Category Archives: Politics

Suspension (a continuation of last week’s discussion)

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Last week’s entry about whether a governor facing a criminal charge and/or impeachment could be suspended with or without pay until his or her criminal situation cleared up brought a response from longtime colleague Bob Watson, who has had his nose deeper in the statute books and the Missouri Constitution than your faithful scribe has had his.

Bob thinks we already have what was discussed in that entry, pointing to Section 106.050 of the statutes, reading, “If any officer shall be impeached, he is hereby suspended from exercising his office, after he shall be notified thereof, until his acquittal.”

Bob also recalls that when the Attorney General tried to oust Secretary of State Judi Moriarty after her impeachment, the Missouri Supreme Court suspended her with pay until her impeachment trial ended. The ruling said the only allowable means of removal of a statewide elected official is through the impeachment process and the legislature could not legally enact laws automatically removing any elected executive official.

And three responses to last week’s entry (posted with the entry) from Bill Thompson offered similar clarifications.  We thank Bob and Bill for their assistance.

Our entry last week spoke to suspension before impeachment, however.  But suspension does involve removal from the office and it seems Bob is correct that a suspension before impeachment wouldn’t work.  It seems, therefore, that our point last week that a governor is, indeed, not like other workers who can be suspended upon filing of criminal charges. In his case, impeachment charges have to be filed, too.  Or at least as we now understand it.

We had overlooked one possibility covered by Article IV, section 11B of the State Constitution, which sets up a Disability Board made up of the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, the auditor, treasurer, attorney general, the president pro tem, the speaker of the house, and the majority floor leaders of the two chambers.  That board has the power to declare a governor unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, upon which finding the gubernatorial succession protocol kicks in.

That only time we know of that such a board met and took action was in the hours immediately after Governor Carnahan’s plane crash, before confirmation of his death.  The board met and cleared the way for Lt. Governor Roger Wilson to become acting governor until there was that confirmation, at which point he was sworn in as the governor.

While some have questioned the governor’s ability to govern under present circumstances, he has been making the point that he can “discharge the powers and duties of his office,” by making appointments and making public appearances and speaking as the elected chief executive of the state.

The discussion highlights the uniqueness in Missouri history of today’s situation, however.  However it turns out will be an important guide should Missourians ever face something like this again.

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In a related note, we see that Rachael Herndon Dunn, the editor of the Missouri Times newspaper (which is different from the Missouri Times quarterly newsletter of the State Historical Society of Missouri and the earlier Missouri Times newspaper of the 1970s) says in the latest edition of the newspaper’s magazine that the three people she would pick, if she could pick three people to join her for dinner, would be Bob Griffin, Bill Webster, and Eric Greitens.

Interesting.  But what could they possibly have in common to discuss?

Not just another employee

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Last week’s entry, “The Process,” caught the eye of fellow former Capitol scribe Steve Kraske, once the ace political reporter for the Kansas City Star and now an associate teaching professor at UMKC.  Steve also does a weekly radio show about current events on NPR affiliate KCUR-FM.   He decided we needed to talk about “The Process” on his Monday show this week.

http://kcur.org/post/seg-1-gov-greitens-and-process-impeachment-seg-2-saving-historical-records-umkc

In preparing for the program, it occurred to THIS former Capitol scribe that the person who holds the highest elective office in state government does not have one of the privileges that people in other walks of life have when they get into trouble.  We don’t know how having that privilege would change the way events are developing, but the idea of instituting it might bear some thought.

In private business as well as in state and local government, a person suspected of breaking the law or of violating company standards can be suspended with or without pay until legal proceedings determine if that person is guilty.  If they are, the suspension becomes termination.  If they are found NOT guilty they can expect to be made whole by their employer.

But—as far as we know—the legislature can’t suspend a governor until the courts have made their determinations.  Impeachment during that period is not suspension. It’s flat-out removal.  And if the governor is found NOT guilty, he or she has no expectation of being restored to their position.

When it comes to a governor, it’s an in-or-out matter.  And that’s a matter of concern for the governor and those in and out of the legislature as impeachment talk continues.  As we write this, we have not heard how the signature-gathering on the petition for a special session to consider impeachment is going. Three-fourths of the members of both houses have to sign the petition.  Pro-impeachment lawmakers have made their sentiments known, often loudly.  But the governor only needs twenty-six percent of the legislators to refuse to sign and the special session push fizzles.

