secretary of State, the top elections official in Missouri, had estimated the original plan kicked around the General Assembly for the last few years, would disenfranchise as many as 220,000 Missourians.  He, being a Democrat, carried no weight with the legislative majority, being Republican.  Opponents claim the plan will hurt voters who traditionally lean toward Democrats.  Republicans claim the idea is a matter of making our ballots less susceptible to voter fraud.  And they pooh-pooh the Secretary of State’s estimate.

Just how big is the problem this proposal seeks to solve?

How much fraud has there been at polling places in Missouri?

Get out your microscope, folks. It is smaller than the naked eye can perceive.

We’ve consulted the Secretary of State’s election results web page for all state primary and general elections from the 2008 August primary through the November 2014 general election.   We looked at the races in which the greatest number of votes were cast (Total votes decline as one goes down the ballot).  Those races include State Auditor, President, U. S. Senator, and Governor, depending on the year.

Total number of precincts used 2008-2014:  27,931

Total votes cast in highest-drawing races: 11,898,467

Total number of precincts where voter fraud has occurred: 1

Number of Missourians prosecuted for voter fraud: 2

Number of votes in the election in which fraud was prosecuted: 1,342

In a 2010 primary election for a seat in the House of Representatives from Kansas City, two relatives of John Rizzo used fake addresses so they could vote for him.  He won by a single vote. A third candidate got fifteen votes.  His relatives were fined $250 each and were banned from voting in Missouri for the rest of their lives. Rizzo was elected to two more terms in the House and announced last year he would forego his fourth and final House term to run for the Senate.

Two votes out of almost twelve-million have been prosecuted as fraudulent. It takes a lot of zeroes after the decimal point.

But the legislature has taken hours and hours and hours for several sessions trying to get this proposal passed.

And that surely raises questions about motivation.  Doesn’t it?

Those pushing this idea also point to a Heritage Foundation report of seventeen Missouri voter fraud convictions in the last decade (2005-15).  But all seventeen of those convictions stemmed from fraudulent REGISTRATION, not from fraudulent actions at polling places. But true believers in photo-ID don’t want to hear that argument.  Don’t confuse them with facts.

So here’s a new fact that gets to the amount of voter REGISTRATION fraud:

We’ve checked the Secretary of State’s voter registration numbers for 2004-2012 and census numbers for 2014.  The total is 23,929,575 registrations.  Someone who faked a registration in ’04 might logically be prosecuted in 2005 and someone who faked it in 2014 likely would be prosecuted in ’15, so the numbers pretty well parallel the Heritage Foundation study.

Seventeen convictions out of 24-million registrations.

Add up the number of opportunities for voter fraud either at registration or at the polling place and we get eighteen prosecutions about of almost 36,000,000 opportunities.

Our online calculator says that is .000049999999999999996%

We’ll save you the counting time.  Four zeros, a four, fifteen nines and a six.   In those ten years there has been an average of one fraudulent registration or vote out of every 2,000,000 registrations or votes cast.  NOAA, the national weather service, says an average person who lives to be eighty years old has one chance in 12-THOUSAND of getting hit by lightning.

Although the final versions that passed this year began as House bills sponsored by Representatives Justin Alferman and Tony Dugger, the leading voice on this issue in past sessions has been Senator Will Kraus of Lee’s Summit.  And guess what Senator Kraus is running for this year?

Missouri’s top elections position, Secretary of State.

His primary election opponent, Jay Ashcroft, also is a true believer in voter photo ID.

One does not need a very long memory to recall when Secretary of State Matt Blunt, a Republican, and Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, were urging the legislature to pass laws making it easier to vote.  Their early voting proposals did not require people to give a reason for wanting to vote early as is the case now when the voter has to claim he or she will be outside their voting area on election day to cast an absentee ballot.  Early voting eliminated lying and allowed people who might not want to leave their workplace on election day to cast their ballots on some other day.

But easier voting, even with bipartisan support from the state’s highest election officers, was ignored.  The effort, instead, has been on making it harder to vote.

Supporters justify making it harder to vote by saying it takes identification to write checks, get on airplanes, and other things.   They conveniently ignore one important difference.   Voting is a constitutional right.  Writing checks and flying are not.   Many of those who are quick to say that a reading of the U. S. Constitution is all that is needed to set American on the right path again are quite ready in this case to compare a constitutional right to getting an airline ticket.  Do we really think that our Founding Fathers—these advocates also like to cite them—thought voting and (in their times) getting a ticket for a seat in a coach had the same level of importance in the American system of government they were creating?

