Category Archives: Politics

This might be TOO ethical

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

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

Does that happen?  Surely not. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

A mell of a hess

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Your correspondent has paid a couple of visits to the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus within the last few days.  Believe it or not, all of the columns on Francis Quadrangle are still standing.  The lighted dome of Jesse Hall still shines brightly against the night sky.  White campus has not crumbled.  Red campus still stands.  Peace Park is still peaceful.  The lions at the journalism school arch that are supposed to roar when a virgin walks by remain silent.

One would think otherwise, of course, after reading the seemingly constant flow of headlines emanating from that campus.  The inspection trip to Columbia became necessary after a fellow UMC graduate sent a note saying, “This is depressing” after reading Tony Messenger’s recent column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch headlined “Somebody needs to drive University of Missouri out of ditch. Now.”

Tony, who was a terrific reporter at the state capitol before being demoted to editorial page editor, has recounted the seeming continued deterioration of the university system.  We say “system” although most of the collapse is centered in Columbia. And since the university system is so Columbia-centric, the screaming and the shouting (“when in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”) seems to mean in the public mind that the whole darned thing is in one mell of a hess, as Grandpa Motes used to say.

Well, it is.  It is because the focus is on Columbia but the ripples include the campuses in Rolla, Kansas City, and St. Louis in several ways.  Columbia’s the one with the football recruiting class that is 53rd in the nation, with a basketball team at the bottom of the conference that is hoping its self-flagellation over a significant recruiting violation under a different coach and a different athletic director will spare it significant additional flagellation from the NCAA, and with an apparently previously well-accepted communications professor who made an egregious emotional mistake during last fall’s demonstrations becoming the poster-child in a heated disagreement involving academic freedom, constitutional rights, personal responsibility, and competing political agendas.   It is a system in which one-third of its governing board has quit for one reason or another (one curator leaving even before the Senate confirmed Governor Nixon’s nomination of her), where a former system president who was praised for his graceful forced exit last year has now attacked the system’s governance and management, where Standard and Poor’s has lowered the institutional bond rating because of financial uncertainty caused by decreased enrollment and political games at the capitol, where interim leaders are struggling for stability while the unenviable task of finding a new president is underway, where—as Tony says—“black students and faculty feel disenfranchised,” and where one of the town’s newspapers recently reported that foreign students—who have been aggressively recruited because their much-higher tuitions provide minor help in offsetting legislative parsimony in financial support for education (at all levels)—don’t know who to go to if they feel harassed or threatened.

And we’re sure we’ve left some things out.   Oh, yes—a governor who has convinced the university to freeze tuitions so he can recommend the aforementioned parsimonious legislature give it a sadly-inadequate increase in general funding because the whole goal of government is to convince Missourians they can get more of the services they need and demand if they pay less for them.  It’s the same government that seems to think the most important things in higher education today are making sure nobody who even knows where Columbia, Missouri is can perform an abortion there while making sure all students can carry guns.

And the leader of the Senate says the university’s governing board will stay crippled for at least a year—until a new governor takes office because the senate will not confirm any nominees by the sitting governor.  That’s real helpful, isn’t it?

So, politically, the University of Missouri has been driven into a ditch.  But a lot of hands have been on the wheel.   If we listen to the Missouri Department of Transportation, ditches might be the best-maintained part of our road system today.  So getting the University out of the ditch will still leave it on the same uncertain road full of political potholes that it’s been on for some time.

But friends, there is hope.  And it is not on the road of potholes.

It is in the classrooms.  And the view behind the headlines is markedly different.

While all of the people who THINK they are important are playing their games, the serious work of educating another generation is quietly being carried out in thousands of classrooms, laboratories, studios, clinics, and offices on the four campuses by people who ARE important.  Walk through the Columbia campus and you’ll be walking with the young people WE were, young people busy being in their teens and early 20s and going about the business of becoming.  They’re talking and laughing, not spitting and shouting epithets.  They’re thinking and working.  Their teachers are shaping, not threatening, them.  (Well, except that the threat of a poor grade still hangs over the head of every student.)

