Category Archives: Politics

I’ve reported about fakes but I’ve never done fake news

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Some friends think I should post a little speech I gave last month at the Missouri Broadcasters Association Convention.  The MBA has paid your faithful scribe its highest compliment by making me the first news director in its Hall of Fame.

Understand that a lot of people worked with me to report the news on the Missourinet for forty years.  And several helped me develop whatever talent I possess that let me be a reporter, which I think is about the greatest job in the world.  To spend a lifetime on the front line of events that affect the way all of us live and being paid to tell others about those things—well, I can’t think of anything I would rather have done. And it’s something I decided I wanted to do in the fourth or fifth grade.

Here’s the speech that several people say they liked (I deviated from the script from time to time):

Thank you for this recognition of a life’s efforts that have been achieved with the hard work, inspiration, support, cooperation, and—at times—the protection of many, many others.

Dr. Ed Lambert was my first broadcast professor at the University of Missouri, and Mahlon Aldridge of KFRU was my first general manager, a man who let many young people find out if they really wanted to be in this business by working at the radio station there. And Ray Rouse, who put me on the air for my first newscast in February of 1963.  And then there’s Clyde, who has been such a good friend for a long time.

These are people who taught me and who exemplified for me the very concept that radio should be of a community, not just in a community. They taught me these things and I continue to carry those thoughts and ideas—and ideals—through my life.

They taught me that the words in the old phrase, “public interest, convenience, and necessity,” especially the last word, are vitally important and should be important to radio. They speak of an obligation beyond ourselves and our bottom lines.

I want to single out one person worthy of great gratitude from me—-and probably great sympathy from all of you:

My wife, Nancy, has tolerated a husband whose work week usually reached 70 or 80 hours, who sometimes brought dinner to me at the Capitol in a covered plate.  She now knows the challenges of having me in the house at lunch time. We are dealing with that crisis one day at a time.

In forty years at the Missourinet we had a lot of outstanding reporters in an aggressive newsroom that could not be intimidated, or bought, or persuaded to ignore issues and people who deserved the spotlight. We were protected by the founder of our company, Clyde Lear, himself a journalist who understood the importance of a free, unafraid, press, and the necessity in a free society of an informed public—informed by that free and responsible press.

Long ago, while a student being shaped as a Journalist at the University of Missouri, I first heard the words of Walter Williams, the founder of the world’s first School of Journalism, who wrote, “I believe in the profession of Journalism.  I believe that the public journal is a public trust, that all connected with it are to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.”

Those words were the touchstones of our Missourinet newsroom and they are the unspoken aims of free journalists everywhere. Unfortunately, they seem to mean much less to many of those who control our stations today.

I had The Journalist’s Creed translated into the Romanian and Polish languages when I was sent to those countries to run seminars on developing independent news operations after the fall of the Iron Curtain. And I distributed those words to the young, idealistic journalists who were then starting to emerge in those now, free, countries.

This is a good time, I think, for the first news director in your Hall of Fame to make a very strong point or two—and in doing so I hope not to be considered ungrateful for this honor.

In my half-century plus as a journalist first—a broadcast journalist, second—I have never—ever—-broadcast “fake news.” The Missourinet never once did “fake news.” We worked with hundreds of news people at dozens of stations throughout Missouri, some of whom are in this room tonight, and not once did any of them ever give us a story that was “fake news.”

Those who accuse people like me of doing fake news are accusing people like me of being liars.  I don’t lie.  We didn’t lie. The Missourinet today doesn’t lie. And our affiliate news people who fed us thousands of stories never lied.

When it comes to integrity, I will stack the people I worked with in my newsroom or people in the newsrooms throughout the state that we worked with against the claimed integrity of those seeking or holding positions of power any day of the week on any standard of integrity.

It might seem to some that those who accuse people in my profession of doing “fake news” are only painting the national news organizations with that brush. But there is a splatter that taints all journalists, and I do not believe it is unintentional.

My good friend Dan Shelley, who has gone from sending us stories from KTTS in Springfield to being the Executive Director of the Radio Television Digital News Association, recently observed that, “In today’s divisive, vitriolic environment, journalists should watch their backs but not back down. The only antidote to attacks on responsible journalism is more and better journalism.”

So let me put it plainly: Wherever in our industry there is fake news, it is not likely to be in newsrooms that are free from political, economic, and corporate pressure.  But to the misfortune of our communities, to our state, and to our nation, our increasingly corporate-dominated industry has—in too many places—eliminated that independent, local, voice entirely—has reduced it to insignificance, or has turned the independent local news departments into corporate mouthpieces.

It might be argued—perhaps SHOULD be argued—that our industry is complicit in undermining the work of the shrinking number of people in our newsrooms because of the constant and badly imbalanced drum beat of division, derision, denigration, and distrust that goes forth on our airwaves hour after hour, convincing people they are victims of—rather than partners in—the American system of government..

In effect, we splatter ourselves, and in doing so, we do a disservice to the people of integrity— the reporters, news directors, and editors, the photojournalists in whose programs candidates and special interests might buy time but should never control content. , and in those stories that are insulated from those who seek to make journalists only their partisan public relations tools.

This is a time for all of us to find courage, the courage to build public trust in ourselves by taking more seriously our roles as trustees of for the public, and being more of a “necessity” than the furniture store in the next block, the clothing store at the mall, the  yogurt shop up the street.

It is time for less manipulative talk, and time for a commitment to more significant news that helps our public think for itself.