This issue is going to be on the ballot later this year.  Has anybody else noticed that the last time we might get to vote for President, Governor, U. S. Senator and many other offices without providing more documentation about who we are is the election in which we might vote to forfeit that part of our voting privilege?

And the best the backers of this proposition can do is point to two votes cast out of almost 12-MILLION votes in the last eight state primary and general elections and seventeen cases of REGISTRATION fraud (which is not mentioned in these pieces of legislation) out of about 24-MILLION registrations.

Is our system of a democratic-republic form of government more at risk because of those two votes and seventeen registrations or because of those who claim they want to protect us?

 

Tramping to oblivion

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Here it is at last, the final day of the legislative session.  Before the sun goes down, the roads out of Jefferson City will be filled with cars fleeing the Capitol for the sanity of home and freedom.  By sundown, the record will be writ, partisan appraisals will be offered, and the real campaign season will begin.  For some.

We’ll be interested in the session evaluations, knowing they will be sharply different according to party.  We’ll be interested to see the list of significant bills passed so we can evaluate whether they were for the welfare of all of the people of Missouri or whether this session, in the end, produced a basket of ideology with the main purpose being the retention of power.

For a few dozen lawmakers, the drop of the gavel at 6 p.m. will render them ceremonial figures.  They’ll be back to open their mail every now and then and in September they’ll convene for a few hours for veto override ceremonies.  But their days of writing legislation and advocating or fighting issues are finished. Their time in the cauldron, in the arena, in the daily bath of adrenaline and argument is ended.

Good riddance for some.  A loss to the political system for others.  Term limits means many of these folks will never again be able to do something a lot of them have come to love. Their voters are forever forbidden to keep them in office no matter how exemplary they have been. In fact, many will never return to the Capitol after they clean out their offices later this year.  There won’t be anything for them to do and as time passes there will be nobody who remembers them enough to talk to.

We’ve wondered how often those who have served and who have fought each other or worked closely with each other ever pick up the phone in later years and call a former colleague just to say “hello.”  We’ve wondered if time brings a reflective warmth that even softens old antagonisms into friendships.

We’ve never heard of a legislative alumni gathering.  Maybe there are small ones at funerals.

The lights will be turned off in the House and the Senate tonight and next week the chambers will be dark, quiet, and cool and the Capitol will go to sleep.   Until January, when the building’s heart begins to beat again with new people in office rooms that have been home to those who will be important for their last time today.

It is days like this that remind us of the great sportswriter Grantland Rice who wrote many years ago of those whose day in the arena had passed:

Far off I hear the rolling, roaring cheers.

They come to me from many yesterdays,

From record deeds that cross the fading years,

And light the landscape with their brilliant plays,

Great stars that knew their days in fame’s bright sun.

I hear them tramping to oblivion.

And that’s what many will be doing as dusk falls on Missouri this evening.  Driving home.  Tramping to oblivion.

 

Capitol credits

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If politicians weren’t so self-contradictory, political reporters would have no fun at all.  Saying one thing and doing another, saying different things in different places, taking positions that seem opposite from similar positions provide fodder for those in the press or in the citizenry at large who hope for stability in the political system, particularly stability based on the highest ideals of service to all of the people.  That’s an awfully high bar and probably an unrealistic one but without expecting the highest levels of commitment and service, the alternative can too easily become  the lowest level of results.

The leader of the Missouri Senate, Senator Ron Richard, loves the Capitol.  Even before he became Speaker of the House in 2009, Richard was aware of the building’s deteriorating condition and was looking for a way to restore and maintain the state’s greatest symbol.  We talked during his time as Speaker of his hopes to establish an endowment program, an idea that was worthy but not likely to attract the kind of money that, instead, flows too easily to those who want to hold office in that building.

But what a wonderful thing that would be!   Imagine the endowment that could be established if, say, Rex Sinquefield and the Humphreys family—two entities that throw millions of dollars at candidates every election cycle—would make the same kind of commitment to the Capitol in just one off-year.  It’s not fair to single them out so imagine the endowment that could be created if all of the other special interests and individuals who underwrite campaigns wrote comparable checks to the Capitol endowment fund just once.

But that’s one of the contradictions of our political system.  Restoring and maintaining the building where policy is enacted is always going to be much less important than influencing the people who enact the policies and maintaining that influence.   What value is there in making sure the state’s most powerful symbol of democracy crumbles when money can be better invested in making sure democracy itself, as an institution for the benefit of all, crumbles in the face of protection for the few?

Senator Richard thinks he finally has found a lever that can move his idea for restoring and preserving the State Capitol.  A tax credit program.