In dormitory rooms and apartment rooms, at the Heidelberg or at Shakespeare’s Pizza’s temporary location, or in the part of the Brady Commons that commemorates The Shack, the students are doing what WE did.  They’re studying or playing cards or sleeping or—-.  Fill in the blank from your own memories.  Most of them do not feel harmed by the oh-so-serious power struggles among the people who THINK they’re the important ones, although in various ways they are being harmed because the struggles for political power are limiting their opportunities.  The REAL important ones are the ones with backpacks over their shoulders and hope in their eyes as they and their teachers lay the groundwork for lives they hope will be well-lived.

They are the university.  Their headlines are in years to come.  Walk among them and be hopeful.

How I played the political game

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A thin line can separate History from nostalgia and we’re not sure which side we’re on in relating this story today.  Perhaps we have one foot in both.

Anyone who was in or around the legislature when Richard M. Webster was in the Senate is unlikely to forget someone once known as the “King of Missouri Politics.”  The description comes from Jim Wolfe, a longtime Capitol correspondent for the Joplin Globe who wrote often and favorably about the senator.  He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in 1993, “Senator Webster had respect that bordered on fear.”

Webster served two terms in the House before running a losing race for Attorney General in 1952.  He was re-elected to the House in a special election in ’53 and became the last GOP Speaker of the House in 1954 until Catherine Hanaway was elected Speaker almost fifty years later.  He lost a race for Lt. Governor in 1956.  He told us the story once that in 1956 he became   the first statewide candidate to use television to solicit votes.

Webster was elected to the Senate in 1962 and if he had not died early in 1990 would surely have been elected to his eighth term there.  He gave a speech in his hometown of Carthage on the night of his election to his last term, in 1986.  Former Senator Ryan McKenna gave us a copy of a newspaper article, probably from the Carthage newspaper, some years ago. It’s kind of long but we pass it along today because Webster’s remarks need to be recalled as history more than nostalgia, a reflection on how things were done thirty years and more ago.

When I arrived in Jefferson City in January of 1949, I found that I was part of a Republican minority.  The Democrats were in complete control.  I had the same general feeling with regard to those people who sat on the other side of the aisle that the 95 percent of the straight ticket voters in Missouri generally had for elected officials from the “other” political party.  I presumed that they were all either hoodlums or controlled by nefarious political bosses.

It was seldom that a member of the minority party actually handled a piece of legislation on the floor, so I spent my first month voting against almost everything.  Our floor leader, a middle-aged pharmacist from El Dorado Springs named Bill Cruce, once commented in passing that things weren’t quite as bad as I seemed to think they were. 

During the second month of the session, a young Irish bartender by the name of Tommy Walsh was handling a bill.

As I remember, the bill raised the salaries of constables in St. Louis County from $9 a day to $10 a day.  I remember the debate, in which virtually all the Republicans and a large number of rural Democrats were voicing their opposition. One old Democrat from Monroe County pointed out that it was more than a 10 percent raise, that it meant the constables would be making more than his grandson who was an army sergeant, and that the next thing we knew, the governor would want a raise which had the same percentage increase as the constables.  It was at that moment that Bill Cruce motioned to me to come back to his desk.  He said, “Kid, if I were you I would vote for this bill.”  When I expressed my surprise, he simply said, “Trust me.”  The bill carried by one vote.

As I walked out of the chamber the young Irishman put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I haven’t met you yet, but you saved me today. I won’t forget.” 

I immediately went to our floor leader’s private office, and he was the only Republican with a private office, and asked why it was important that I vote for that particular bill.  Bill Cruce leaned back in his chair and said, “Kid, let me explain.  All the good guys are not in our party and all the bad ones are not in theirs. I’m not going to point out who our bad guys are. If you can’t figure that out by the end of this session, you shouldn’t be here.  Tommy Walsh is one of the good guys. You can trust him and he would never ask you to vote for something that was against the interest of the people you represent.”