I am intensely grateful to the Missouri Broadcasters Association for this wonderful recognition. What I have said tonight is what I have been and what I still am, and the hopes I have that our industry can be more of a necessity for more people than that furniture store in the next block.

It is a great honor to be in company with so many people for whom I have such great regard.  Thank you for this recognition.

If reading these remarks is not enough for you, you can watch them being delivered (with some additional material ad-libbed and some nice things others said—including from the first two reporters we hired at the network, Jeff Smith and Charles Morris) at https://www.mbaweb.org/bob-priddy/.  It is nice of people to say those things while I’m still on the green side of the grass.  I think we could do a better job of saying things like these to each other before they are said around a box while soft organ music is playing.

The reference to “public interest, convenience and necessity” originally was in the federal public utility law and was written into the Federal Radio Act of 1927, the first law setting operational standards for the new medium of radio. It was carried over into the 1934 Federal Communications Act.  There are those who think the phrase, often criticized for vagueness, became a dead phrase after deregulation of broadcasting in the Reagan years.  I believe it called for a certain amount of industry responsibility that is lacking today.

One of the lines I had in the speech that I left out was “I have never done fake news but I have done news about fakes.”   This event was held on June 2 and I thought it best to leave some things unsaid that would otherwise have diverted attention from the points of the speech.

So there it is.  Some people stood up and clapped afterwards.  That was pretty nice.

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A pithy observation

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Saw something I hadn’t seen in about fifty years a few weeks ago.

(I wonder if I’ll ever be comfortable saying I remember things that happened fifty or sixty years ago?  Probably not the only old coot who thinks about that.)

A fellow named Bill Powers of Martinsville, Indiana, was wearing what appeared to be a pith helmet.

Bill was one of the hundreds of people who don yellow shirts every year and volunteer to help hundreds of thousands of people find their way peacefully and safely at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  He’s been one of those volunteers for twenty-seven years.  His wife was another “yellow shirt” as we call them in another part of the track.  Twenty-seven years.  That’s probably pretty close to the average.  A lot of folks take a lot of pride in being part of the logistical force behind The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, year after year.

Bill was one of those checking the credentials of folks entering the pits or the garage area at the Speedway.

It was the pith helmet that stopped me as I headed to the garages from the pits on the last practice day before the race.  Not a real pith helmet. It’s a modern reproduction, painted yellow with Speedway insignia attached.  He told me that he and Eric Sample, who was working in the parking area, had them.  I hope they catch on.

A check with Speedway historian Donald Davidson confirmed the pith helmets were replaced with caps about 1966 or 1967.

Real pith helmets are made of pith, a material from an Indian swamp plant called the Sola. It also can be made of cork or other fibrous material. It’s light weight and is intended to shade the head and the face of the wearer from the sun. The first ones were worn by Spanish forces in the East Indies and then adapted by the French when they became involved in what was called Indochina (now Vietnam), where the weather is humid.  In time, it was seen, for good or ill, as symbolizing colonial rule as more and more European countries took control of areas of the Far East.  It became standard headgear for people living in tropical climates and is still worn by soldiers and civilians in Vietnam and is ceremonial dress for some military units in Britain, Canada, and Monaco. Some of our mail carriers still use them and some U. S. Marine instructors still use them.

They haven’t been at the Speedway in a long time. But maybe Eric and Bill have re-started something.  Frankly, this reporter thinks Bill looks pretty distinguished in his. Didn’t get a chance to talk to Eric.  Finding him would have been kind of a needle/haystack proposition.  The attendance on race day was estimated at about 300,000.

The Indianapolis 500 is called the single largest one-day sporting event in the world.

Think about the logistics of a Missouri Tiger football game when the team is really good and drawing 75,000 fans to Memorial Stadium in Columbia.  People are needed to direct fans to parking places, to collect money for tickets or parking fees, to run concession stands, to clean up spilled food and drink, to treat those overcome by heat, steep stairs, and booze, to usher people to the right seats—it goes on and on.

Now imagine a crowd four times that size on a 93-degree day, some of them there to just party, not to pay much attention to the amazing displays of skill that are happening on the track.  Imagine pre-game ceremonies that involve hundreds of marching band performers, thousands of fans on the track before the start-engines command is given, parades of vehicles with honored guests, singers, a military flyover—sometimes by a plane from our own Whiteman Air Force Base, and finally the start of the race.

You need a lot of people to herd a lot of folks in and out of various venues, numerous grandstand sections, restrooms, a big museum, food and drink concessions, souvenir stands, inspection stations where large coolers, backpacks and purses are checked—just getting through the “in” and “out” gates.

A large percentage of those helpful people are the volunteers in the yellow shirts like Bill Powers.  And they are unfailingly nice—at least we’ve never run into one who was anything but courteous and helpful (and firm when necessary).  I’m not sure I could keep my cool on a hot, congested day as these folks do year after year.

Go here, not there.  You’ll find what you’re looking for over there.  You’re not allowed beyond this point, sorry.  If you hear one blow a whistle, look around. Something might be coming—a tractor pulling a race car, a crew member with a stack of tires, an ambulance, a truck, maybe even a race car by itself—and they move pretty fast sometimes even when not on the track.  You are in the way and maybe in harm’s way if you don’t move.  Nothing personal, just be aware.

We’ve said it before. It’s too bad we don’t have people in yellow shirts like Bill keeping order at a disorderly time in our politics.  Somebody in a yellow shirt and a pith helmet could do a lot of good there.