About fifty million dollars is being spent fixing some horrible leaks under the south front Capitol stairs.  The water running into basement spaces is causing numerous problems for those who work or store things there.   The money is provided by a bond issue and is therefore limited and has to be paid back out of the general tax collections.  Richard’s plan would provide some ongoing funding without lowering the amount available to pay for state operations.

Richard proposes changes to the present Historic Preservation Tax Credit program that’s important in communities throughout the state.  Some of Richard’s conservative legislative colleagues have a low opinion of them regardless of the value they have to their home towns.  He suggests reducing the historic tax credits by ten million dollars and shifting twenty million dollars into a special fund that could be grown to restore, repair, and maintain the Capitol.

It’s kind of complicated but some of the proceeds from the program would be spent to solicit donations into the Capitol endowment fund.  He thinks his plan would encourage people and trusts and foundations to contribute to the fund, which also would support ongoing needs of the Executive Mansion, the Transportation Department building—which the legislature wants to take over as a Capitol office annex—and, maybe, the Supreme Court Building.

A Senate committee has held a hearing on Richard’s proposal to give it a first public airing.  Richard knows the idea won’t go anywhere this year but he’s gotten it on the table and hopes it can be passed next year.  Some fine-tuning is likely because it seems to raise some concerns in the local historic preservation movement.

But it’s a good start for a proposal to preserve a symbol of the best that Missouri can be.

It’s interesting that Senator Richard wants to raise millions of dollars to preserve and protect the Capitol at the same time he is insisting the Senate spend thousands and thousands of dollars to tear up one of the architectural treasures of the building—the Senate visitors’ gallery—so he can kick the press off of the floor of the Senate where they have sat at a table since the building was brand new, all because of a complaint that grows more petty with the passage of time.

Contradictions.  Reporters love them.  In this case, though, it appears that those who live by the contradiction will suffer by one of them.   Too bad the money earmarked for the effort against legislative reporters couldn’t be invested, instead, in Richard’s more praiseworthy effort to preserve and protect the building—including preserving the Senate visitor’s gallery.

Contempt

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Senator McCaskill’s office sent us a note a few weeks ago reminding us that she and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio would be asking the Senate to start civil contempt proceedings against the website Backpage because it has refused to provide information as part of a committee investigation of sex trafficking.   It has been almost two months since the Senate voted to hold the outfit in contempt and we have received no releases from McCaskill or anybody else indicating anything is being done since the headlines were made in March.

But that’s not where we’re headed with this entry today. Not exactly.

We were struck with the thought—you know how one word can trigger a thought different from the issue being discussed—that a system of government so many people are finding contemptible is, at two levels, showing contempt for the system of which it is a part and at the same time one  body is trying to hold someone else in contempt.  And the public is not blind to it.

The senate that has held the webpage in contempt is the same Senate whose leaders can be accused of showing contempt of the American system of government when it comes to President Obama’s new nominee for the United States Supreme Court.. Closer to home, we suppose, the same could be said of the Missouri Senate whose leadership said weeks ago that it will not consider confirmation of any appointments to the University of Missouri Board Of Curators by Governor Nixon.

In both cases, the Governor and the President have an obligation to make appointments.  One of the roles of the Senate at both the state and national levels is to give its advice and consent to the appointments.  In neither the state law nor federal constitutions is there anything that gives state and national senates power to—or permission to—refuse to consider for confirmation or rejection any nominee the Governor or the President makes until after an upcoming an election.

But there is a “however” factor.

Neither constitution sets any timetable for confirmation so the Senates can delay any hearings until after the appointing officer’s term runs out.  There have been refusals to confirm.  But both standards say the President and the Governor WILL make the appointments and those persons WILL serve—if the Senates consent.  But there is no ticking clock at either level.

In Missouri, we have a law that says a law goes into effect if the governor takes no action on it, either with a signature or a veto.  There is no similar law saying appointments become effective if the Senate takes no action. It might seem fair to some if the “no action” issue cut both ways but don’t expect the Missouri Senate to move toward that kind of balance of powers.

Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution is clear:  “He shall…nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court…..”

Missouri law (172.030) is equally clear:  “The board of curators of the University of the State of Missouri shall hereafter consist of nine members, who shall be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate….”

And 172.050, also referring to Curators: “All vacancies which may exist at or during the meeting of the biennial sessions of the general assembly, caused by death, resignation or removal, shall be filled in like manner as those created by the expiration of official terms…”

The President “shall” appoint justices.  The governor “shall” appoint curators. Nothing in the law, nothing in the Constitution, says a governor or a president is excused from that responsibility because they are x-number of months away from leaving office.