On one other occasion during that first session, I cast a vote on another bill affecting only the city of St. Louis. Once again the young Irishman came around to thank me.

When the next session began, Warren Fuqua came to me and asked me to introduce a bill.  Many of the farmers my age and some a little younger may remember Warren Fuqua, who was the legislative adviser of the Missouri Farm Bureau for three decades.  He retired more than 20 years ago and has long since left this life.  When he asked me to introduce a bill, I thought he merely wanted me to be a co-sponsor and told him I would be happy to do it.  He said, “No, no, I want you to handle the bill.”

I thought the old gentleman must be slipping, because anyone in his right mind would have had a Democrat introduce the bill and some Republican co-sponsor it.  I did introduce the bill and was shocked when I received notice of a committee hearing the following Monday night.

When I arrived at the committee meeting I found that the young Irish bartender was the chairman.  There were two bills on the calendar that evening.  There were quite a number of witnesses who testified for and against the first one.

When my turn came, Tom Walsh said, “The next bill is one which is very important to our friends from outstate Missouri.  Representative Webster, do you want to explain it or do you want us to go ahead and take action?”  It’s the only bill I have ever seen that was never discussed, but I took the cue. I simply said, “I have faith in your committee,” and I sat down. With no further discussion he said, “Do I hear a motion?”  The motion was made, seconded, and unanimously carried.  I had it on the floor the following week and Tom Walsh and several other new friends on the Democratic side saw to it that I had a sufficient number of votes.  That bill, incidentally, was the legislation which authorized the establishment of rural fire districts and permitted rural areas to be combined with town and city fire districts.  Without that legislation, the farmers in this immediate area could not expect to participate in the use of the Carthage fire department. 

After I was elected to the Senate in 1962, my first stop was in the office of my old Irish friend from St. Louis.  He not only welcomed me back to Jefferson City, but immediately got on his telephone and started calling state representatives from both St. Louis City and St. Louis County.  Between the time that I had been elected to the House and the time I was elected to the Senate, there had been a massive change in the population of St. Louis.  Almost 100,000 black citizens had moved in from Southern states and occupied the northern part of the city. A large segment of the Irish and German population had moved to St. Louis County.  The redistricting of 1950 and ’60 had added a large number of state representatives to St. Louis County because of that population increase.  Tommy must have introduced me to 20 new city and suburban Democrats. Without exception he would say, “You can trust this guy. He’ll always tell you yes or no. His word is good.  And if he can’t help you, he’ll tell you why.”   That was the beginning of many new friendships, all of which have lasted down the years.  I sat on the platform at the second inauguration of Warren Hearnes and the first inauguration of Kit Bond with my old Irish friend.  He left us for a better world, I am sure, almost a decade ago, but not before he had gone up and down the aisles to help both Robert Ellis Young and me get the votes to create Missouri Southern College, to make it a full four-year fully funded college and establish many other worthwhile projects in Southwest Missouri. 

If I ever wrote a book, I would tell a similar story with virtually the same beginning in the same development of a loyal friendship with regard to many legislators. I could tell of my friendship with Yogi Berra’s cousin, Paul Berra, with whom I served in both the Missouri House and the Missouri Senate. He is now the comptroller of the city of St. Louis.  He was a loyal friend when we needed him.  Probably my closest friend in the Missouri House of Representatives today is the senior Democratic member, Gene Copeland from Southeast Missouri.  Two years ago at the close of a legislative session, we were visiting in my office and comparing how each of us had voted, and both of us are basically conservative.  We found that our voting records had been identical.  After thinking for a moment he said, “Why is it that you’re a Republican and I’m a Democrat?”  I asked him, “What color of uniform did your great-granddaddies wear?”  He responded, “Gray, of course.” 