(photo credits: Rick Gevers, Bob Priddy)

Notes from a quiet street (July, 2018)

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(being a collection of anecdotes that are not bloggity enough to merit their own entry)

That big red brick house a couple of blocks east of the Capitol is being given a new name by some political observers.  You know, the Executive Mansion?

Or, as they call it now, the Parsonage?

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Jut shootin’ the breeze with some friends the other day when the talk turned to politics. This was back before the governor resigned and before the separation of children at the southern border became a dominant issue in the news.

One of the participants at the table suggested a way President Trump could get congressional approval of the money he wants to build a border wall. The answer, said the keen observer to my right was, “Since he promised in his campaign and has said repeatedly since his election that Mexico would pay for the wall, why doesn’t Congress agree to let him have that money—-as soon as the President of Mexico transfers it to the United States Treasury?  He keeps his campaign promise; money isn’t taken away from other programs; and congress can move on to other things.”

There were several noticeable nods of agreement from the folks at the table who, by the way, were from various parts of the political spectrum.

—

One of the joys of the tedious hours of searching through old newspapers for one article or even one line of one story for an article or a book is the little surprises that pop up.  Here’s one of those little surprises, a story about why husbands should let their wives know they’re appreciated.

University Missourian (before it became The Columbia Missourian), Thursday, September 24, 1914:  LEAVES HIM A BED AND ROOM.

She evidently was tired of supporting her husband—was Mrs. Anna Hickam, who died at her home six miles southwest of Columbia day before yesterday.  Anyway, her will reads like it.  Here is what it says:

“I have contributed largely to the support of my husband for a number of years, and I now give to him the bed-stead, bed and bedding now used by him in my home, and a room in the frame house just south of my residence so long as he desires to occupy the same, feeling that he has already received his full share of my property, and as he draws a pension from the government he should be able to take care of himself.”

Mrs. Hickam left all of her property to her daughter, Mary E. Morris.”

—

There are at least three women named “Nancy” at the YMCA where your correspondent goes three times a week to remain fit, a place where one of the computer screens says, “You’re only one workout away from a good mood”—and I agree that I was in a better mood before my first workout.  I am married to a Nancy.  Two other fellows I talked to at the “Y” have wives named Nancy.

The Nancy inundation has led yours truly to see if all of these ladies are from a generation where Nancy was one of the most popular names for new babies.  Nancy, by the way, is a diminutive of the Hebrew “Ann,” a word for “Grace,” according to one source.  So if you know of anybody named Nancy Grace, you know a walking redundancy.

Well, it turns out that Nancy suddenly became a very popular name in the 1930s.  It cracked the top ten in popular girls’ names in 1934, was seventh from 1944-49, topped out at number 6 on the charts in 1950 and then started a decline that saw it fall from the top ten in 1956.  The Behind the Name website says Nancy was the 900th most popular name for girls in 2016.

The Social Security Administration says there were 18,303 babies named Nancy per each million baby names in 1947, more than ten times the number in 1909.  But you won’t find many new Nancys now.  The rate dropped to 80 per million last year.

So, yes, all those Nancys (Nancies?) are part of the twenty-year long Nancy explosion.

Grace be unto all of them.

Remember the document

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Tomorrow is Independence Day. But in too many places, it will be just a Fourth of July holiday.  Some places have events honoring veterans—although it is likely few, if any, of these events will remember to mention the veterans who should be recognized on Independence Day—the Revolutionary War veterans who might be buried in their community’s oldest cemeteries.

The Woodland Cemetery in Jefferson City, for instance, has the graves of Christopher Casey and John Gordon.  Casey also was a veteran of the War of 1812. They were young men when they likely heard one of the first readings of the Declaration of Independence.  And they fought to make that independence come true.

They are two of more than 350 Revolutionary War figures believed to be buried in Missouri.

Rather than make the ceremonies of this day another day to honor contemporary veterans, this should be the day to celebrate the document that declared our independence and proclaimed that the thirteen British colonies were equal partners in the formation of a new nation deserving equal rank with all other nations, the document that men like Christopher Casey and John Gordon defended in a revolution underway before the Declaration was written.

Princeton University Professor Danielle Allen, to whom we have referred in earlier entries, suggests in her book, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, that all of us need to read the Declaration slowly and in detail and think about why it was written, what it meant then, and what it means today.  She maintains it’s far more than a 240-year old statement of reasons for breaking away from England.

We class the Declaration in the same category as the Lord’s Prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a lot of church hymns—things we read, sing, or say (often in the wrong way) by rote, without giving any consideration to what we’re really saying.

Allen concludes, “There are no silver bullets for the problem of civility in our political life.  There are no panaceas for educational reform. But if I were to pretend to offer either, it would be this:  all adults should read the Declaration closely; all students should have read the Declaration from start to finish before they leave high school…It would nourish everyone’s capacity for moral reflection.  It would prepare us all for citizenship.  Together we would learn the democratic arts….The time has come to reclaim our patrimony and also to pass it on—to learn how to read this text again—and to bring back to life our national commitment to equality. It is time to let the Declaration once more be ours, as it was always meant to be.”

Allen’s book, in fact, explains line-by-line and sometimes word-for-word why the Declaration says what it says. Reading the document is one thing; understanding it is another.  And Independence Day is a time to do both.

In this era of ego-driven, selfish, and hurtful politics, it is time to seriously ponder the last sentence of the document’s text.  “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

There are those who will see only the words “divine Providence” and start making divisive proclamations about a Christian nation.  But they miss the entire point of the sentence and, indeed, the entire point of the Declaration if that is all that they recognize because, in doing so, they avoid acknowledging the commitments these men made to one another and to us—and a commitment we should be renewing on this day.