In the case of the Board of Curators, the law says the board “shall” consist of nine members.   Resignations have reduced that number to six.  The Missouri Senate’s refusal to consider confirming new members could be seen, we suppose, as violating state law which implies vacancies “shall” be filled. Again, the loophole is that there’s no defined time for the senate to act on curator nominations.

The refusal by state senators to keep the board at nine curators might seem to violate the oath of office they all raised their hands to take, part of which is: “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…”

Faithfully performing the duties of office includes giving advice and consent to curators’ appointees.  Consent is not required.  “Advice and consent” IS required with rejection an option.  But lawyers probably could argue that the applicable sections of law do not support refusal to act.

Nothing gives the President, the Governor, or either Senate permission to delay making appointments or giving advice and consent until after an election. But it does not prohibit such things either.  One legal source we have looked at refers to the federal Administrative Procedure Act as requiring “courts to determine whether an agency action is ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.’”  While the senates are not agencies, they are nonetheless agents of a system of government that is based on a balance of powers.

For that matter, the state law does not prohibit the Senate from decreeing that it will not consider gubernatorial appointments during the entire four or eight years a governor is in office. That’s taking the current situation to an absurd extent.  But absurdity is not impossible in politics today, particularly this year.

There is this factor, though: Once appointments are made by Governor Nixon and President Obama, the advantage in a campaign year might shift to Nixon or Obama—or to their political parties that do not occupy the majority of seats in either state or federal legislative bodies. The issue could become how long delays by the senates can continue before the voting public becomes convinced the senates are playing political games instead of doing an assigned duty, and how damaging such a perception could become to incumbent lawmakers facing the voters.

It would not be surprising if a number of average citizen were caused to see the refusal of the senates to give timely, fair, consideration to gubernatorial or presidential nominations of people in critical government positions as a violation of the principle of balance and falling well within the definition of “arbitrary, capricious (and) an abuse of discretion” or violations of terms of office.

And that brings us back to contempt.

The Pew Research Center last year found that only nineteen percent of the American public “can trust the government always or most of the time.”  The same survey found that 55% of those surveyed felt “ordinary Americans” could do a better job than elected officials of solving national problems. We keep hearing various experts opine that’s why we have Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Is it any wonder that Americans (and Missourians, of course, are among them) have so much contempt for those in elective office when those officers show contempt for the system they have pledged to uphold?

 

The egg and….

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Betty MacDonald became a best-selling author in 1945 with her book, The Egg and I, the story of a young wife and her husband trying to run a small chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in the Northwest.  She sold the movie rights for $100,000 plus a percentage of profits from a film released in 1947 starring Claudette Colbert as MacDonald and Fred MacMurray as her husband.  The film included a couple of simple farm folk, Ma and Pa Kettle, played by Marjorie Main (who got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress) and Percy Kilbride.  The movie led to a series of spinoff Ma and Pa Kettle movies that folks with plenty of grey in their hair (whether they let it show or not) will remember.

The book and the movie left unanswered a fundamental biological question.  When we eat a fertilized egg, are we eating a chicken? We’ve checked with some chicken experts who say the answer is “no.”  And fertilized eggs are not more nutritious than unfertilized ones.

Today, we have a new “Egg and I” story being written at the Missouri Capitol.  There’s nothing humorous or rustic about it.  It’s more serious because we’re talking about people, not chickens. The fundamental biological, philosophical, and religious question of when an egg becomes a creature is at the heart of THIS “Egg and I” argument.

In the last few weeks of this legislative session, a lot of ink is being spread upon printed pages and words were spread upon the airwaves about a proposed constitutional amendment saying a person is created as soon as the sperm hits the egg. The state law already declares that life begins at conception but that’s not good enough for the pro-birth interests who are such a big constituency of the majority party.  Representative Mike Moon’s House Resolution will make it to the Senate but the Senate will have to go far out of its way to schedule a committee hearing, send the resolution to the floor for debate and then vote on it in the last five days of the session.  The Senate is not likely to risk losing a chance to vote on any number of things by taking up this bill.  Democrats are guaranteed to fire up the filibuster machine if it ever makes it to the floor.

So why is there so much noise about an issue that is unlikely to be passed?  Because it is important for the majority party to send a message in a campaign year that it’s loyal to the cause.  And, if nothing else, that’s what’s going on here.  The House has been in session since early January and only now has something seemingly this important had a committee hearing and gotten a committee vote and gotten to the floor for debate.

But as the session winds down and as the national picture for the majority party remains problematic, it’s important that the voting blocs supporting the party be kept engaged and reminded of who their friends are at the state level. Doing things to ease or eliminate the effects of possible negative coat tails from national November elections can’t be overlooked.  The super-majority could be at stake in these elections.  The steamroller will be harder to operate if the super-majority disappears.  And the national scramble (notice how cleverly we get back to the “egg” theme) raises the possibility that voters will reverse parties in some legislative districts.

