Category Archives: Politics

I Mourn for the Missouri Senate

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I was talking to one of our state senators a few days ago in one of the side galleries when he said, “I think I’m witnessing the death of the senate.”

If so, it has been a long and agonizing death.

If this is what the Missouri Senate is to be, he’s correct. And it hasn’t been just a death. It’s been a slow suicide. The life-blood of the body has slowly seeped away, leaving a once-deliberative and respectful lawmaking chamber splintered and dominated by a self-centered, small but power-hungry, group that has brought the place to near anarchy.

Make no mistake: the senate has been the scene of some fierce battles, even wars perhaps. But respect for its customs, traditions, and its famous unwritten rules has imposed an inner discipline that has served it well.

The increasingly painful decline and drift away from those characteristics seem to have two points of origin.

The sacrifice of public responsibility represented by the adoption of term limits is one of the points.  The rise of those I call Gingrich Republicans is the other.

Term limits is the disaster its opponents warned us it would be. Voters willingly but hypocritically gave up their rights to vote for someone who had earned their confidence and in doing so laid the groundwork for the sad spectacle we have seen in the senate for the past three weeks, a situation that is a tyranny imposed by a minority.

A small group of senators demanding a new congressional district map that serves the purpose of political power more than it serves the purpose of fair political representation has stopped almost everything else from moving with actions that disrespect the very thing in which they are engaged—the filibuster.

The filibuster historically has been a tool that forces two disagreeing sides eventually to find some acceptable middle ground, assuming the two sides have a modicum of good will. Sometimes no agreement is possible.  The losing side, while not getting some or any of its wishes, nonetheless recognizes that it has at least aired its grievances and allows the process to move ahead despite the differences so the process can serve the people’s needs on other issues.

That has not been the case in the senate this year. A small group has decided it must have a map drawn its way to expand the power of one party or the people at large who are expecting the makers of law to take actions that protect and serve them are out of luck.

The attitude has irritated colleagues of both parties, has aggravated a bipartisan group of women senators, and has gotten on the nerves of the senate leadership.  When one of the contentious crowd violated one of the unwritten decorum rules by wearing bib overalls on the floor (even with a coat and tie) and was called on it by the President Pro Tem, he instead of quickly leaving and returning properly dressed argued about it.  For elevating what should have been a small issue into a larger public one, he was penalized with the loss of most of his committee assignments—which led to another extended period of reading from a book instead of publicly apologizing to the Senate.

Parents sometimes have to deal with a defiant child by taking away some privileges. The same holds true in a public body of government.

How does term limits fit this situation?

A deliberative body such as the Senate must have within its being a deep traditional sense of respect for the chamber, the processes, and the members. The saying, “Everybody is a Senator” is more than a statement recognizing an elected title.  It is a proclamation that all participants in the senate process are equal and will be respected as equals, that the title is greater than the individual. Respect for the title and the mutual recognition of shared courtesies required for progress are essential and those who disregard those responsibilities and therefore disrupt the work of the senate for their own purposes are subject to discipline.

These are qualities of service in the Senate that once were taught to new members by those who had served for years, perhaps decades, and knew from life experience that respect for individuals and the system were the keys to responsible lawmaking.

But term limits have robbed our legislative bodies of that valuable institutional knowledge and have left them liable for disruptive actions that undermine responsible lawmaking. And the situation has deteriorated so badly that some wonder if the Senate can ever recover enough of those values to be the effective body it once was.

The second factor that has led to the present debacle was the advent of the Gingrich Republicans in the early 1990s.  The take-no-prisoners style of politics was almost immediately disruptive of the deliberative process that was the culture of the Senate.  The early small and disruptive  element increased as years went by. Increasingly, filibusters increased and a small dissident group learned how it could hold the floor for hours and passed along that knowledge so that the filibuster became less of a tool of compromise and more of a sledgehammer of force.

Distressingly, what we are seeing in Missouri is not uncommon in other states and is on flagrant display in our national politics.  Some have suggested term limits are needed for Congress.

Congressional disarray is already frightening enough.  What has been happening in Missouri should be a warning of the danger to democracy that term limits in Washington would bring.

Where we are in the state senate has been a long time coming.  Those who have watched the  deterioration of the chamber and who cannot see an end to this distressing set of events wonder if deliberative and respectful government can be returned to our capitol—and to our nation.

You and I, dear readers, are the ones who hold that future in our hands.

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The Pariah and the Statesman

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The Hill, a Washington D. C. political newsletter, put out a story last Sunday that, “Republicans are struggling to coalesce around a single alternative candidate to former Gov. Eric Greitens in Missouri’s open Senate race, elevating worries that they’ll be saddled with a baggage-laden candidate in a contest that should be a slam dunk.”

We recall, we hope correctly, that when Greitens ran for Governor in 2016, a lot of Republicans were concerned and some questioned whether he fit the definition of “Republican.”  At the time, we wrote that if Eric Greitens wanted to call himself a Republican, he was within all of his rights to do so.