Some will see that last sentence in sharp contrast to today’s politics of mutual destruction.  Professor Allen makes it clear in her book that the Declaration was heatedly debated by strong personalities who, in the end, found the powerful words proclaiming the birth of a new nation.  In comparison, the hours of debates we have heard in the legislature and watched in the Congress are insignificant.  And at the end of those modern debates, the participants walk away without a thought to their lives, their fortunes, and whatever honor they might still have.

Those men in Philadelphia knew this nation would not be independent just because they said it would be.  Their final sentence committed each of them to stand with the others to fight for that independence, no matter the cost, no matter their differences.  As Allen puts it, “They are building their new country, their peoplehood, on a notion of shared sacrifice.”

Allen thinks the pledge that united these passionate, disparate, individuals was based on the understanding that each of them was equal to the others. “They all pledged everything to each other.  Since the signers made their pledges as representatives of their states, they were also pledging their states and everything in them.  They staked their claim to independence on the bedrock of equality,” she wrote.

Their pledge to one another of everything of value to them, she says, is an understanding that this diverse group recognized all were equal in creating this new system and, “They do so under conditions of mutual respect and accountability by sharing intelligence, sacrifice, and ownership.  The point of political equality, then, is not merely to secure spaces free from domination but also to engage all members of a community equally in the work of creating and constantly re-creating that community.”

Equality is the foundation of freedom because from a commitment to equality emerges the people itself—we, the people—with the power both to create a shared world in which all can flourish and to defend it from encroachers…Equality & Freedom.  The colonists judged them worth all they had.

Would that we in this era, when the focus is on achieving and defending power over others, could have leaders and candidates with the courage to rally all of us to equally share the sacrifices and the responsibilities of being a whole people.

It is time for us go beyond the Fourth of July and pledge to one another on Independence Day that we are, as they were, bound together equally in constantly re-creating better communities and a better nation, pledging

OUR lives.

OUR fortunes.

OUR sacred honors.

Missouri, the Seuss State, and the importance of “no”

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“I call them Thing One and Thing Two…                                                                             Then those things ran about                                                                                               with big bumps, jumps and kicks                                                                                        and with hops and big thumps                                                                                             and all kinds of…tricks.”

Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat gave us two Things and they have become part of our conversation in various ways through the years. The story comes to mind because history has never given Missouri a Governor-Lieutenant Governor combination with the same first names. Until now. Mike 1 and Mike 2.  Governor Mike Parson and Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe.

Missouri has had five governors and three lieutenant-governors named John, but the state capitol has never had two Johns at the same time.  We’ve had three Josephs as governor and one Joseph as lieutenant-governor.  But never together.

But on June 1, 2018, Missouri began to enter the Seussical Era. And now we have a couple of cats wearing a couple of new hats. Mike 1 and Mike 2.

As the good doctor wrote in another of his other best-selling ruminations on life:

“Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won…
Fame! You’ll be as famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t
Because, sometimes they won’t.”

We wish Mike 1 and Mike 2 a service without big bumps, jumps and kicks or tricks.  However:

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There is another issue beyond the legality of the appointment that piques our interest about the twoship of state government.

Article 4, Section 10. There shall be a lieutenant governor who shall have the same qualifications as the governor and shall be ex officio president of the senate. In committee of the whole he may debate all questions, and shall cast the deciding vote on equal division in the senate and on joint vote of both houses.

The Missouri Constitution carries over language written in 1875.

Today we pick a philosophical fight that suggests the lieutenant governor should always break ties in the senate and on those occasions when there is a joint vote by both the House and the Senate (the provision was written at a time when Missouri’s U. S. Senators were elected by the legislature) with a “no.”

Our argument is certainly open to discussion and we would welcome it in the comment area at the end.

Under our Constitution, the lieutenant governor is both fish and fowl, both legislative and executive in nature, the successor to the chief executive if something befalls the chief executive, and the presiding officer in the upper house of the legislative branch.

To test this idea, let’s suggest a circumstance in which the presiding officer in the upper legislative house breaks a tie with a “yes” vote on a bill.  Before the bill is truly agreed to and finally passed, the chief executive becomes unable to perform the duties of that office, thus elevating the person who broke a tie on a piece of legislation into a position of signing the bill into law.  The situation is at best awkward.  Under certain circumstances, signing the bill could create a conflict of interest because a vote cast to keep an issue alive during the legislative process might conflict with a new governor’s obligation to serve all of the people of Missouri.

So, let’s argue, the tie should always be broken in the negative.  Why?

Because it is the responsibility of those chosen by the people in the legislative districts to represent those constituents in finding agreement on a proposed law affecting all Missourians.  The Executive Branch, which is not chosen to specifically balance the rights of specific constituents, should not take legislators off the hook.

If the legislature, which is entrusted with enacting statutory policy that one should expect to be fair to all, cannot draft a policy that draws majority support, then its failure should not be excused.  And the lieutenant governor should not excuse that failure by voting “yes.”

Please note that we began by referring to this as a philosophical fight. In the real world, of course, there is partisanship and special interest favors to be considered, which is why a lieutenant governor who happens to be of the same party as the majority in the state senate is likely to let the majority party off the hook by turning a failure into a partisan success.

A “yes” vote to break a tie dismisses the value of half of the state’s population.  A “no” vote recognizes the place of both sides in the system of government, and demands that the people’s representatives work harder on an equitable policy for all.

A “yes” vote is politics.  A “no” vote is statesmanship.