House Joint Resolution 98 is a good flag to hoist before the session ends.

The resolution says that “all persons, including unborn human children at every stage of biological development, have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry.”  It pledges the state to protect such life from deprivation by the state or private action to the extent permitted by the federal constitution.”

But the next section of the proposed amendment seems on plain reading to be somewhat curious. “Nothing in this constitution secures or protects a right to abortion…The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or if necessary to save the life of the mother.” Opponents say the legislation is clearly unconstitutional and will be immediately challenged if it becomes part of the state constitution.

The first committee that recommended legislative passage of this proposal eliminated the last few words to would allow abortions in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.  Representative Rick Brattin did that because “all life is life regardless of how it was conceived.”  And Representative Tila Hubrecht she tells people who were conceived through rape, “There’s a reason for their life…Sometimes bad things happen…but sometimes God can give us a silver lining through the birth of a child.”  Minority party member Stacey Newman, not a fan of the idea to begin with, says the change makes the proposal “extremely punitive….placing many women in danger.”

Moon claims his proposal wouldn’t end abortions but will create the basis for future anti-abortion laws.  The other side says there’s no doubt about what he plans to do—stop abortions.

At least two states’ voters have rejected “personhood” proposals.  The judicial record is small but Oklahoma’s Supreme Court has thrown out “personhood” as an illegal ban on abortion.

But in an election year, on issues such as this, it’s the thought that counts. Majority lawmakers want to make sure important constituencies know they are thinking of them, a lot, even if the chief purpose of recent actions is to only look like something is being done.

The proposal has once again set us off in search of a definition. This time it’s “person.”

Although the word “person” is often found in our state statutes, there is no legal definition in Missouri law of what a “person’ is.  It appears this proposal could back into such a definition, however.  A person would be a fertilized human egg.   Gender, unknown.  Eye color, unknown.  Fingerprints, none. Number of hands, unknown.  Number of feet, unknown.  Heartbeat, unknown.

Egg equals person if this idea becomes part of the State Constitution.

We’ve checked some national legal directories for a definition of “person.”  West’s Encyclopedia of American Law says the definition is, “In general usage, a human being.”  But is says statutes can define the entity as “firms, labor organizations, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or receivers.”  Foreign governments that can file lawsuits in this country are “persons” in certain circumstances.  The citation from West does not mention “egg.”

There appears in legal circles to be more than one definition.  There’s (1) natural person, (2) artificial person, and (3) legal person.  Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute in New York defines a “legal person” as a non-human entity, such as a corporation, which can sue or be sued, own property, and contract.  But the legal person cannot vote, marry, or hold public office (although we note, it can invest money in getting voters to do its bidding, and do the same with those elected to public office, and can invest money in passage of laws that—just to pluck an issue out of the air–limit marriage or protect those who don’t want to be involved in certain marriages or declare fertilized eggs are persons).  The definition of “artificial person” is a shading of the “legal person” definition.  An artificial person is “an entity established by law” that has some of the legal rights and duties as the fertilized egg in the Moon resolution.

And then we come to the “natural person,” a human being who is alive. States are able to give these human beings rights and duties without their consent.

And that’s what Representative Moon wants to do.  Without using the word “natural person,” he seeks to create such an entity and then, without the consent of the egg, give it limited rights.  We don’t see any indication in his resolution that he wants to give that egg any duties.

We say “limited rights” because the legislature already is on record saying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness depends on the religious beliefs of others once the fertilized egg emerges from the womb and grows up.

What if this “person” is in the belly of an illegal immigrant?  And suppose the egg emerges as a genuine human being?  Some legislatures want to say that the egg that Representatives Moon and Brattin want so lovingly to protect as a person regardless of any violence that accompanies the fertilization cannot be a citizen after they are born here and certainly cannot qualify for any scholarships at state colleges and universities.

Gotta respect the egg because it’s a person, you know, even if we don’t respect the person it becomes. Right to birth is one thing.  Real right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and the right to enjoy the gains from their own industry, even if guaranteed in present law and in HJR 98, is more complicated although it, too, is subject to political games, particularly in election years when the games conveniently and selectively ignore that guarantee.

There are a lot of other issues connected to the personhood of the fertilized egg but there’s no reason to stretch this out longer, for now. We’ll get to them later if this bill somehow passes the Senate.  The bill will have done its job even if it goes nowhere farther into the process.  It has sent the loyalty message to certain constituents. And in an era where some grown-up fertilized eggs don’t care about anything else other than sending a message, that’s good enough.