If suspension were to become part of state law, the Lt. Governor would be the acting governor until the case is resolved.  If the governor is cleared, the Lt. Governor goes back to his or her smaller office and the governor returns to the big oval room.

Would such a system be less unpleasant than what we’re watching now?  Probably depends on the governor/legislature relationship.  Should the legislature have the power to, in effect, fire the governor before a legal determination is made in the governor’s legal cases?  It has it now.   But is it right?  Isn’t there or can’t there be some structure that gives the governor the same privilege lesser citizens have when they become targets of suspicion?

We’re just asking.

The Process

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This is a time of strong opinions, strong statements, and strong actions.  In such times it is important to recognize there is The Process.

The Process often is ugly.  The Process often is painful. The Process often seems to take longer than it should.

But The Process is what assures us that there is order.   And without order there is no justice.

This is one of those times when The Process emerges from its normal daily work to become a prominent factor in our state political system.

This observer has seen two Speakers of the House and one Attorney General sent to prison. He has seen a Secretary of State impeached and removed from office. He has seen a State Treasurer exonerated after being charged with profiting from state funds. He has covered criminal proceedings against at least seventeen members of the House and three members of the Senate that resulted in convictions or guilty pleas to misdemeanors and to felonies.

In forty years of front line reporting in state government, he watched 1,032 people serve in the General Assembly, interviewed or covered (in one form or another) eleven governors, nine lieutenant governors, eleven Secretaries of State, eleven state auditors, ten state treasurers, and eight attorneys general.  Now he is watching something new and wondering how, in the end, this circumstance will fit into the list of those mentioned in the earlier paragraph.

For the first time in state history a sitting governor faces both criminal proceedings and the potential for removal efforts.  People from both sides are calling for him to resign.

The Process has become his greatest protection as well as his greatest threat.  It diminishes emotion.  It provides a structure for a balanced determination of justice.  It is not perfect but The Process gives balance in times of fierce attacks and equally fierce denials.

A special House committee has presented its first report of the legitimacy of allegations against the governor, who has called its work a “witch hunt.”   The committee was led by an honorable chairman, wisely picked by a Speaker who has chosen to respect The Process despite the difficulties the committee’s hearings might cause for several people whose lives have been altered by events. The committee has not judged the governor but it has concluded the key witness against him is credible.

The governor says the report was drafted without any testimony in his own defense. The committee reports the governor refused invitations to testify.  The governor says he will testify after his criminal trial ends and that is within his rights. Simply put, the stakes are higher in his criminal trial than they are in the committee’s study.  Potential loss of office is serious but not nearly as serious as a potential conviction and possible loss of freedom in the criminal case.  The governor’s decision is not really that hard to make under those circumstances. It is a legitimate part of The Process.

While the committee’s first report seems to be devastating news for the governor, it also is valuable news to the governor because it provides him and his defenders with a strong preview of the kind of testimony they will have to attack in the criminal proceeding next month.  It also provides them with a challenge.  They must determine how to undermine the credibility of that testimony without antagonizing a jury.  The governor says he is confident a jury of his peers will exonerate him.  His lawyers gain through this report an understanding of a fine line they will have to walk in disputing the validity of the testimony without making the witness so sympathetic in the eyes of the jury that the jury of peers tilts the wrong way for their client.

It’s The Process at work.

The committee report strengthens and increases the resolve of those who demand the governor resign. But it also strengthens his position that he should stay because a report is not a jury nor are those demanding his resignation jurors.  As long as The Process considers a person innocent until proven guilty within The System, he is innocent.

He still retains the powers of governor although his ability to govern remains badly weakened. But if he resigns the office he was elected to hold and then is found not guilty of criminal charges, he has no way of returning to the office in which the voters chose him to serve.

The Speaker and the President Pro Tem have said the legislature will start its process of convening a special session to consider penalties for the behavior described by the committee’s witness.  Voters in 1988 approved a constitutional amendment letting the legislature convene itself in special session for as many as thirty days without a call of the governor.  Article III, Section 20(b) says the session can be called by three-fourths of the members of the House and three-fourths of the members of the Senate, a big requirement but a possibility given the committee report and the existing poor relations between the governor and the legislature.