The Replacement

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Governor Parson wants the legislature to pass a law allowing lieutenant governors who ascend to the governorship to appoint a new lite gov.  Sounds simple.  But maybe it isn’t. Then again, maybe it is.

“It needs to be done. I don’t like the state of Missouri being without a lieutenant governor,” he said after being sworn in. The feeling at the capitol is that he’ll call a special legislative session to clear up any doubt that he could make an appointment.  He thinks a lieutenant governor is important in the transition from the Greitens administration to his administration.  He does have a transition committee working with him.

He has not indicated if he’ll summon lawmakers into special session soon or wait until the regular September veto session and have a special session that runs concurrently with it—a more economical move.

Governor Parson did not mention the issue in his speech to the joint legislative session yesterday, which for all intents and purposes had more the flavor of an inaugural address than his remarks after his swearing in ten days ago.

The Missouri Constitution allows the governor to “fill all vacancies in public offices unless otherwise provided by law.”  State law, however, does not allow the appointment of a new lieutenant governor, state senator or representative, sheriff or recorder of deeds in the city of St. Louis. The Constitution also has a provision that, “If any state officer other than the lieutenant governor is acting as governor, his regular elective office shall not be deemed vacant and all duties of that office shall be performed by his chief administrative assistant.”  The provision is a delegation of authority of an elective official to a bureaucrat while the elected official is running the state. It’s not a particularly bad idea. The chief administrative assistant is likely to know the duties and operations of the office and by virtue of the position should be able to go to meetings, attend conferences, and make administrative decisions.

But it’s not a good idea for the lieutenant governor because it would lead to an unelected bureaucrat becoming governor if a vacancy occurs in that office a second time within a four-year term. In all honesty, and with absolutely no offense intended to present company, there probably are bureaucrats who could do the governor’s job and do it well.  But the highest elective office in the state should stay in the hands of somebody of a higher level than a bureaucrat.  Or at least, that’s what some people are likely to think, maybe most people.

And for bureaucrats who read this note, don’t get your feathers ruffled. The author appreciates bureaucrats.  He’d better.  He married one.

Governor Nixon vetoed a proposal a few years ago that would have applied the same standard of bureaucrat-in-charge to the office of lieutenant governor, saying that wouldn’t be appropriate.

Well, then, what should the new law say?  That’s for the professionals to decide.  But there is room for amateur comment.

The limits on filling legislative or certain local offices make sense because those are decisions left to community or district voters to make to begin with.  The lieutenant governorship is or should be in these circumstances a statewide decision.

It would appear, then, the question is whether to give the governor the appointment power or to give the governor the authority to call a special statewide election.

This is where things can get complicated.

Should the process of filling of the vacancy be different if it occurs because a lieutenant governor moves into the governorship versus a vacancy that occurs because a lieutenant governor dies or otherwise vacates the office?

Example: Governor Bates died in 1825. There was no lieutenant governor because Benjamin Reeves had resigned to survey the Santa Fe Trail. The Senate President Pro Tem became acting governor but the lieutenant governor’s office remained vacant.

In what way should consideration of filling the lieutenant governor vacancy alter the present line of succession for the governor’s office?  Now it’s governor, lieutenant governor, Senate Pro Tem, House Speaker. An appointed lieutenant governor would render the current succession provisions irrelevant, wouldn’t it?

What if the governor whose departure created the vacancy was of a different party from the lieutenant governor who rises to the governorship?  If the voters created the difference, should not their wishes be honored in the appointment process?  For instance:  Had Eric Greitens been the Democrat he once was and Mike Parson be the Republican he always has been, should a Governor Parson with appointment authority be required to appoint a Democrat lieutenant governor to maintain the different party governor-lieutenant governor relationship established by the voters?

The key question is whether the system should allow a governor to, in effect, appoint his or her successor or potential successor?

The issue becomes even more acute if the vacancy occurs in a campaign year.  Should a governor give a candidate for the lieutenant governorship a leg up in a primary or general election by appointing that person to that position?  The question holds whether the vacancy occurs before or after the filing window for candidates.

Suppose 2018 was an election year for lieutenant governor and the Greitens resignation had taken place before or during the filing period.  Would it be proper for Governor Parson to look at the list of potential primary candidates from his party and pick someone to fill the vacancy, thus presumably giving that person greater visibility, name identification, and possible fund-raising advantages over others who are interested in the job?

A proposal that briefly floated around in the recent regular legislative session called for senate confirmation of a nominated lieutenant governor.  We’re not sure that makes a lot of sense, especially if the vacancy occurs—as it has now—in May and the legislature is not mandated to be back until September.  Calling a special session just to confirm a new lieutenant governor will quickly draw criticism from those who suggest money is being wasted. And if a governor during a campaign year picks a state representative to fill the vacancy that a state senator wants to file for as a candidate, is confirmation by the senate less likely?  A deadlock on the confirmation process will serve nobody at a time when the obligations of the office need someone to meet them.

Calling a special election will be even more costly and such a proposition is likely to be criticized if it does not include a primary to allow any hopefuls to have their chance, a process that is likely to leave the office vacant for an unacceptable amount of time.

Of course, it’s entirely possible the legislature will not spend a lot of time kicking these and other ideas around and will just pass a bill saying the governor can appoint a lieutenant governor whenever there is a vacancy in that office and let the system play itself out, knowing that some people will have fits no matter what direction the bill debate takes or what form the bill finally has.