Therein lies the basic reason that he was a Democrat and I am a Republican.  It was a family tradition and it explains why the Missouri Legislature is basically conservative with a Democratic majority on both houses.  A majority of the Missouri voters vote their traditional party line for the local candidates. They vote for the man at the state and national levels. 

In the Missouri Senate the leaders recognized, three generations ago, that party affiliation had little to do with political philosophy.  They were wise enough, in 1919 when the new Capitol was opened, to establish an unwritten rule that we would never sit by political party on the floor of the Senate.  It isn’t possible to walk in and see the Democrats on one side and the Republicans on the other. It is the only legislative body in this nation which follows that tradition.  The result is the ability to vote in accordance with your conscience and the interest of the people that you represent. Neither the Democratic floor leader nor I would ever attempt to crack the whip and deliver a solid party vote in order to maintain party loyalty.

When the next session opens, I will be called upon, as the senior member of the Senet, to explain the traditions and “unwritten rules” of the body.  We follow the same rules of procedure as the United States Senate.  A rule can be suspended by majority vote.  We also have “unwritten rules” which have nothing to do with parliamentary procedure. Some of them simply deal with the matter of common courtesy. Others deal with overall conduct toward each other.

As an example, it doesn’t matter who the governor is, no gubernatorial appointment will be confirmed if the senator in whose district the appointee resides objects.  This has been hard for many governors to understand. It is not a written rule, but it is strictly enforced.

One of the things that binds us together as a family is the rule that you do not speak in another senator’s district without advising him in advance and getting permission.  I have never known of a senator who said don’t come into my district to speak to the Rotary club, or a church group, or even at a political rally. It’s a simple matter of courtesy.  Since 1949 I know of only one senator who did not strictly abide by that rule.  She happens to be running for a national office today and we’ll find out tonight whether or not she’s been elected.

The bipartisan friendship has led to an extremely interesting development and that is the monthly Senate prayer breakfast.  Without desiring to stimulate a religious argument, I would offer my personal opinion that it is part of God’s plan that all Christians will be untied before He returns.  The greatest change that I have seen in philosophy among my fellow elected officials is the ability to freely discuss the Bible, regardless of our church membership.

Now, we know about the president’s prayer breakfast, our governor’s prayer breakfast, many mayors who have a prayer breakfast, and other such events.  These meetings ar eopen, large crowds are attracted, and tickets are sold. The Missouri Senate prayer breakfast, on the other hand, is strictly a private affair.  It is held on the first Tuesday of each month. No one attends but the members of the Senate.  Our average attendance is 26 out of 34 members. It isn’t unusual to observe a devout Catholic reading the scripture from a King James version of the bible. We have come a long way in unity in that regard.

I can best describe how our system works by telling you about the last two days of the last session.  Both the governor and a virtually unanimous news media said it was the most productive session in the history of the state.

The session ended on a Monday.  After church on Sunday, the president pro tem and the Democratic floor leader met in my office. 

They had a list of 45 pieces of legislation that they considered to be vitally important.  The Democratic floor leader said, “I know that some of the Republican members have bills on this list, but there may be other legislation that is important to them in their district. Will you work up a list between now and 2 o’clock and we can figure out how to get a vote on each of these propositions.”  Now bear in mind we were looking at an afternoon and early evening session on Sunday and a session between 9:30 and midnight on Monday to clean the calendar and take up all of the priority measures. 

When we adjourned for the evening at 9 o’clock Sunday the three of us met again and decided to find some out-of-the-way place where we could have breakfast on Monday to review the list and set a timetable. We had such a meeting and allotted time for each remaining piece of legislation.  At 7:30 we met with the governor to review his priorities. At 9, the day’s work began.

Bear in mind that through the whole procedure, the question was never asked, “How do you you  intend to vote?”  It was simply a matter of guaranteeing that the members of the body would have the opportunity to vote on each of these important issues.  We allotted a specific amount of time for each measure. At eight minutes before midnight we had finished our work.  All the priority legislation had been taken up and our job was done with ten minutes to spare.