Notes from a quiet street—IV

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A fourth in a series of 2016 observations on the passing scene from one who has time now to observe the passing scene without going full bloggal.)

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George, who lives down this quiet street, down the hill and around the corner, says he has been inspired by the legislature to open his own fast-food business.  He thinks he’ll call it “Colonel George’s Missouri-Fried Turkey.”  He’s a little presumptuous about calling himself “Colonel,” because he flunked out of auctioneer school before he earned the title but he figures nobody will care once his marketing department (his wife) goes into full operations.

George was talking about the choices his customers will have.

“May I have a couple of legs, some breast meat, and a wing?”

“Ma’am, we only sell the entire turkey.  But our prices for the entire bird are less than you’d pay at the grocery store deli counter for those two legs, some breast meat, and a wing.”

“Really!!   Well, I guess I’ll have the whole turkey then.”

“Excellent.  How would you like it, over easy, sunny side up, or over hard?”

“I don’t understand….”

“Well, ma’am, it’s simple.  The Missouri legislature has been talking about changing the constitution so that fertilized eggs are considered to be the whole thing.  So we use only the finest, Missouri-made fertilized turkey eggs because once they’re fertilized, they would have full turkeyhood. So you get both legs, all of the breast meat, both wings, even the neck and all the giblets for one low price.  And if you want to take some, or even all of it, home, you won’t take up all of your space in the freezer or the refrigerator.”

George thinks his restaurant will be a big hit.  He’s trying to talk us into investing in the project with him but we’ve told him we want to think about it.  Our banker and the AARP have told us that as people living on fixed incomes we need to be careful how we invest our meager savings.  So we’re being real careful about this.

George is even talking about expanding his business once the MFT concept takes off and hundreds of franchise restaurants are opened.  He’s thinking about going into the barbecue business.  Once Beauregard and Bossy have their barnyard frolic, George figures he can start serving almost-instant barbecued veal, something you don’t find in your usual barbecue joints.  And he probably won’t charge much more than he charges for the turkey—just enough to cover the cost of the recovery of the animal because cows don’t lay eggs; you have to go get them, which is a little more labor intensive and long rubber gloves will add additional expense.

He’s also considering the same thing with barbecued pork.  For an extra fifty cents he’ll even give you an apple because it won’t fit into the mouth of the pig

George has been asking about space at the big outlet mall at the Lake of the Ozarks. He figures he could make a lot of money by selling his turkey, beef, and pork at near-retail so the customers think they’re getting a bargain while he doesn’t have to sell his products at wholesale rates as he will have to do with his franchisees.

He’s a little puzzled about how his business plan would work with fish because fish eggs can command pretty good prices on their own, probably better than he could charge for serving one sunny side up, over easy, or over hard.  But George is a thinker. He might figure something out.

George thinks the idea of bestowing “hood” on fertilized eggs holds great promise not only for him but for the entire state because it becomes, in his mind at least, an economic development measure that will create new jobs and generate more taxes that legislators then can cut and make themselves look good to voters.  To show his support for the concept, he has joined the Chamber of Commerce.

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Ran into somebody the other day who recalled the saying, “Authority makes some people grow—others just swell.” She didn’t recall who originally said it and it appears nobody really knows but a lot of people have repeated it. Various sources cite various people. One says the saying had been around in Washington for at least a hundred years.

She remembered that this has been a time in past legislative sessions where various organizations started thinking about rating the lawmakers. Many years ago, one periodical put together a list of “white hats” and “black hats.”   The St. Louis Globe-Democrat used to issue a list of outstanding legislators.

Her suggestion: Somebody who has been immersed in the Capitol Climate assemble a list of those who have grown and those who have just swelled this year. Who has grown as a leader? Who has just gotten puffed up with their self-importance? Who has taken stands that show leadership?   Who is on the list of mere panderers?

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The comments reminded us that many years ago in the irreverent years of our reportorial youth, some of us in the House Press Gallery would bestow unofficial awards to those we had been watching in the chamber below us. We don’t remember all of the awards but there was the Cockroach Award that went to the lawmaker who had to get up and chew on other people’s bills every chance they got. Cockroaches, you see, like to eat paper. Another award was the “Furniture Award,” to the legislator who seemed to be about as useful as his desk. Never said anything. Almost never sponsored a bill. Just sat there. On the last day of the session one year your observer asked Representative Winne Weber, one of the great characters of her generation in the Hosue, if she would ask this representative for his opinion on a bill. Any bill. He might have been the only member of the entire 163-member of the House whose voice we had not recorded that year—because he never said anything. So late in the evening (we still adjourned at midnight then) she asked the speaker if she could inquire of the “Gentleman from (wherever he was from),” and the Speaker called his name.   The Furniture Representative didn’t even know he was being summoned for inquiry until his colleagues rousted him from his intense preoccupation with his pipe (they still allowed smoking in the chamber then). He looked up, looked around, wasn’t sure what to do, did not appear to know he needed to go to the closest microphone so he could answer a question.   Winnie by then was laughing so hard that she asked the speaker to withdraw her request and the Speaker told the Furniture Representative he was no longer needed. He sat back down at his desk, appearing to be completely unsure what had just happened, and went back to the comfort of his pipe.