The House does not have the power to remove the governor.  It can only file charges.   The Senate, in the case of a sitting governor, does not have the power of removal either.  Its authority rests in appointing seven “eminent jurists” to conduct a legal proceeding.  Again, The Process brings the matter into The System where justice is determined, we should all hope, in a non-partisan and less emotional setting. Only those jurists can determine if he should forfeit his office.

This also is a time for firm hands on the reins in the legislature.  While the committee continues investigating the governor—-and there is no indication when it might drop the other shoe—the legislature still has about five weeks to focus on its lawmaking responsibilities.  The legislature must provide a budget that will keep government services going to the people who need them.  It also must determine the fates of several issues that will affect the hourly lives of Missouri citizens. That is its responsibility until 6 p.m., May 18.

It is not precluded, with three-fourths of the members agreeing, during that time from setting a date for the House to begin impeachment proceedings in a special session.  It might choose—out of respect for The Process—to set dates that do not conflict with the governor’s right as a citizen to obtain a fair trial. That’s The System, maintaining order in the legislative process.

The governor, as is his prerogative, is entitled to his office until he is removed or disqualified from holding it.  While retaining his position is not popular with many people, it is his prerogative.

The Process is in place and it is moving.   It is protecting the governor while at the same time threatening him, as it would do with you and me if we were facing serious accusations.  The result might not be what you or I would prefer.  But The Process is, in the end, our best hope for justice for you and me.

And for the governor.

(image credit: brainyquote)

‘Tis the season for crowing

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It’s a campaign year. Filing for state offices is ending. There’s something about this editorial from the July 17, 1924 Jefferson City Daily Capital News that struck us as appropriate.  Not sure exactly why, though.

The Lowly Rooster

The rooster is a gentleman chicken and serves as press agent for the hen. When the hen has laid an egg the rooster tells the world. Nearly all well-advertised products are excellent, and the egg is no exception.  The contents are untouched by human hands and the sanitary wrapper has no equal.  Things happen to the contents, however, despite the wrapper, and as a result eggs are divided into three classes: “strictly fresh eggs,” “fresh eggs,” and “eggs.”  When those of the first class are worth 60 cents the dozen, those of the second class are worth 40 cents and those of the third class are not worth a darn.  Ancient eggs are useful only in political and dramatic criticism.

When the rooster is very young nobody knows whether he will turn out to be a rooster or a hen; but in a short time he begins to develop spurs and a comb that confesses his sex, and then he is called a frying chicken. If he is a very small rooster he may live to a ripe old age and then, being deprived of feathers, head and feet, may be called a frying chicken still.  Very large roosters that live to a ripe old age may be treated the same way and called turkey.

The rooster has many traits in common with man.  He fights when required to repel an invader; he affects the mannerisms of an important citizen while at home and is cowed in strange surroundings; and when he gets atop a fence or in any manner climbs above his fellows, he crows about it.

Crowing is offensive, as a rule; but in the rooster’s case it is not objectionable for he is ready at any time to back it up with his spurs.  When he is engaged in an argument with another rooster he does not hug his opponent to avoid punishment, and if the enemy’s superior prowess and strategy drive him from the field he will retire to a little distance and there throw back his bloody head and crow to proclaim his spirit unbroken.

The rooster does no useful labor, but he begins crowing at about 4 A. M., and anybody with pep enough to wake up and begin strutting his stuff at that hour in the morning deserves the respect of mankind.   

Apply it as you will, if you wish.

Succession

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What happens when the office of Missouri Governor becomes vacant?   That’s an important question but a more complicated one is what happens when a vacancy in the office of governor leads to the vacancy in another office? We’ve been asked about this in recent days. And, as we emphasized last week, we do not want to anticipate what might happen in this difficult time for so many people, but people have asked. So we will explore that a little bit.

Before we plunge into today’s topic, we want to offer a clarification to our last column about impeachment. The Missouri Supreme Court does indeed handle impeachment trials of state officials EXCEPT in the cases of Supreme Court members and Governors. In those instances, the trial is conducted by “seven eminent jurists” elected by the Missouri Senate. We thank our longtime friend King Marc of Arcania, from whom we have not heard for too long. Arcania is a small kingdom within the Missouri Capitol. Now, on with today’s exploration.