The party is correct in worrying that his regrettable time as governor and the reasons for his departure might not be enough to dissuade his dedicated populist supporters from supporting him in 2022. Whether those supporters find any value in Josh Hawley’s endorsement of Vicky Hartzler or Ted Cruz’s endorsement of Eric Schmitt is something we won’t hazard to guess.

But in getting desperate in keeping him from getting the nomination, the party seems to be acting in a way in Missouri that it refuses to act nationally.  Eric Greitens might be an albatross around the GOP neck. But so is Donald Trump.  Both came along about the same time and in many ways appealed to the same base of voters.  Those voters might be unappreciative of the party’s falling out of bed with either man.  What those voters might do is beyond the capabilities of our crystal ball.  But if Trump endorses Greitens—well, that seems from this lofty position to be a genuine Republican muddle.

The Hill reported that a leaked poll by “an unknown group” shows Greitens leads a Democrat in early general election sentiments, narrowly.  The fact that the Democrat candidates’ name recognition in the general public mind is nowhere near the name ID of Eric Greitens is gratifying to Greitens fans but a concern to his critics.  If relative unknowns are that close, without campaign advertising that brings them more to the fore and attacks Greitens’ past behaviors that diminish him, there is legitimate Republican concern that the voters could put that seat in the D column again.

Frankly, the world will not come to an end either way.  What’s distressing is that so much of our national politics is seen through the lens of power rather than with a vision of service.

Greitens advantage is the same one that Trump had in the 2016 primaries. His core of true believers (somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, say polls) will stick with him while his several opponents will split the majority of anti-Greitens votes and leave him the last person standing.  Trump won a lot of delegates in 2016 by getting 35% of the primary votes while six or seven or eight candidates divided the other 65%.

But nobody is bailing out of the Republican senatorial primary.  They’re all waiting for Trump’s expensive imported loafer to drop.  Then they have a new problem.  If it drops Greitens’ way, do they attack him because he has Trump’s endorsement? Or will the egos and ambitions of others let them step aside, leaving, say, Hartzler and Schmitt to carry on the fight?

The Hill says those concerned might not get much help from “Washington power players.”  The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it’s not going to play favorites. And so far the Senate Leadership Fund, closely tied to Mitch McConnell, has shown no enthusiasm to dive in, either.

Greitens seems not to care. His campaign manager has referred to “false narratives peddled by DC swamp creatures.”

That’s speaking the language a lot of Trump/Greitens loyalists understand.

Another influential voice that is speaking up is former Senator John Danforth, who is suggesting that a center-right independent candidate could save the day. Danforth has all but promised some big checks to support the person filling that bill.

But a sad question that speaks to the sadness of our political times hangs over such a hope. Have our politics reached such a low that John Danforth’s opinion doesn’t count for much?

Once a man whose integrity was a standard for political office-seekers to follow (although some on both sides of the aisle have never forgiven him for supporting Clarence Thomas’ Supreme County nomination), what influence does he have over what his party has become?

Danforth vs. Greitens/Trump.

Does hope still flicker?

 

The sphere of her usefulness

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We were reading Tessa Weinberg’s Missouri Independent article a few weeks ago about the eleven women members of the Missouri Senate who have put together a children’s book that tells the stories of the 36 women who have served and are serving in the Senate.  We thought, “I need get some copies of that book for my granddaughters.”

And then I’m going around office-to-office and have the authors sign them.  .

I have known all 36 of those women senators which says (a) I’m an old guy, or (b) women were late in arriving in the Senate. Actually, there is no “or” about it.  Both observations are true.

A few days ago, while looking for something else, I came across this article from the St. Louis Daily Evening Herald Newspaper and Commercial Advertiser of June 10, 1836.

EMIGRATION OF THE RIGHT SORT

The predominance of the female over the male sex, in the ancient commonwealth of Massachusetts, is very great. In some towns, according to the last census, the proportion is more than two to one, and the excess in the whole state is more than 14,000. Of course, there must of necessity be 14,000 old maids in Massachusetts, over and above the number that goes to offset the old bachelors, (the fools) which may perhaps account for half as many more. Twenty thousand old maids in the single commonwealth of Massachusetts! Now although we have no antipathy to an old maid (we have to an old bachelor though) having always found that much abused class sensible, good-natured, and conversible, yet it must be admitted that in this position, the woman can never manifest the higher qualities of her nature. It is as a wife, a mother, at the head of a family, presiding over the destinies of an infant and miniature commonwealth, that the woman shines forth in all the loveliness of those moral excellences of which she is capable.

Without this, the sphere of her usefulness is greatly circumscribed, and although we may confidently expect that she will not do much harm, neither can she do much good.  We are therefore glad to learn that a company of “industrious, capable and intelligent” young women are about to start from Northampton, Mass., for the valley of the West.  They are needed as school teachers, to fulfill the various mechanical employments which are the province of their sex, and above all, they are needed as the sweeteners of the toil and hardships of our young men who now, in great numbers, are laboring in unblessed loneliness over the vast domains of the west. These young women come out under the protection of a gentleman, and we do not hesitate, in the name of all that is pure and lovely, to promise them a hearty welcome from all classes of our fellow citizens.