Some other miscellaneous observations as long as we’re chatting about this stuff:

The Constitution eliminates any uncertainty about whether somebody who would not be qualified to be governor could be appointed lieutenant governor—a 22-year old political phenom, for instance.  The constitution says the lieutenant governor shall have the same qualifications as the governor—at least thirty years old, a citizen of the United States for at least fifteen years and a resident of the state for at least ten years before the election.

The issue of replacement of the lieutenant governor is something we have been looking at since the Roger Wilson-Joe Maxwell days and as is the case with many things in politics, identifying a problem is far easier than identifying a solution.

But it’s about time the issue was addressed and it’s good to see that it is.

And then there’s this twist: The constitution says no governor can be elected to more than two terms EXCEPT in cases such as that which has befallen Mike Parson.  Section Seventeen says, “No person who has held the office of governor or treasurer, or acted as governor or treasurer, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected to the office of governor or treasurer shall be elected to the office of governor or treasurer more than once.”  So Governor Parson, by taking over for more than half of the Greitens term faces a shorter term limit than governors elected without having filled out someone else’s term.

Why are those two offices singled out? Because they are the offices of greatest power.  The administrator of all of state government and the person who has his or her hands on the state’s money.  And that’s where term limits really should be focused—not on length of service but on limits to power.   Unfortunately, Missouri voters fell a long time ago for the faulty idea that service is more dangerous than power and in doing so gave away their right to continue electing representatives and senators that they trust to write the laws under which all Missourians are supposed to live.

But that’s another rant and a distraction from today’s issue.

What do we do with the increasingly busy office of lieutenant governor when there’s no lieutenant governor to conduct all that business?

It’s time to decide.

Next?

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There’s a new sheriff in town. But the shadow of the old one lingers.

Mike Parson is in the governor’s office. The circumstances of the leadership change and the character of the new governor are reminiscent of events of forty-four years ago in Washington when Gerald Ford replaced the resigned Richard Nixon.   And the tone of new governor’s early remarks is familiar to those who remember or who have read Ford’s remarks upon taking the oath of office.  “Just a little straight talk among friends,” said Ford, not an inaugural address.

Thomas Jefferson said the people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. And down the years, Abraham Lincoln renewed this American article of faith asking, “Is there any better way or equal hope in the world?”

I intend, on Monday next, to request of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate the privilege of appearing before the Congress to share with my former colleagues and with you, the American people, my views on the priority business of the Nation and to solicit your views and their views…

…I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad.

In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.
My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

The leaders of the legislature already have invited Governor Parson to speak to a joint meeting of lawmakers gathered for the special session called to consider disciplinary action against Governor Greitens who with his family has been moved by Two Men and a Truck to their home at Innsbruck.  We wonder if the neighbors brought covered dishes and other welcome symbols to the Greitens house or whether they are waiting to see how the Greitens emerge once everything is unpacked.

They have left behind in Jefferson City the wreckage of the Greitens administration and the special House committee appointed to investigate whether impeachment articles should have been filed against him.  A special prosecutor is watching from Kansas City.

Should the committee continue to work?  Yes.

Should its subpoenas for Greitens documents be honored? Yes.

Should the special prosecutor keep investigating?  Yes.

The Speaker of the House might need to revise his order establishing the committee to authorize it to continue accumulating information about the way the Greitens administration functioned. The issue now might become the governorship itself.  And in examining how the governorship of Missouri should be managed, it is important to understand how the responsibilities of office were administered and what controls should be expected or placed on the administration of that office.  The task, therefore, might become more complicated and might require the committee to broaden its move toward conclusions, most of which might be based on what it learns about the way Eric Greitens administered the governorship.

After all, the work of the committee is the kind of thing Eric Greitens once said was important to the people of Missouri.   A year before he took office, he told St. Louis Public Radio there would be no secrets about the sources of his funding.

“The most important thing is that there is transparency around the money. We’ve already seen other candidates set up these secretive super PACs where they don’t take any responsibility for what they’re funding … because that’s how the game has always been played. I’ve been very proud to tell people, ‘I’m stepping forward, and you can see every single one of our donors.’”

We now know that he spoke with a forked tongue.  But he also repeatedly referred to himself as “the people’s governor.”  And the people deserve to know what he said they should know—about him, particularly.  He did not step forward and let people see “every single one of our donors.” The committee, to the best of its ability, should keep his promise for him.

On the day of Greitens’ resignation, information came out that the use of Confide, the app that destroys e-mails as soon as they are read, was far more extensive than Greitens had admitted or that Attorney General Hawley had uncovered.

Does the use of that app and the late revelation of the extensive use of it constitute obstruction of justice?   Lawyers can fight over that issue but the committee’s investigation of the matter is clearly warranted as an extension of the exploration of possible abuses in office by Eric Greitens, whether the destruction of Confide emails violated state records retention requirements, and whether those requirements should be amended.

The record of the administration of “the people’s governor” must be presented to the people he promised to fight for (to use another phrase he was fond of using).  The historical record of the seventeen-month administration of Eric Greitens must not be incomplete.

What the legislature has been doing since the revelations of the governor’s extramarital affair and the escalation of actions on both sides is a lesson that can guide future legislatures and future governors—and governor candidates—for decades to come.  Someday a long time from now, we hope, another legislature will look back for guidance at what the House and its committee have done and are doing. Let the record for our posterity be as complete as possible.

Resignation accomplishes several things.  Two things it should not accomplish, however, are to shield someone from history and to restrict the value of lessons from our time that may guide future generations.