Some recall that we offered some thoughts several years ago in the wake of the death of Governor Carnahan and the ascension of Lieutenant Governor Roger Wilson to the governorship.  That’s provided for in the Missouri Constitution.  After that——

Well, it appears to his non-lawyer that all of the cards are wild.

Blame Bill Phelps.

Back in 1972, State Representative William C. Phelps of Kansas City was elected Lieutenant Governor under the campaign promise that he would make the office a “full-time” job.  Full-Time Phelps, he was called.   Until then, the light governor’s main job was to preside over the Senate—a job the Missouri Supreme Court later limited—and to step in when the governor died or was incapacitated.

Well, Phelps created some new responsibilities for that office and the legislature over time assigned more duties to actually make it a full-time post.  So now we have an office that has obligations.  And if the person in that office has to move up to the big room on the second floor, what happens to those obligations?

Simply put:  They remain the obligations of an office that has no one to fulfill them.

The gubernatorial succession part of our Missouri Constitution says the President Pro-Tem of the Senate becomes the Governor if the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor die or are incapacitated.  It does NOT say the Pro-Tem moves up to Lieutenant Governor if that office becomes vacant.  Nor does it say the Pro-Tem assumes the responsibilities of that office.  It might be illegal anyway because that would mean that person would have one foot in the Executive Branch and the other foot in the Legislative Branch.  The Pro-Tem could not resign from the Senate and move into the Lieutenant Governor’s office because there is nothing in the Constitution that allows that. Besides, if that person resigned to take the office, he or she couldn’t take the office because their resignation would take them out of the line of succession.

The Missouri Constitution is silent on how the obligations added to the office since the Constitution was written more than sixty years ago are met when the office becomes vacant.

The office did go vacant for a short time in 2000 until Governor Roger Wilson appointed Lieutenant Governor-elect Joe Maxwell after the November election to hold the job until his regular term began in January, 2001.   The question was raised then, however, whether that appointment was legal.  The Missouri Constitution appears not to give the Governor the power to appoint someone who could become his successor should the Governor resign or become incapacitated. Maxwell has always maintained that legal experts consulted at the time felt the appointment was legal.

The legislature tried to solve that problem in 2013 but Governor Nixon vetoed it.

The bill would have left the office vacant until the next election.  It said that a staff member of the departing Lieutenant Governor would be picked to handle the ministerial duties of the office.  The Senate President pro tem would handle the Lieutenant Governor’s duties in briefly presiding over the Senate.  Nixon called that situation “confusing and untenable.”  He did not want the constitutional duties of the office turned over to a “vaguely defined staff member.”  He also noted the bill called for a general election for the office but did not mention a primary election.  That was important, he argued, because it meant the political parties would select the contenders for the office, not the people.

Nixon did not like the bill’s lack of definition of “ministerial duties” nor its failure to formally create a process to appoint the person to do those jobs.  His veto message questioned the propriety of having an unelected staff member replacing a statewide elected official, particularly if that position became vacant because of impeachment or criminal activity involving the office.

Those who follow Missouri politics will recall that the issue arose when Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder was thinking about trying to replace Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson, who had resigned to take a lobbyist job.  When Kinder did not win his party’s nomination, the issue faded away. At the time, Nixon—a Democrat—maintained he could appoint a new Lieutenant Governor.  The Republican-led legislature disagreed.

The issue now has arisen three times in less than twenty years.

There have been several times in Missouri’s history when the office stayed vacant until a new Lieutenant Governor could be elected. Eight times in the first seventy years of statehood the office remained vacant. The longest time was about forty-one months. That was the first time. Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Reeves resigned to join the party surveying the still-new Santa Fe Trail. When Governor Frederick Bates died in the summer of 1825, Senate President Pro Tem Abraham Williams, a one-legged shoemaker from Columbia, became the Governor. He was confronted by the question of whether the state could afford an election to pick a new governor or whether he should remain. He chose to have an election in which John Miller was elected to finish the Bates term and then was elected to a full term of his own. He remained the longest-serving Missouri Governor (in terms of consecutive years) until Warren Hearnes became the first governor elected to a second consecutive four-year term in 1969. Williams then returned to his Pro Tem role in the Senate.