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There are a lot of things to read into this article. Dismissing it as “quaint” might not be fair, though.  It’s part of our history, an understanding of the role of women in society—which was largely and quietly accepted on both sides of the gender line—an appreciation of a sort of the contribution women even in those un-emancipated times played in the home and the community—a comment on the loneliness of life on the frontier (1836 was the year that the Platte Purchase added the northwest corner to our state), and other issues.

It also is a commentary on the Missouri pioneer editor, a more colorful purveyor of that profession than we seem to have today.  I think many of these guys just had more fun in those days, whether it was in the gentle writing of this story or the more partisan pronouncements that were not uncommon in the columns of the time.

A little less than ninety years later, a woman’s place was in the House (of Representatives) in Missouri, and fifty years after that the Senate became a woman’s place, too.

These eleven senators did something important in putting together this book that the menfolk in the Senate might want to learn from.  These eleven women recognized they could do something good by forgetting about party politics, getting together over food and drink, and accomplishing something useful not for themselves but for those whose futures are far from determined.

Would that more people could do that in these times when fighting seems more important than accomplishing, when concerns about power supplant commitments to service. .

We hope that not too many years in the future a woman—perhaps one of these eleven or a young woman who reads their book—manifests “the higher qualities of her nature” by occupying the governor’s office.

As the title of the book says, “You can, too.”

YAKYAKYAKYAKYAK

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It is Valentine’s Day.  And there’s not much love in the Missouri Senate.

I recently listened to the killing filibuster in the Senate on the confirmation of the state health director’s appointment. Afterwards I spent a couple of more rewarding hours watching some paint dry.

That was nothing, however, compared to the long-running tantrum that was started last week by a minority of the majority party who objected to a proposed congressional district map. It is still ongoing as this new week begins.

I am afraid that by the time it ends, three species will have gone extinct and become fossils.

I was reminded of an article in the Boonville Missouri Register of July 16, 1840 about a speech given in Jefferson City by A. G. Minor, a Whig—the newspaper leaned Democratic:

“He opened his speech with a flowery declamation…He then went on for quantity…It was one of those stereotyped editions of Whig oratory you may hear any time and place where a number of Whigs are congregated together…Thus he trudged along through a two hours and a half speech, and left us as wise as we were when we commenced.”

Been there.  Know that, from many hours listening to filibusters in the State Senate. I always started legislative sessions with a new Filibuster Book, something to read while somebody exhausted themselves saying nothing worth remembering for hours on end—-which is okay as a tactic but makes one desperate for a newly-painted wall for sanity maintenance.  Unless the one enduring the display has a good book.  One way or another, I was determined to survive these events MORE than as wise as I was at the start.

Old-time speech-making was often colorful—and lengthy.  Two-hour speeches from the stump were not rare.  Two-hour sermons weren’t either. We have become significantly more sophisticated now.  Our televangelists can take only about 18 minutes to convince us we’re all going to Hell although we might face better alternatives if we help them for their next executive jet.

We have examples of those sometimes more eloquent expositions because newspapers sometimes printed speeches in their entirety or printed lengthy excerpts. Representative John E. Pitt of Platte County introduced legislation in January1859 to print 100 handbills announcing the celebration of the Battle of New Orleans on January 8.  He told his colleagues:

Gentlemen keep continually talking about economy. I, myself, do not believe in tying the public purse with cobweb strings, but when retrenchment comes in contact with patriotism, it assumes the form of “smallness.”

Such economy is like that of an old skinflint, who had a pair of boots made for his little boy, without soles, that they might last longer. (Laughter.)

I reverence “the day we celebrate.” It is fraught with reminiscences the most cheering; it brings to mind one of the grandest events ever recorded in letters of living fire upon the walls of the temple of time by the god of war!

On such occasions we should rise above party lines and political distinctions.

 I never fought under the banner of “old Hickory,” but, “by the eternal” I wish I had. (Laughter and applause.) If the old war-horse was here now he would not know his own children from the side of Joseph’s coat of many colors—Whigs, Know-Nothings, Democrats, hard, soft, boiled, scrambled and fried Lincolnites, Douglasites, and blather-skites!

I belong to no party; I am free, unbridled, in the political pasture. Like a bob-tailed bull in fly time, I charge around in the high grass and fight my own flies. (Great laughter.)

Gentlemen, let us show our liberality on patriotic occasions. Why, some men have no more patriotism than you could stuff through the eye of a knitting needle. Let us not squeeze five cents till the eagle on it squeals like a locomotive or an old maid. Let us print the bills and inform the public that we are as full of patriotism as are the Illinois swamps of tad poles.

I don’t believe in doing things by halves. Permit me, Mr. Speaker, to make a poetical quotation from one of our noblest authors. “I love to see the grass among the red May roses, I love to see an old gray horse, for when he goes, he goeses.” (Convulsive laughter.)

The comments were reported in the Weekly California News, published in Moniteau County, on January 29, 1859.