As I watch our colleagues in Washington spend days and even weeks on one single piece of legislation, I don’t know why they can’t learn the simple lesson of bipartisan cooperation.

The question is always asked, Why do you have to wait until the last week of the session for that final action on legislation? The answer is simple.  If you are going to build 200 houses in 100 days, you don’t complete two houses on the first, two houses on the second day, and two houses each day for 100 days.  You have to have input from 34 Senators and 163 House members. That work has already begun. I am in Jefferson City two days a week when we are not in session working on legislation that will be introduced next year.

What has taken place in the last generation and a half in the minds of voters, in which they have demonstrated the genuine ability to “vote for the man,” has also taken place among Missouri lawmakers in the ability to recognize philosophical differences and at the same time attempt to work together for the overall benefit of the state.  When we had those conferences, not only the last two days, but the first day of every week during the session, we were not agreeing on what would pass and what would not pass. We were simply ageing that every member of the body would have the right to present legislation that he or she considered to be important.  We were agreeing that crisis problems in the state would be approached. We were agreeing that we would take a financially responsible position.

It’s been slightly more than 47 years since I first addressed the Rotary club. I was a senior in high school and had won the city oratorical contest.  We have seen a multitude of changes in the minds and attitudes of America’s voters and American’s public officials.  Our Constitution, however, is still in place and it will fail only when the people of America lose interest in their government and how it works.

The leader of the Missouri Senate these thirty years later, Ron Richard, represents the district Richard Webster served.   But it’s no longer Webster’s Senate, no longer Webster’s legislature.  It’s hard to believe in this term-limit, unlimited campaign money, polarized era that it ever will be again.

And that, Mr. and Mrs. And Ms. Missouri, is sad.

The spirit of the St. Louis

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

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

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

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

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

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

——-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——-

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

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

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

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

Jews in 1939.  Mexicans and Syrians in 2016.

There’s always somebody.

Putting up appearances

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 18-pound ball

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Another person said it to your correspondent the other day and it’s been said often enough that it merits a response.

“Do you think the Senate waited until you were gone before kicking the reporters off the Senate floor?”

While the question is flattering, it’s discomfiting. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t kind of nice to hear but the answer I’ve given is not “yes,” and here’s why.  First, don’t forget that Virginia Young of the Post-Dispatch also has retired and she would be no happier about the situation than I am if she were still there.  Second, Senate leader Ron Richard is a bowling alley owner—and sometimes he seems to use an 18-pound ball when a 14-pounder would do.

Senator Richard, the first person ever to serve as Speaker of the House and President pro Tem of the Senate, shares a deep passion for the Missouri Capitol with your correspondent.  We’ve often talked about the need to restore it and preserve it.  He is also an important supporter of the State Historical Society, which is important (and that’s an understatement) to more Missourians than realize it including this author.   But to suggest that he waited until I was gone and/or Virginia was gone before kicking our press corps colleagues into a side gallery is probably a misconception.

But it is the wrong thing to do and if the Missourinet seat at the press table was still my home, I think there might have been some frank discussions.

This entry is more “inside baseball” stuff than usual.  But it might give readers a little more insight into a small part of the way the legislature and the press corps work or should work.

As I understand it, this situation grew out of a time when Senator Brian Nieves took off on one of his tantrums that was a personal attack on another office-holder—not a Senator—that went on and on and that Nieves appeared to feel was particularly clever.   Senator Richards’ predecessor, Tom Dempsey, heard it in his office and quickly went to the chamber where he told Senator Eric Schmitt, who was presiding at the time, that he should have called Nieves to order.  One of the reporters at the press table put something on Twitter about the Dempsey-Schmitt discussion and another member of the press corps picked up the message and re-tweeted it.

Now, understand that your observer thought well of Dempsey and found him a thoughtful leader of the chamber.  He recognized that his position was one that represented all senators, not just those of his party, and he often served as a mediator in touchy situations.