I think we retired the “Furniture Award” after that. He served about twenty years in the House and retired undefeated in that award category.

Ahem….about ethics reform—

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The legislature is trickling lukewarm, watered-down ethics reform bills to Governor Nixon.  Lukewarm they might be but at least something is at last running out of the legislative faucet on this issue.   However, as they say in the Mother Country, “We are not impressed.”

And St. Louis Post-Dispatch capitol reporter Kevin McDermott reminded us why last weekend.

The two best-known Republican candidates to succeed Nixon are former House Speaker Catherine Hanaway and Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder.  Behind them are Eric Greitens and John Brunner.

It seems there’s an outfit called Patriots for America. It works on behalf of Brunner.  Note we do not say it works FOR Brunner.  That would be illegal.  Kevin, however, describes an interesting web of circumstance.

Patriots for America is a Super PAC and its main job is to attack Greitens.  According to Kevin’s article, Brunner washes his hands of Patriots for America.  Election laws say candidate campaigns can have no relationship and no coordination with Super PACs whose main job is to make a candidate’s opponent look like something your neighbor’s dog left in your yard while the candidate himself (or herself) can appear to be the good guy traveling the high road.

Kevin details in his article how Patriots for America has avoided revealing the source of the money it is using to do that.  The Missouri Ethics Commission, which keeps track of campaign finance laws insofar as weak state laws let it do so, has no record of P4A.  The Federal Elections Commission has a record of it but the organization evades federal campaign reporting laws by getting its money from a nonprofit corporation which does not have to report the source of its income.

But if nobody can follow the money, somebody can follow the lines of accountability.  And he has done that.

P4A was established by a former Brunner campaign staffer, Andrew McLain, who claims no relationship to the Brunner campaign, which clears him to raise as much money as possible to attack Brunner’s opponent, apparently out of the goodness of his heart. The only donor McLain has listed on his federal reporting form is Franklin & Lee, a claimed nonprofit, that has put $84,000 into the P4A bank account.

Who are Franklin & Lee?  Or what is F&L?  It’s a shadowy thing that just happens to have the same mailing address McLain has. Kevin reports McLain has a second address.  It’s the same address as P4A.

What a circumstance!

Kevin’s story also says P4A also has “apparent connections” with one Paul Holzer.  Paul Holzer, as in Brunner’s former campaign chief of staff.  And when “a reporter,” as Kevin put it in his story (reporters sometimes use that phrase to avoid saying “I” to avoid inserting ourselves into the story) called the P4A lawyer to ask to speak to someone on behalf of the organization, the lawyer’s office referred him to Holzer.  The person answering Holzer’s phone said he wasn’t available and hung up.

The Missouri General Assembly has steadfastly refused to even consider any kind of improvements in Missouri’s campaign donation or campaign donations reporting system this year. Some members have even suggested it’s not even worth trying to do something because campaigns will always find loopholes.  Odd, however, isn’t it, that all of the other states have at least tried.   All of them.

In the meantime the legislature sends the governor a few cups of lukewarm ethical water, probably about the same temperature that candidates can use to wash their hands while former staffers—who have no connection at all to their campaigns—attack an opponent.

And in news conferences at the end of the session in a few weeks, majority legislative leaders will count ethics reform as a major accomplishment of a highly-successful session.

If you think this session is dragging on and on—

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Went to visit Anne Rottman’s legislative library at the Capitol last week, trying to dot some eyes and cross some tees in the capitol book manuscript and started prowling through legislative journals to track down some minor details.  Most of that stuff is pretty dry but sometimes you trip over something that wakes you up.   We offer you two discoveries today.

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Legislators, lobbyists, reporters—heck, anybody involved in a legislative session–starts to feel at this point that there has to be some way out of this misery.  Three weeks can’t go by fast enough.

We were reading the journals of the 1945 legislative session.  And we realized there’s never been a session like it. And nobody in the Capitol today would ever wish it on anybody.  Almost nobody knows about it.