John Brooks Henderson, seeking to be a state representative in his first try for public office, remarked at a July 4th event in Pike County in 1847:

Though all former governments have fallen and yielded to the corroding influences of time, and shared the fate of all other human concerns, yet there are principles, firm as the unchangeable rocks of Adamant, upon which the fabric of government will stand, until human affairs shall have ceased and Heaven’s Messiah shall fill the throne of peace. These principles are founded upon the equality of mankind, upon truth, reason and justice; and the government whose foundations rest upon these, and whose strength is dependent upon the free will of a virtuous people, will only fail when time shall grow hoary with age, and nature herself shall decay.

In the days long before audio and video recordings, the only way people could learn what was said in those patriotic speeches was to read them in newspapers such as the Democratic Banner, published in the Pike County seat of Louisiana, in this case, on August 16, 1847.

Henderson, by the way, became a Union Army officer whose troops “conquered” Callaway County early in the Civil War. Later, as a U.S. Senator, he was one of those who voted against impeaching President Andrew Johnson, a courageous step that cost him his senatorship.

One more example of rhetoric of the 19th century that puts speakers of today to shame.  Walter B. Stevens, in his Centennial History of Missouri (The Center State), published in 1921, tells of an Ozarks preacher of the early 1800s who might have offered this prayer over a young man bitten by a rattlesnake:

We thank Thee, Almighty God, for Thy watchful care over us and for Thy goodness and tender mercy, and especially we thank Thee for rattlesnakes. Thou hast sent one to bite John Weaver. We pray Thee to send one to bite Jim, one to bite Henry, one to bite Sam, one to bite Bill; and we pray Thee to send the biggest kind of a rattlesnake to bite the old man, for nothing but rattlesnakes will ever bring the Weaver family to repentance. There are others in Missouri just as bad as the Weavers. We pray Thee to stir up Missouri, and, if nothing else will bring the people to repentance, we pray Thee to shower down more rattlesnakes. Amen!

We say “might have offered” because the story might be apocryphal.  But it’s too good a story to go untold to future generations.

This prayer offers something to all of us who are tired of the obviating, posturing, and prevaricating in our political discourse.  For those who do not consider being inspiring, humorous, and uplifting while they fill the air, instead, with boring verbosity, “we pray thee to shower down more rattlesnakes.”

Somebody could file a lawsuit

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—So we said last week in writing about the difficulties of re-drawing congressional or legislative districts after each census.

Those of us who are of a certain age (I think I am beyond it, actually) remember a St. Louis mover and shaker named Paul Preisler (rhymes with Chrysler, as I recall) who was a pain in the neck on redistricting after census counts in 1950, 1960, and 1970.

Preisler was a Ph.D. biochemist, lawyer, photographer, civil libertarian, photographer, and once an instructor at the Washington University School of Medicine.   He also was a Socialist back in the days when it wasn’t quite the curse word that it has become.

In the 1930s he helped found the St. Louis chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and as its first president he led a successful effort to let the public school teachers there organize.

He joined the Socialist Party during the Depression and sued the Board of Election Commissioners when the board refused non-partisan candidates and minority parties the right to have poll watchers and challengers. The Missouri Supreme Court came down on his side, giving minority parties the authority to have poll watchers and challengers.

This guy never seemed to runout of gas.  Two years after the St. Louis chapter of the AFT was created, he ran for a place on the city board of education.  The school board rejected his candidacy because the board’s constitution made it non-partisan.

The Missouri Supreme court ruled three days before the election that the school board had to let Preisler run.  The board had to print new ballots. Preisler lost but he says he was running on principle, so the loss was okay.

When he got back from the war, he went after the city school board again because of its policy banning married women teachers from being teachers.  He won that case, too, and shortly thereafter decided, at the age of 48 that  he wanted to be a lawyer.

And he did.  In fact he was a professor at the Wash-U law school and became professor emeritus in 1969.

By then he had gotten into challenging redistrict maps.  His first target was again the St. Louis Board of Education. In 1952 he challenged the way the city Board of Election Commissioners had drawn new district maps. He won again and new maps were drawn.

Not one to be satisfied just filing lawsuits, Preisler filed himself in 1954—as a non-partisan congressional candidate. When Secretary of State Walter Toberman refused to accept his filing fee, saying that splinter parties (such as the Communists, and this was at the height of anti-communist feeling in the country) and Communists could not have candidates if the party didn’t get a lot of votes in the preceding election. Preisler argued that he should be able to run as a person rather than as a representative of a political party. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Preisler, again.

Not content with shouting from the sidelines, Preisler ran for office several times: twice, as a Socialist, for the legislature (1934 and ’36), six times as a non-partisan for a spot on the St. Louis Board of Education with campaigns starting in 1937 and continuing to 1971. He ran as a non-partisan for the St. Louis Board of Aldermen.

He never won any of the several offices for which he ran, which was fine with him because he ran to make a point.

In the 1960s he targeted the state. He decided the new congressional districts drawn after the 1960 census were not as compact and as nearly equal in population as the law required.  That was 1962.  When the legislature tried again and the public accepted the map in ’65, Preisler refiled his lawsuit in early in ’66 and the State Supreme Court agreed with him in the summer of 1966 that THAT map was unconstitutional.