I had forgotten until colleague Phill Brooks reminded me recently that Dempsey talked to the two of us about his concern that the Twitter message violated an unwritten Senate protocol that certain conversations in certain places are private.  He wondered what to do about the matter and I don’t think Phill and I gave him much of an answer, certainly not a satisfactory one.  We did say that we weren’t aware of the situation and would not have tweeted about it if we had been. I don’t even remember if Dempsey mentioned the name of the reporter involved.

It’s been almost two years since this incident and I think it’s been mishandled from the start on both sides.   The result is an unfortunate escalation that need not have happened.   It is probably too late, unfortunately, to roll back the situation, but here’s the way things should have been handled—at least from this perspective.

First, Twitter and the emphasis on immediate communication (which is not necessarily reporting—a distinction that can be discussed later, I suppose) is a pit waiting for people to fall into and we hear stories about that almost every day, don’t we?

As a reporter who had, and still has, a lot of distrust of the idea that any system that capitalizes on the human tendency to blurt out whatever is on the mind is good, I would not have communicated the Dempsey-Schmitt discussion because there was a time to explain the incident’s significance when more than 140 characters are involved.  Dempsey was always approachable by the press corps, I think, and the incident was not so earth-shaking that public distribution of its occurrence could not wait until Dempsey could be asked about it.  He probably would have tried to sidestep it because it was an internal issue and because of the idea that senators should speak courteously of one another, at least on the record.   But he should have been asked about it instead of becoming the subject of instant communication.  Even if he had not wanted to talk about it, he would have been alerted that the incident was a story.

What Phill and I should have told him (and maybe we did, I don’t remember) was that it would be appropriate for him to express his concerns directly to the reporter and discuss between the two of them what Dempsey saw as the problem and how that sort of thing could have been handled differently. I don’t think he would have talked the reporter out of doing the story, but the discussion would have been good for both.

There have been opportunities since then for the Senate leader to raise the issue with reporters—the Senate majority information person has been good about getting the press together with the leaders every Monday afternoon, at least, and often more frequently as needed.  Understanding the relationship between the press and senators has never been something discussed before the start of legislative sessions.  It would have been useful and might be useful in the future when legislative leaders hold pre-session news conferences, not a matter of instruction but a matter of understanding operations of both sides.

But throwing an 18-pound ball (banishment to the gallery) instead of a 14-pound ball (discussing the relationship between press and legislator) is the wrong way to go.   The result is that the Senate is spending a bunch of taxpayers’ money it doesn’t need to spend, the press corps is antagonized, and an opportunity for a good working relationship has been lost.

And that, for whatever it is worth, is how the situation should have been handled.

Before departing, let it be noted that this is being written by someone who has not been part of the press corps for about fourteen months and is relying on information about the triggering incident and the resulting effects from others.  We’ll be glad to correct misimpressions about the circumstances if we have misunderstood them. But what this entry indicates, if it indicates anything, is that impressions made in the moment and lingering resentment that festers through time can produce unfortunate results that don’t really help anything.

Sometimes the brute force of an 18-pound ball is less useful than the better technique that goes with one weighing only 14.

Open government

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A government of the people, by the people, and for the people SHOULD operate from the presumption that its actions are open to those people.  But government is more likely to indicate it fears the people and tends to keep things secret.

There’s probably not a lot of objection to the first sentence. The second sentence has a certain two-way paranoia about it that might be more difficult to accept.

But the two sentences indicate a collision of the ideal with the practical and we’re seeing them played out—again—with legislation in Missouri and in other states on a topic that has emerged in recent years: police body cameras.

At this writing, the legislature has four bills before it instituting the use of body cameras by police officers when they’re on duty.  In three of the bills, the images captured by the cameras are to be kept secret by the police agency unless a citizen can prove to a judge that they should be made public.   It’s not a new standard.  The state open records/open meetings law has a lengthy list of exemptions for certain records, particularly police records.