There was no Lieutenant Governor after Lilburn Boggs succeeded Daniel Dunklin, who resigned to become United States Surveyor General for Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas (he was responsible for the Missouri-Arkansas state line). M. M. Marmaduke succeeded Thomas Reynolds, who committed suicide in 1844 and the number two office remained vacant. Lieutenant Governor Wilson Brown died in office in August of 1855 and the office remained vacant until January, 1857. The office was vacant for eight months when Hancock Lee Jackson succeeded Trusten Polk after Polk was elected by the legislature to the U. S. Senate early in 1857. There was no Lieutenant Governor when Willard Hall replaced Hamilton Gamble, who died in office in 1864. The office was vacant for about eight months after Lieutenant Governor Joseph Gravely died in office in April, 1872. When Governor John Marmaduke died in office at the end of 1887, Albert Morehouse moved up to Governor and the office was not filled again until January, 1889.

Something interesting happened, however, in 1903 when Lieutenant Governor John Lee quit after admitting he had carried bribe money from the Royal Baking Power Trust to four Senators, buying their votes on a bill establishing the ingredients for baking Powder that shut down Missouri manufacturers and favored the Royal powder. Remember that one of the jobs of the Lieutenant Governor was to serve as President of the Senate. One contemporary newspaper account we have seen notes that Lee’s departure left the Senate without a presiding officer. Senators elected Pro Tem Thomas Rubey as the temporary presiding officer of the senate, i.e., the Senate President. With that designation, says the account, Rubey thus “fell heir” to the Lieutenant Governorship. Rubey is the only Pro Tem listed as a Lieutenant Governor.

The office was vacant for a few days when Frank Gaines died on December 30, 1944, a few days short of completing his third term in the office (which many years later made Peter Kinder the only person in Missouri history to COMPLETE three terms in the office. Walter Davis, who was elected to succeed Gaines, took office on January 8, 1945.

When Edward V. Long resigned to replace Senator Thomas Hennings, who died in the fall of 1960, Governor Blair did not appoint anyone to finish the term. Hillary Bush was elected a few weeks later and was sworn in in 1961.

Thomas Eagleton resigned just before Christmas, 1968 after having been elected to replace the retiring Stuart Symington. Symington resigned his Senate seat early so Eagleton could be sworn in a few days early, giving him some seniority over those who were not sworn in as senators until January. Governor Hearnes appointed William S. Morris to fill the rest of the Eagleton term until Morris could be sworn in for his own term as Lieutenant Governor.  That infuriated Pro Tem Earl Blackwell, a strong opponent of Hearnes (reportedly he was upset that Hearnes supported Morris instead of him in the campaign for the number two job), who threatened to throw Morris out of the chamber if he came in to preside.  Blackwell maintained the appointment was illegal. Morris didn’t darken the Senate’s doors until after he’d been sworn in for the full term.

The role of the Lieutenant Governor as the President of the Senate became so insignificant that in the 1980s, outgoing Pro Tem John Scott and incoming Pro Tem Jim Mathewson ousted the Senate President/Lieutenant Governor from the office created for that person and moved incoming Lieutenant Governor Mel Carnahan into some renovated committee rooms on a lower floor. What would have been Carnahan’s office became the Pro Tem’s office. When Kinder was Lieutenant Governor, he and the head of the Office Administration arranged for the Lieutenant Governor and the State Auditor to switch office rooms. The fulltime Lieutenant Governor’s office staff had expanded enough that it needed the extra space and most of the employees of the auditor by then worked in another state office building.

What’s the solution?  The legislature can try again to write a law.  Or a constitutional amendment that would fill the apparent void in the constitution.

When we wrote about this on the old Missourinet Blog several years ago, we suggested that the new governor appoint someone to serve in the office and carry out the duties of it, someone who would willingly become the target of a test lawsuit that could provide some clarity to what needs to be done to correct the problem—which means the lawyers on both sides would have to carefully word the lawsuit to achieve from the courts the desired result.  We suggested the person for the job be someone with no pretentions about using it for future political gain, perhaps someone with no particular party loyalty so neither party could make claims that the other was trying to take advantage of something.  The person would be content to be a footnote in Missouri history, a sacrificial lamb I think we called it, someone appointed to hold the office and see that its duties were carried out until such time as the courts and subsequent elections eliminated the problem.  A lot of people can gavel the Senate into session each day, call for the chaplain to pray, and run down the order of business before turning the gavel over to a senator to preside—which is what usually happens.