The cases all led to landmark rulings on compactness of districts and the legislature’s authority to exercise its discretion, the court writing in the 1962 case naming Secretary of State Warren Hearnes as defendant that, “[A]ny redistricting agreed upon must always be a compromise. Mathematical exactness is not required or in fact obtainable and a compromise, for which there is any reasonable basis, is an exercise of legislative discretion that the courts must respect.”

For a time Preisler did pro bono work for the American Civil Liberties Union.  The State Historical Society of Missouri, which houses 22 cubic feet of his papers at its St. Louis Research Center, says, “He defended the right of students to wear long hair, hold anti-war demonstrations, and the publish uncensored newspapers. He also defended prisoners and women against discrimination.”

He was also involved in municipal affairs, once filing a suit against the City of St. Louis that eventually killed city plans to build a roadway through Shaw’s Gardens.

When he died in 1971 at age 69, Paul Preisler had another challenge to congressional districts pending. He lost that one, posthumously, in 1975.

There has been no one like him since.

But every time there’s a redistricting map drawn for congressional or legislative districts, there’s always that uncertain time.

Christian Values

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Governor Parson is catching a lot of flak for his reaction to the Senate’s rejection last week of Don Kauerauf, Parson’s nominee for director of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

Part of Governor Parson’s statement that blasted Senate critics for “feeding misinformation, repeating lies, and disgracing 35 years of public health experience is not what it means to be conservative” seems to have escaped the attention it might have received because he went on to praise Kauerauf for opposing COVID masking and vaccine mandates and being pro-life, qualities Parson referred to as “shared…Christian values.” He suggested he would not appoint someone who did not share those values.

He also mentioned other values:  devoted public service, “honor, integrity, and order.”

It’s the use of the phrase “Christian values” that has triggered controversy, though.  “Does the next director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services need to be a Christian?” asked the Post-Dispatch last week.

Beyond the political implication in the statement and the political reaction to it, there are faith issues that deserve examination—and the issue of how religion and politics can be a divisive mix.

I have often said that nothing screws up faith more than religion.

Faith is a basic quality with which all of us are born.  We don’t know it at the time but when we are old enough to comprehend the basic facts of our first out-of-womb existence, we recognize how essential faith is to our lives.  We are born innately trusting that someone will love us, that someone will feed us, that someone will keep us warm, that someone will care for us until we can learn—step by step—to care for ourselves, that someone will protect us, that someone will give us a chance to achieve life, liberty, and give us a chance to pursue happiness.

Religion is an interpretation of standards that affect all of those things. Religions take different approaches to them.  Some are strict in their standards and demands of loyalty. Others are more giving in letting a person interpret values as their own mind leads them to do.

I have a feeling it would be interesting to have a discussion of Christian values with the governor.  From my standpoint, I have to ask if he thinks it is a Christian value that one person goes unmasked although they might expose another to a dangerous virus?  Is it a Christian value to forego vaccines that might lead to a longer and more abundant life?

These are not questions of criticism. They are questions that call for an exploration of faith—which is more basic than religion.

Years ago, in the early days of the discussion at the Missouri Capitol after Roe v. Wade, a state representative asked during a hearing at which a strong pro-life person had testified, “When does ensoulment take place?”   At what point, the questioner wanted to know of the witness, did a cluster of fertilized cells gain a soul?

Whatever the answer was—and I don’t know if there even was an answer—it was not significant enough to stay in my memory.  But it is an essential question in the pro-life/pro-choice debate. And what does that mean if there is a miscarriage?

The discussion of the governor’s statement led me to wander through various internet sites a few days ago.  Here are some Christian values they listed:

Honesty. Humility. Justice. Generosity. Service. Wisdom. Nurture. Endurance (or Perseverance). Love. Thankfulness. Loyalty. Modesty. Courage. Responsibility. Compassion. Respect. Self-control. Creativity. Suffering. Morality. Protection. Hope. Peace.

The Bible is not always a fail-safe guide. Paul told the Christians at Ephesus, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church…Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands.”

But he also wrote to Christians in what is now Turkey (then Galatia), “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

It is a mistake to think, however, that Christian values are those only of Christians.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan received a report in 2006 from the Alliance of Civilizations that examined “basic values common to all religions.”  He told an audience in Ankara, Turkey that “an embrace of differences—differences in opinion, in culture, in belief, in way of life—have long been a driving force of human progress.”

“Thus it was that, during Europe’s ‘Dark Ages,’ the Iberian Peninsula flourished through the interaction of Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions. Later, the Ottoman Empire prospered not simply because of it sarmies, but because it was also an empire of ideas, in which Muslim art and technology wer enriched by Jewish and Christian contributions.