Those of us who lined up years ago in favor of the so-called Sunshine Law and those who live by it and with it today have never been comfortable with the exemptions written into it even while admitting the difficulties in reconciling free press/fair trial issues.  Likewise, it’s a conflict between the general public’s right to know and the general public’s right to privacy.  It’s hard to believe a lasting solution to this matter of competing constitutional and public interests will ever be found.  That’s why courts have to consider the proper weight of arguments of the two sides in specific instances and decide which argument moves the needle on the scale of justice one way or the other.

There is a precedent of a sort that comes readily to mind.  As we recall, Jefferson City television station KRCG  asked the Cole County Sheriff in 1997 for county jail security video tapes showing the booking of a state representative picked up for DWI.  The sheriff didn’t want to release the images and filed a lawsuit to protect his position, naming the station as the defendant.  A circuit judge ruled the tape was not a public record.  A state appeals court upheld that ruling but sent the matter back to the circuit judge to calculate how attorney fees should be calculated.  The state supreme court intervened at that point.

The state Supreme Court ruled the videotape WAS a public record and ordered the sheriff to pay the attorney fees and other costs of the television station since the station was the requester of the records.  A pretty readable analysis of the case can be found at http://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol66/iss2/5.  That’s Missouri Law Review, 2001, issue two, article five.  Author Michele L. Mekel wrote that the court’s ruling eliminated “the possibility that a government agency will employ its resources to force an economically weaker record seeker to forego his or her right of access to public records due to the costs associated with being forced to defend in court.”

Two bills introduced in the Senate, however, provide that the person seeking the disclosure might have to pay the costs and attorney fees of the government agency if the citizen loses.  A bill introduced in the House contains the same provision. So a citizen or a media organization wanting to get the video from police cameras, under the proposed laws, would get stuck with attorney fees if they lose.  The situation recalls the story of a sixteenth-century British livery stable owner, Thomas Hobson, who told people visiting his business that they if they didn’t take the horse in the stall closest to the door, they couldn’t get a horse. We call that a “Hobson’s Choice” today.  As Frank Sinatra sang it, “All or Nothing at All.”

So the proposed bills appear to lean toward government forcing citizens into a Hobson’s Choice that the state Supreme Court seems to have addressed in the KRCG-sheriff case.

A similar issue is brewing in Indiana where the head of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police, Jason Dombrowski, says police would be reluctant to give up the body camera footage because of, among other things, the potential costs of open records lawsuits could lead police agencies to not use the cameras.   On the other side is the Chairman of the Indiana Broadcasters Association, Dave Crooks, who thinks that “most people would have never seen the videos that have been released out of Chicago involving the police incident shootings” if Illinois had the law being considered in Indiana.

And we can’t ignore the issue of harassment.  Some will argue public release of body cam footage will help curtail what they see as police harassment of private citizens.  On the other side is a concern that the blanket ruling that all body camera video is a public record can produce citizen harassment of police in one way or another.

But in a government of the people, should a person who thinks an officer has abused him or her in a traffic stop have to risk paying the police department’s attorney fees if the motorist wants to see the body cam footage?   Or, should police departments have to face lawsuits by motorists who are angry about being stopped and seek revenge by filing a lawsuit?

Legislators are asked to balance those issues.

The state laws—several touch on assumptions that government shall operate in an open manner—generally say openness will rule UNLESS otherwise provided by law.  That’s why the introduced bills include the loser-pays language (that the Missouri Supreme Court ruled many years ago could tilt the scales against the information seeker).

Should the language in law say government records will be open unless the agency takes action to defend its decision to withhold them—and the agency shall bear the costs of defending its position, win or lose. All the citizen would have to do is notify the agency that the citizen disagrees with the position and asks for arbitration through the court system.  If the agency wins, it’s a cost of doing business and the citizen is not liable for the agency legal costs.  If the agency loses, it should pay any costs that the citizens have borne in questioning that policy.  If government of the people, by the people, and for the people really means anything, this might be worth considering.