Collateral Damage

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Eric Greitens thought the Missouri governorship would be a step toward the White House. Instead it became a step off a cliff.

He was, as he claimed in his campaign, an outsider, which might be the only part of his campaign that turned out to be true.  He did not clean up state government, as he promised.  His administration is more likely to be remembered for arrogantly being an example of what he promised he would fight.

Six days before he announced he would resign, Team Greitens sent out a typical Greitens message:

“We knew that these baseless allegations would be exposed for what they really are: false attacks brought forward by powerful liberals and Democratic leadership. And that’s exactly what’s happened. The cases against him have been dropped or dismissed.”

Team Greitens knew that not all charges had been dropped or dismissed, knew that the pit was only growing darker.  And Team Greitens surely knew the claimed falsity of the attacks was growing weaker by the day or even by the hour. 

In his announcement of his impending departure, he went back to familiar themes voiced less than a week earlier that, frankly, sounded convincing only to his do-or-die supporters:

“This ordeal has been designed to cause an incredible amount of strain on my family. Millions of dollars of mounting legal bills, endless personal attacks designed to cause maximum damage to family and friends. Legal harassment of colleagues, friends and campaign workers, and it’s clear that for the forces that oppose us, there is no end in sight. I cannot allow those forces to continue to cause pain and difficulty to the people that I love.”

He can blame the “corrupt career politicians” who were his proclaimed enemies as much as he wants.  He can blame “liberals” for destroying the “conservative agenda” he was fighting for as much as he wishes. He can claim the ordeal his family and supporters have been through was “designed.” He hasn’t used the term “fake news” to describe the media that covered his hypocrisies and his personal and political failings, but he did try to control the message and manipulate its delivery as no governor before him had done—and, we hope, as no future governor will try to do—and did blame the media for reporting “lies.”

He can blame everybody he wants to blame but the blame begins and ends with Eric Greitens.

Significantly, he did not announce his planned resignation until a former campaign worker provided some devastating information to the special House committee considering whether to file articles of impeachment and not until a Jefferson City circuit judge had ruled that the committee was legally entitled to obtain documents from the Greitens campaign fund and from the nonprofit organization he set up to push his agenda—including ads attacking those who opposed him, even legislators within his Republican Party.

In truth, Eric Greitens ran for the office of Unit Commander, not Governor.  In the end he still has a platoon of loyalists churning out toothless rhetoric blaming everyone for his situation but Eric Greitens.  Somewhere along the way this much-vaunted SEAL team member forgot the importance of being part of a team.  As far as we know, SEAL teams don’t go around calling each other names and insinuating that they’re not worth being on the same team as the leader.  But then, leaders don’t accomplish much when they shoot at the people they need to have behind them.

But Greitens did that repeatedly with his broad-brush condemnation of the members of the General Assembly. He did not seem to recognize during his campaign and never seemed to concede during his time in office that he could accomplish little without forming relationships in the legislature. Somewhere in his highly-publicized great education he apparently ignored the idea that there are three branches of government, not just the one in which he served.

There is a sense of betrayal about the governorship of Eric Greitens.  He wasn’t what he said he would be.  Some would even argue that he wasn’t even what he said he was.

The saddest thing about Eric Greitens is the damage he has done to others because people like him take others down with them, many of them innocent.  All of the people who believed he could take them along in ever-higher circles of power and influence, even as the evidence piled up against him to the contrary, are now his victims, his collateral damage. They now are seeing his disappointment while dealing with their own and that of their friends.

“The time has come…to tend to those that have been wounded, and to care for those who need us most,” he said in his resignation announcement. 

“Those who have been wounded” include many voters who supported him because they bought his promises to make government cleaner, more principled, more of a service to all of the people, more honorable. They were not wrong for believing in him because we have to believe in somebody’s words. It would not be surprising if many of those voters who supported him because they deeply distrust government find their distrust even deeper now because Eric Greitens seems to have turned out to be at least as bad as those he disparaged during his campaign. They are collateral damage not just now but perhaps in the future because some will wonder even more if they can trust anybody seeking or serving in public office.

There’s one victim in particular who might be collateral damage, who might be the most wounded of all.

We think of this person because of something we heard another former governor talk about many years ago.

In 1976, Missouri had a young, ambitious governor who was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party, so much so that President Gerald Ford had him on his list of potential running mates when the party held its convention in Kansas City that year.   The young governor would be challenged for re-election by a populist who focused his campaign on promising to do what he could not do legally or economically—fire the Public Service Commission and lower utility rates.  Christopher Bond and his campaign failed to recognize the popularity of the Joe Teasdale promises, unrealistic though they might be, and never strongly attacked those promises.   In November, Bond lost by about 12,000 votes.  A career trajectory that might have taken him to the highest national levels nosedived.

Afterwards he spoke of the impact his crushing disappointment had on his then-wife, Carolyn.  His dreams of a second term as governor and then a rise to greater position nationally seemingly had been killed by that election outcome.  But, he recalled, the burden was double for her.  A First Lady of the state, married to a man whose political future seemed unlimited before November, 1976, saw her own dreams crash and burn in that election, too.  She had to deal with her disappointment while also dealing with his.  She carried a double burden.

We do not presume to know how Sheena Greitens has dealt with, is dealing with, or will deal with the events that have led to her husband’s downfall.  The cold reality is that those who attach themselves to a rising star whether family or friends or believers should understand that they can get burned when the star becomes a meteorite.  That does not, however, lessen the pain when that happens.

But wallowing in despair will do none of them any good.