“Regrettably, several centuries later, our own globalized era is marked by rising intolerance, extremism and violence against the other. Closer proximity and improved communications have often led not to mutual understanding and friendship, but to tension and mutual distrust…

“Today, at the very time when international migration has brought unprecedented numbers of people of different creed or culture to live as fellow-citizens, the misconceptions and stereotypes underlying the idea of a “clash of civilizations” have come to be more and more widely shared.  Some groups seem eager to foment a new war of religion, this time on a global scale -– and the insensitivity, or even cavalier disregard, of others towards their beliefs or sacred symbols makes it easier for them to do so.

“Demonization of the ‘other’ has proved the path of least resistance, when a healthy dose of introspection would better serve us all…In the twenty-first century, we remain hostage to our sense of grievances, and to feelings of entitlement.  Our narratives have become our prison, paralysing discourse and hindering understanding.  Thus, many people throughout the world, particularly in the Muslim world, see the West as a threat to their beliefs and values, their economic interests, their political aspirations.  Evidence to the contrary is simply disregarded or rejected as incredible.  Likewise, many in the West dismiss Islam as a religion of extremism and violence, despite a history of relations between the two in which commerce, cooperation and cultural exchange have played at least as important a part as conflict.

“It is vital that we overcome these resentments, and establish relations of trust between communities.  We must start by reaffirming -– and demonstrating -– that the problem is not the Koran, nor the Torah or the Bible.  Indeed, I have often said the problem is never the faith -– it is the faithful, and how they behave towards each other.

“We must stress the basic values that are common to all religions:  compassion; solidarity; respect for the human person; the Golden Rule of “do as you would be done by”.  At the same time, we need to get away from stereotypes, generalizations and preconceptions, and take care not to let crimes committed by individuals or small groups dictate our image of an entire people, an entire region, or an entire religion.”

We have no doubt the governor is a man of faith. He also is a man of politics.  His statement points to the dangers of putting faith and politics too close to one another.

The universal qualities of faith should be used in setting public policy that apply to all equally. Putting religion into the statutes or the Constitution is dangerous because it makes us unequal,  hostages “to our sense of grievances, and to feelings of entitlement.”  Our laws become “our prison, paralyzing discourse and hindering understanding.” And they diminish equality under those laws.

As we ponder the governor’s statement, we see it as a type of awkward shorthand that is too common in our political world today. We think he wants someone with the qualities of faith and the understanding of his contemporary politics.

For many, it is an uncomfortable and unwelcome mix. And it should generate discussion that goes beyond the person who made the statement and includes and challenges us all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bicker, Bicker, Bicker

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We begin this week at the Capitol with the State Senate trying to work out a conflict with Republican ranks on a new congressional district map.

It’s not a Republican-Democrat fight. It’s a Republican-Republican fight.  Should lines be drawn to eliminate a Democratic Congressman?  Or should the lines be drawn to protect a Republican Congresswoman?  Should Missouri Democrats have only one member of Congress?  Or Two?

Heaven help us if a district might be drawn as a swing district, where the Rs and the Ds might be close enough for a campaign to be competitive.  And interesting.  And challenging for the candidates.

Last week the Senate dissolved into bickering between Republican factions.  Should the map be 7-1 Republican or might it be 6-2 with big city Democratic enclaves guaranteed places at the table?  Neither R faction could pass the bill on its own. An alliance with Democrats might provide the margin needed but the Ds would demand a 5-3 map or one that would give them a better shot at getting a third district.

And that is a bridge too far to cross for the either faction of the Rs.

There was concern that the original proposed district lines (approved by the House) would put the Second Congressional District in jeopardy of turning blue, giving the Ds a third seat. Incumbent Ann Wagner barely has survived the last two elections, drawing less than 52% of the vote each time. Republicans might have to work hard to keep that district under the House-passed map because the Democrats surely would work hard to take it, especially given its new borders.  The ultra-conservatives in the Senate don’t want to worry about that so they filibustered until the other Rs agreed to fiddle with the boundaries and make things look better for Wagner’s chances.

It appears we are to be spared the situation after the 2010 census when the lines were drawn to make our delegation 6-2 Republican by putting two Democratic incumbents in the same district.  William Lacy Clay defeated fellow incumbent Russ Carnahan after Carnahan’s district was re-drawn to include a big chunk of Clay territory in St. Louis.  There are no incumbents running against each other this time.

Lawmakers are working hard to avoid having judges draw the lines. A lawsuit after the 1980 session led to a federal district court drawing new districts for the 1982 election, the first election since Missouri lost its ninth congressional seat.  The court’s map put forty percent of Wendell Bailey’s district into Bill Emerson’s district.   Bailey, whose home was barely inside the new district, established a residence in a new district then represented by Democrat Ike Skelton.  Republicans thought Bailey was the best possible candidate to take out Skelton, and he did run strongly but Skelton, who kept 60% of his old district won—although Baily held him to a 54% majority.

That result points to something important.

Congressional districts that are not drawn to protect incumbents provide better contests for voters to decide which competing ideas best represent them. But in practice, that is not the goal of those drawing the lines.  Protecting the dominant party is the ultimate goal when the lines are approved by a partisan body.  We’ve seen that pendulum swing both ways through the years.