Perhaps the procedure used in the wake of Mel Carnahan’s death and posthumous election could provide a guideline for a clarifying law or amendment—allowing the governor to appoint a Lieutenant Governor to serve until the next general election when someone would be elected to complete the remainder of the term. As you might recall, Jean Carnahan served for two years in her husband’s place but lost a bid to serve he remaining four years.

Whatever. The answer is out there somewhere.

If only Bill Phelps had not decided to make the office a fulltime job…..

 

 

 

Removal

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It’s important to not get ahead of ourselves at a difficult time like this.  But some people who know that we dabble in Missouri history have asked if a Missouri governor has ever been impeached and removed from office.

The answer on impeachment is “no.” The answer to removal is “yes.” Herewith, we tell the tale.

Understand that impeachment is not the same as removal.  Impeachment is the filing of charges against an office holder by the legislature.  The removal trial is conducted by the Missouri Supreme Court.  In the 1930s, under a different State Constitution, the House impeached State Treasurer Larry Brunk.  At that time the trial was handled by the Missouri Senate, of which Brunk was a former member.  Two-thirds of the senators had to vote to remove him.  The Senate failed to get that two-thirds with some people saying it just could not remove a former member from a statewide office.  True or not, Brunk completed his term.

That circumstance led to a change in procedure when a new constitution was adopted in 1945.  It leaves impeachment to the House but the trial will be conducted by the Missouri Supreme Court.  The process has been used only once, in 1994-1995, when Secretary of State Judi Moriarty was removed from office.  The Supreme Court had to have a special witness box built for that occasion because the Supreme Court hears arguments only from attorneys. There was no testimony until this case came along.

The only governor removed from office in Missouri was Claiborne Fox Jackson in 1861. Jackson lied during his campaign by pretending to be against secession when actually he was plotting to take Missouri South. When he was sworn in, he immediately asserted that Missouri’s lot was tied to the fate of the seceding states.  The legislature refused to vote on secession and instead called for a special convention to be convened to determine the proper course of action. About six weeks after Jackson took office, the convention of ninety-nine men met to chart a course for the state. Jackson had been stunned when he saw no avowed secessionists were in that group, which voted strongly to stay in the Union.  He then declared Missouri would be an “armed neutral” if a civil war broke out.

When President Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand troops to defend the Union after the attack on Fort Sumter, Jackson replied, “Your resolution, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman, and diabolical and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any unholy crusade.”

By now, Jackson was clandestinely plotting with Jefferson Davis to move Missouri into the Confederacy. His big target was the St. Louis federal arsenal. He went so far as to ask Davis to send some cannons that could be used to seize it and ship its weapons to the Confederacy. But federal troops moved first.

Then-Captain, later General, Nathaniel Lyon, who was in charge of the arsenal, smelled out the deal and rounded up the troops Jackson was planning to use for the attack.  He also rejected Jackson’s efforts to keep federal forces out of Missouri, remarking that he would see every man, woman, and child in the state dead before he would let Jackson and friends cut a deal that would prohibit federal troops from entering the state. Lyon gave Jackson and his military aide, Sterling Price, an hour to get out of town.

In a late-night session at the Capitol, Jackson asked legislators to follow him to Boonville where Missouri volunteers were going to take a stand against the Union Army.   A couple of days later, Lyon and the Union Army took Jefferson City, and stabilized the situation by leaving a small unit of troops in charge of the town while Lyon got back on the boat and led his men to Boonville for Missouri’s first out-and-out-battle of the Civil War.  Jackson and Price were soundly whipped and headed south to the safety of Arkansas and a link-up with Confederate troops there.

A majority of the Convention of ninety-nine did not join Jackson and Price.  Although Jackson would maintain that he was running a government in exile, which soon declared it had seceded, he never had a quorum of the duly-elected legislature.

The Convention, back in Jefferson City, re-assembled in July and declared the office of governor to be vacant.  Former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Hamilton Gamble was installed as the Provisional Governor. Other statewide offices were declared vacant, too, and filled with loyal Unionists among whom was the famous artist George Caleb Bingham, who became Treasurer.