The earth won’t stop turning while people such as Eric Greitens and his supporters rant against the collapse of their worlds or mourn their personal losses.  History is replete with examples of those who stumble or fall whose dishonor is not their doom.

The premature end of a governorship is not necessarily the end of life in public service, elected or not.  And the world doesn’t care if Eric Greitens and his friends feel sorry for themselves. He has no one to blame but himself although it might take a while for him to admit it.  He has to get on with life without being in government.

—because government will get on with life without Eric Greitens. And so will the people of Missouri.

We are reminded of some of the words from Carl Sandburg’s great poem, The People, Yes:

The people will live on.

The learning and blundering people will live on.

They will be tricked and sold and again sold

And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,

The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,

You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it…

 

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief

the people march.

In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people

march:

“Where to? what next?”

 

Whether state government learns any lessons from the Greitens experience and in so doing develops the courage to take actions that will rekindle confidence among the people it serves or whether it will allow the people to “be tricked and sold and again sold” is something to watch for. But many people who were skeptical about government before Greitens used that skepticism to help him get elected are even more skeptical when they see how he turned out. The job of turning them around will be even harder now should anyone make a sincere effort to try.

But, as somebody once said, the mission continues.

It is what it is

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And what it is, is the last week of the second session of the 99th General Assembly of Missouri. This week had been a two-fer until Monday afternoon when the invasion of privacy case against the governor was dismissed.  Reporters until then had to try to keep one eye on the legislature’s actions and the other on the court actions in St. Louis.

This session seems to have had less pointed—and tiring—partisanship than some sessions in the past, perhaps because both parties have focused on a governor who has few friends among lawmakers instead of on the politics of each other.  Legislative leaders, particularly Speaker Todd Richardson and Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, have worked hard to keep the general assembly focused on its job, even when its job in the House of Representatives has included an investigation of the governor.

Both Richard and Richardson are leaving the legislature early next year when their successors are sworn in.  Richard has had his eight years in the House and his eight years in the Senate and the people in his district will never again have a chance to let him represent them again because of term limits.  Richardson could run for the Senate someday. But he has not filed for any office for this year’s elections.

Their jobs won’t really be done as of 6 p.m., Friday, though. The special session that can focus entirely on the governor begins half an hour later.  Lawmakers will have a month to decide if he should be impeached—and the attention of an investigating committee is increasingly focused on the governor’s dark money operations, some of which have produced attacks on legislators who have not forgotten or forgiven. And new revelations keep accumulating about the governor and dark money.

This has turned into a legislative session nobody signed up for.  Events since opening day and the later State of the State message from the governor have scrambled whatever the legacy this session leaves. Maybe that legacy will include a bequest for the 100th General Assembly to handle.

One of the densest shadows over this session is that of dark money.  Lawmakers have talked of doing something about it for years but haven’t done it.  It has become, regretfully, oxygen to too much of the political system.

Memory tells us that the best time to change a poor status quo is the year after an election when the pressure of winning another term is lessened for a few months.  Perhaps 2019 will be a good time to recall a couple of memorable things attributed to the colorful former Speaker of the California Assembly, Jesse M. Unruh, who said, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

But his more important observation is, “If you can’t take their money, drink their booze, eat their food, (have sex with) their women and vote against them, you don’t belong here.”

Maybe next year’s lawmakers will be the ones to do more than complain about dark money.  Trouble is, many of them will have benefitted from it.

The Missouri Capitol has many mottos that were carved into its walls more than a century ago to inspire the public and its public officials to noble actions.  Maybe it’s time for a new one, starting with, “If you can’t take their money…..”

 

 

 

Getting an earful

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Among the greatest inventions in world history is the ability to record sound and movement. Until Thomas Edison came along with a waxed cylinder that preserved sound, there was no way to hear the great singers, orators, preachers, reformers—or others who shaped cultures unless you were where they were.  And until the motion picture, there was no way to preserve moving images of those who made those sounds.

Part of President Benjamin Harrison’s speech in 1889 is the oldest known surviving recording of a President’s voice. The oldest moving image of a President dates to 1897, a film of the inaugural procession of William McKinley.

The combination of sound and film appears to have been demonstrated in 1900 in Paris but it was more than twenty years before motion pictures with sound became commercially affordable to produce.

This around-the-barn-and-through-the-back-door kind of story-telling in which we sometimes indulge brings us to the story of the death of Judge Harry Stone on April 16.

Judge Stone was the fictional judge of a Manhattan night court, played by comedian and magician Harry Anderson.  A video of Anderson’s “Hello Sucker” night club act is available on YouTube.  At the end, Anderson passes along some advice from famed New York newspaper columnist Damon Runyon.

The advice is useful to heed during campaign years.

If you are a fan of great Broadway musical theatre or Hollywood musicals based on Broadway musicals, you recognize the names of Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson as being creations of Runyon and main characters in Guys and Dolls.

The advice comes when Detroit bets Masterson one-thousand dollars that Mindy’s delicatessen sold more strudel than cheesecake a day earlier. Masterson refuses to take the bet and explains:

“When I was a young man about to go out into the world, my father says to me a very valuable thing.  ‘Son,’ the old guy says, ‘I’m sorry that I am not able to bankroll you a very large start.  But not having any potatoes to give you, I am going to give you some very valuable advice.  One of these days in your travels, you are going to come across a guy with a nice brand new deck of cards, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear.  But, son, do not take this bet, for if you do, as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an ear full of cider.’”

Every two years when campaign time comes around, it’s advisable to recall that advice.  If you don’t, you need to always carry a towel.