Admittedly, this could be called “the lawyers’ full employment” position.  But in a country that supposedly believes in a system that puts the people above the government, the issue is worth discussion.  And if we look at history, we find ample examples the political system and society will adjust, accommodate, and move on when authority over people is adjusted to lean toward the people—as long as the people act responsibly.

And that’s the balance.

Is this next?

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Too bad Representative Mike Pitts serves in the South Carolina legislature—because he’s the Missouri Senate’s kind of guy.

Pitts has introduced a bill he calls the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law.”  Missouri Senate leader Ron Richard might want to take a look at it.  Richard, you know, has decided the Senate just cannot have reporters at the press table on the Senate floor because one of them had the temerity to tweet something the former Senate leader thought he was saying privately to another senator (within hearing distance of the press table) and instead of the former leader talking to the sin-filled former press table occupant, he complained to Richard who, now that he is in charge of the joint, has decided EVERYBODY who covers the Senate is too leprous to be that close to senators.  He’s establishing a special colony in one of the side galleries. The Senate has voted 24-6 to support the establishment of the colony and the Senate Ministry of Information is trying to restrict access to senators even from there.

Representative Pitts has a bill in a South Carolina House committee that would “establish requirements for persons before working as a journalist for a media outlet and for media outlets before hiring a journalist…to establish fines and criminal penalties for violation…”

He demands that anyone “seeking to register” has to provide a criminal record background check, a document from the journalist’s employer attesting to the person’s journalistic competence, and pay a registration fee.  In return, the person can cover the news for two years.  But the South Carolina Secretary of State can revoke the registration if, among other things, that person is later fond “not competent to be a journalist.”

Who, in Pitts’ view, is not competent to be a journalist?  Anybody who has been found by a court to have committed libel, slander, or invasion of privacy, someone convicted of a felony if the felony was committed “to collect, write, or distribute news or other current information for a media outlet.”  Of course, people like Pitts are the ones who write definitions of “felony.”

Here’s a good one: A person is not competent, in Pitts’ view, if that journalist “has demonstrated a reckless disregard of the basic codes and canons of professional journalism associations, including a disregard of truth, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability, as applicable to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public.”  Someone like Pitts, I guess, would make that determination.

What happens if someone works as a journalist without being licensed by the state?

First offense is a $25 fine.  Second offense is a $50 fine and maybe fifteen days in jail, too.  A third offense is a $500 fine and perhaps thirty days in jail.  And if the employer doesn’t ditch the creep, the employer can be fined.

BUT, if this were law in Missouri, that person could still sit at the press table in the Senate, at least until March 29 when the leper colony is supposed to be open.

Rep. Pitts has told the Charleston Post and Courier that he’s not a “press hater.”  He’s just upset that the press doesn’t respect Second Amendment rights and “has no qualms about demonizing firearms.”   And he asks, “Do journalists, by definition, really adhere to a code of ethics?”

The answer is, generally, yes.  And, generally, it is adherence to professional standards that makes politicians uncomfortable, especially when money is tied to their political positions.  And Pitts was the target of a Post and Courier investigation on that subject when it reported that Pitts, a hunter, took trips to Alaska and three other western states to “hobknob at summits with ‘sportsmen legislators.’”  On one trip, he used campaign money to pay for gas in his rental car.  Pitts is a member of the South Carolina House Ethics Committee.

The newspaper quotes the head of the South Carolina Press Association, Bill Rogers, who points out that “The Constitution doesn’t say anything about responsible journalism, it says free journalism.”

Pitts, by the way, also once tried to have the state ban the use of United States currency and replace it with gold and silver coins minted in the state because he objected to the way Congress spends money and the way the federal government prints it.

Yep, he’d fit right in here.

 

Missouri Monocracy

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

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

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

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

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

All 163 seats in the House will be in play. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A loophole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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