The session began January 3, 1945.   The final floor action took place on the TWO-HUNDRED-TWENTY-SECOND DAY, July 8, nineteen-forty-SIX!  There was no air conditioning. They were paid $125 a month plus ten cents a mile to go to and from their homes—one time per session.   In 1945, the average Missourian would earn about $200 a month. A new house averaged $4,600 and gas was fifteen cents a gallon.   The amount they were paid in 1945 is the equivalent of about $1100 a month today, $13,260 a year, give or take, a little more than one-third as much as we pay our lawmakers now.

For whatever value it might have, we should note the legislature did not meet every year back then. It was every other year until voters approved annual sessions in 1970.  Except for 1945-46.   But, then¸ they had to come back only six months after adjournment for the regular 1947 session.  And it lasted another 150 legislative days.

Why did they meet so long?  Because voters in 1944 adopted a new state constitution (the same one today’s lawmakers love to fiddle with) and these folks had to pass hundreds of laws to make state statutes comply with the new constitution.   Members of the House introduced 1,039 bills and the Senate introduced 498.  That was a lot then, not so much now.

Here’s another incredible thing about that session.  The House and Senate journals, plus the indexes and the appendices which were mostly reports of various boards, commissions, institutions, and agencies totaled—get this now:

12,442 pages.

So, hang in there folks.  It will only SEEM like this session has lasted 222 days three weeks from now.  Imagine if you were serving in 1945, though.  Instead of adjourning in mid-May, you’d still have another thirteen months ahead of you.  And you’d be paid about one-third what you’re getting now. With no per diem.  And no mileage for trips to and from home except for once in that whole session.

But at least, today, you have air conditioning.

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Another thing we found was an essay published in the 1951 House Journal.  It apparently was the winning essay in a contest about “What the Bill of Rights Means to Me.”   It was written by Miss Jerry Lynn Rainwater, a student at Springfield’s Greenwood High School.  It was so refreshing to read, given what’s been going on lately, that we’re going to pass it along.

Right now, I am in a class room, in an average school, located in an average American city.  On the wall hangs an American Flag surrounded by a great many flags of other nations.  The class is studying the problems that face America today, both foreign and within her jurisdiction.  Our teacher is not a government official.  She has never pledged loyalty to any political party.  She enjoys her personal opinions and beliefs but presents the facts to us in an unbiased manner, leaving us free to form our own opinions.  Our text is published by an independent concern without government censorship; our reference materials cover all types of newspapers, magazines and other sources of information.  To me this is what the Bill of Rights offers.

Yesterday in class we viewed a historical movie, revealing uncensored facts produced by an independent company. Today we listened to a news commentator over the radio. He disagreed with our government’s policies, but he exercised his right to broadcast his views.

By my own choice, I am attending this school and this class. Neither was compulsory.  Seated next to me is a Jew.  The chair next to him is vacant. The usual occupant is absent because, according to his Catholic religion, it is a holy day.  No questions were asked, no demands were made.  I visited his church once, though I am a protestant. No one tried to prohibit my actions.  That is what the Bill of Rights means to me.

My Father is attending a political meeting of a party that is not in power. Views and ideas will be discussed openly and freely. It is not a secret meeting; the door is closed to no one, regardless of his or her belief.  Someday I shall attend similar meetings, for my right to do this is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. 

During my life as an American citizen, I shall harbor no doubt that my home is free from intrusion by government officials, or their agents; they, as all others must respect my rights.  My property can not be confiscated by the government. Nor shall any member of my family be taken to prison without reason and proper proceedings.  Our life is ours to live, free and unmolested. Our liberty cannot be taken from us unless we abuse it.  Even then we have the guarantee, through the Bill of Rights, to a fair trial by an unbiased group of our equals.

As I got about my affairs, I do not live in fear for my life or liberty; for in America everyone is free to live according to the dictates of his own conscience.  This is what the Bill of Rights offers and guarantees to me and to every American, regardless of race, color, or creed.  It is a heritage worth protecting—even unto death.

We don’t know what has happened to Jerry Lynn Rainwater of Greenwood High School, 1951.  We hope she’s hale and hearty in her 80s with many wonderful grandchildren.  She wrote that essay while the entire world was at war.  And she wrote it with a clarity and a simplicity that is too easily lost in bluster, blather, and cynicism today.  In the darkness of the world’s worst war, Jerry Lynn Rainwater found light.

She reminds us that the world really isn’t as complicated as all of those folks in the Capitol who are sweating and frothing and grunting are trying to make it.

We hope they put her essay on their bulletin boards.  Reading it from time to time will be good for them.   It certainly was for us.