Democrats have a point—that the 2020 presidential race broke 60-40 Republican. Therefore, they argue, the most representative congressional map would be one with which Democrats might be able to win another seat, making the delegation 5-3 and more representative of the overall political face of Missouri.

Republicans have a point—that the most recent legislative elections left the chambers of the legislature two-thirds Republican. Thus, the real-world Golden Rule prevails: He who has the gold, rules.

So the divided Republicans in the Senate bickered the week away last week, seemed to iron out some of the intra-partisan wrinkles as the week ended, and are likely to have a map that makes Second District Republicans more comfortable to start things this week.

Then a period of uncertainty arrives. Somebody could file a lawsuit.

And when this game goes into that overtime, the two teams (or three) that have been playing the game so far will be on the sidelines while a third team controls the scoreboard. And that’s not what the majority party wants.

The Greatest Accomplishment

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We suppose our former governors have, from time to time, been asked about their greatest accomplishments during their terms. Lately, it has become part of the regular business of wrapping up their time in office to publish a glossy, colorful booklet praising themselves.  But apart from the self-serving publications, what do past governors really think is the best thing they did.

About twenty years ago or so, Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, published at Southeast Missouri State University, printed a letter from then-former Governor Arthur M. Hyde about “some problem of statewide interest which occurred during my administration.”  The letter was to Dr. Joseph A. Serena, the then-President of then-Southeast Missouri State Teachers College (since 1973 it has been Southeast Missouri State University).

Hyde, a Republican, had been elected in what was seen as one of the great upsets in Missouri elections history in 1920. He immediately cleaned house in then-patronage dominated state government by throwing out Democrats given jobs by previous administrations.

The demand for a modern highway system led to the creation of a State Highway Commission during his term. Public education needs led to the assessment of real estate at its true value, “thereby writing a taxable foundation under the public schools upon which good schools could be built.” He listed the purchase of state parks and putting state charitable institutions under non-partisan control as important accomplishments.

“To my mind, however, the matter of greatest public import was the ‘cleanup’ of the Republican party,” he wrote. What he next wrote about the Republican Party of his time is applicable to either of our major political parties today.

“Á political party justifies its existence only when it offers itself to the people as an instrument or a tool which the people may use to bring about necessary reform, or to accomplish political results.  All political problems are reflected in party action. All matters of governmental action are political matters.  A carpenter cannot use a dull or an “unset” saw to do fine work.  The people cannot use a corrupt or a selfish party to achieve needed political changes. That the realignment within the Republican party was used by the people to accomplish great results is proved by the recitals of the early part of this letter. That realignment is forcing changes within the opposing party.  What a happy day for Missouri when the people have two effective instruments with which to work, when party campaigns are contests as to which party has best served the State, and which offers the most constructive program for the future.”

We offer Hyde’s words less as a commentary on present situations and concerns than as an observation that both of our major political parties are required to do significant soul-searching from time to time if they are to be “effective instruments” to best serve the state or nation and offer “the most constructive program for the future.”

What a happy day it will be, indeed, if we ever reach Hyde’s ideal that the appeal for power must be based on two instruments offering the most constructive service to the people.

(photo credit: 1921 Official Manual of the State of Missouri)

 

Let’s take a breath

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—and count to ten before we blurt out a heated response to something someone has said.

I have a friend who says he hasn’t paid attention to the news for several years.  He seems at peace with himself.  Uninformed, but at peace.

Unfortunately, uninformed people who are at peace with themselves are the kind of people despots take advantage of.

Responsible engagement is a friend of freedom.

But responsible engagement should require thought, not reflex.

Unfortunately, we are living in a time of reflex, encouraged by those who want to take advantage of unthinking reaction for their own political benefit. Mischaracterization too often goes unchallenged on both sides of the spectrum.

God gave us a brain to think with.  God gave us a stomach to digest things with. Too many folks, from our lofty standpoint, have forgotten what is between our ears and seem to believe the thing that fills our bowels with waste is the thinking apparatus.

Case in point (and we’re going to get crucified by some of you for doing this): Mitch McConnell’s statement last week, “If you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”  The comment, in answering a reporter’s question about Republican opposition to the Voting Rights Act, became Twitter cannon fodder within minutes.

There is no doubt that throughout our land, a lot of nerves are on the outside of people’s bodies. McConnell, a lightning rod for those who think his party leadership would be better for the country if he focused more on service than on power, hit those nerves hard.

From the beginning, we wondered if he would be pilloried for what could have been a clumsy use of the English language. While understanding many would take his comments as racist and an expected attitude toward someone whose party is perceived as favoring limits Black voting, we also wondered if the intent of his remark was that African-American voters are as involved in elections as much as everybody else.

McConnell, instead of apologizing for making his point awkwardly, has given a gut response. He calls the criticism of his comment “outrageous.” He accused some of his critics of spouting “total nonsense.”

After lashing out at critics, he said he meant was that “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as (all) Americans.”

He cited his record in civil rights issues including the Martin Luther King march on Washington in 1963, his mentoring of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is black, and that he has “had African American speechwriters, schedulers, [and] office managers” throughout his political career.

In a time when such defenses would be seen as condescending, he might have chosen to verbalize his defense better.

Kentucky U. S. Senate candidate Charles Booker, who is Black, accused McConnell of thinking “it’s fine for him to block Voting Rights because he has black friends.”

Two points:   First, in earlier times, this instant prairie fire might have burned itself out. But today, social media is a mighty wind that increases the flames.

Second, there were times in our reporting days when someone we were interviewing said something that didn’t seem right the immediate follow up question became, “Are you saying—-?” which either gave the person a chance to dig a deeper hole or a chance to be more clear. Somebody should have asked the question when the original remark was made.

In a time when an inarticulate comment can become a social media hand grenade, it would do all of us well if our public figures allowed a second or two of silence after a question before they say what they mean to be heard. We are so awash in intentionally harmful speech that it is essential that people in McConnell’s position as a political symbol as well as a political leader be more careful in what they say.

It also is more important for those listening to ask, “Did you mean—?” if they can. And it is important for the health of our Republic for those who are quick to condemn to ask if what was said is what was truly meant.

Blurting is not a national virtue.

However, taking a breath is what keeps us healthy.

The Casinos in Our Pockets

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We lived in an “appointment” world in 1993, when the first Missouri laws governing casino gambling were written.  Voters had approved riverboat gambling, as it was called then, in 1992. The first casinos on boats would open in the spring of 1994.

Many of us still got our national news with the 5:30 network newscasts on television and our local news at 6 and 10 p.m. when those laws were written.

If we wanted to buy new clothes, we went to a clothing store during the hours it was open.  We went to grocery stores during their open hours to get our food.

We knew when each day we could go to the mailbox to get letters from friends and relatives.

And by the end of the year we knew that if we wanted to gamble we would have to go to the riverboat at a certain time to be admitted.

The Station Casino-St. Charles and the President Casino on the moored Admiral riverboat opened May 27, 1994. Gamblers could board the boat in St. Charles from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a two-hour cruise (for which they paid three to five dollars, depending on the day). If they missed the cruise time, they had to wait for the boat to come back so we could pay to get aboard for the next trip.

The President never cruised. It was permanently moored near the Gateway Arch because the old aluminum Admiral had no engines. Gamblers would pay two dollars during the week and five dollars on weekends and could board every two hours from 10 a.m. to midnight.

But the world was changing and the change accelerated each year. “Appointment living” was beginning to diminish although many of us did not realize it at the time.

There were some hints, however.

The Pew Research Center reported in 1994 that the percentage of Americans getting news from the internet at least once a week had more than tripled since 1991, going from 11-million to 36-million news users.

The number of hosts on the internet tripled from January, 1994 to January, 1996, the year something called a “browser” was created—Netscape, the same year that the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda passed a Free Trade and Processing Act allowing licenses to be given to companies wanting to allow internet users to gamble. By the end of the year there were fifteen gambling websites. The next year there were 200 and by 1998, a study was published showing online gaming revenues had topped $830-million. Modern online gambling in this country dates from November 22, 2010 when the New Jersey Senate passed a bill allowing certain forms of online gambling.

It was about that time that the casino industry was starting to see an erosion in patronage. In Missouri, casino admissions reached almost 54.3-million in FY 2005 then declined for three years before climbing back to almost equal 2005’s number. Admissions began annual declines after FY 2011.  In FY 2019 (the last full year before the pandemic crippled casino business), casino admissions had declined by 49%.

Various reasons for the decline can be suggested but the end result seems to be the same—people just don’t go to where casinos are.

So the casinos have to go where the people are.

The situation is not unique to the casino industry. It is part of our changing lifestyles and those changes have become more obvious with the COVID-19 Pandemic that has forced casino closures for in-person business and quarantines for many who would patronize them.

We no longer live in an “appointment” world.  We can buy clothing at any time of the day off the internet.  We can use the internet to get our groceries delivered.  We can order deliveries to our homes from our favorite restaurants.  The same with our pharmaceuticals. Telemedicine is eliminating some office and hospital trips.

Casino betting can happen 24 hours a day because, as one source has observed, “everyone has a casino in their pocket.”  Casinos are looking for new products that can be offered through the ubiquity of the internet that we call up on our ubiquitous cell phones.  First is sports wagering. But later, Missouri legislators are likely to be asked to let table game betting to take place remotely.

Those who find gambling a reprehensible sin will find nothing redeeming about gambling on the internet.  But thousands of other Missourians will welcome the opportunities—as they welcome opportunities to grocery shop from home.

In a world where less and less of life is lived by appointment, the gaming industry knows it must change. And it is, as it should.

Missouri’s casino gambling laws must change, too.  Laws written and fees created in the days of physical customer presence in casinos need to be changed to account for virtual presence.  State services relying on gambling fees and taxes will be increasingly diminished as appointment gambling diminishes.  Casinos, profiting from laws of the 1990s appointment culture, resist modernization of the law. It is understandable that they do.

What is not understandable is why the Missouri General Assembly would not want to protect the state’s interests by bringing our laws from the appointment era into the virtual, but very real, era.