The legality of the convention’s actions is not above question.  But it was protected by a Union occupational force that wasn’t going to tolerate challenges to the convention’s authority.

We do not know specifically what Jackson swore to when he was sworn in as governor.  The 1820 Missouri Constitution, which was still in effect, does not contain any oath language for the governor or for the legislature.  Our present Constitution reiterates language from the 1875 Constitution: “I do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office, and that I will not knowingly receive, directly or indirectly, any money or other valuable thing for the performance or nonperformance of any act or duty pertaining to my office, other than the compensation allowed by law.”

That language only applies—in the Constitution—to members of the General Assembly. It is, however, the same language we have heard on a dozen occasions when governors have been inaugurated.  Pretty clearly, Jackson had violated his oath of office to “support the Constitution of the United States and the State of Missouri,” and thus was subject to actions removing him from office.  The legal standing of the Convention of 99 to do so has been argued, but wartime expedience prevailed.

Jackson died in 1862 and his elected Lieutenant Governor, Thomas C. Reynolds, became the leader of the self-proclaimed government in exile—which wound up headquartered in Marshall, Texas.  He was with Price on the 1864 last-gasp attempt to regain Missouri for the South, hoping that Price’s army could seize Jefferson City and he could be sworn in as the legitimate governor, probably swearing to support the Confederate Constitution. But Price decided not to attack the capital city after surrounding it—he’d already had one catastrophic fight at Pilot Knob—and he moved on.  Reynolds was irate but no amount of screaming and cursing could change the course of Price and his increasingly bedraggled troops who went on to a three-day fight at Westport before scrambling back to Arkansas, badly mauled by the Union Army.

And that’s the story of the only time a Missouri Governor was ever removed from office.

The office of Governor of Missouri has not become officially vacant since Mel Carnahan’s plane crash in 2000.  What happened then raised some questions about gubernatorial succession that remain unanswered.  We’ll have another history lesson next week.

Are you smarter than a third grader?

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We wrote this a year ago and put it in storage until we needed it.  We noted the other day that Representative Dean Dohrman has introduced a bill requiring people wanting to graduate from college to score at least seventy percent on a civics test before they can get their diplomas. He says he hopes the bill spurs greater civic education in our colleges.

That has led us to dig out this piece:

Suppose you had to take a test to be a Missouri voter.  More important, suppose those wanting to hold public office, particularly the six statewide offices and legislative positions, had to pass this test. Be honest, now, those of you who have taken oaths of public office—How many of you would be where you are now if you had to match this third-grade requirement (We, personally, would be a little nervous if we had to do this)?

And for those who voted to elect these folks, could you have voted if you had to prove competence to deal with these issues?  It’s kind of a lengthy examination.  Extra paper will be allowed.

Explain the major purposes of the Missouri Constitution. Explain and give examples of how laws are made and changed within the state.

Examine how individual rights are protected within our state. Explain how governments balance individual rights with common good to solve local community or state issues.

Explain how the State of Missouri relies on responsible citizen participation and draw implications for how people should participate.

Describe the character traits and civic attitudes of influential Missourians. Identify and describe the historical significance of the individuals from Missouri who have made contributions to our state and nation.

Explain how the National Anthem symbolizes our nation. Recognize and explain the significance of the Gateway Arch and the Great Seal of Missouri and other symbols of our state.

Analyze peaceful resolution of disputes by the courts, or other legitimate authorities in Missouri. Take part in a constructive process or method for resolving conflicts.

Describe how authoritative decisions are made, enforced and interpreted by the state government across historical time periods and/or in current events.

Identify and explain the functions of the three branches of government in Missouri.

Describe the importance of the Louisiana Purchase and the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Evaluate the impact of westward expansion on the Native Americans in Missouri. Discuss issues of Missouri statehood.

Describe the migration of Native Americans to Missouri prior to European settlement in the state. Describe the discovery, exploration and early settlement of Missouri by European immigrants. Describe the reasons African peoples were enslaved and brought to Missouri.

Examine cultural interactions and conflicts among Native Americans, European immigrants and enslaved and free African-Americans in Missouri. Examine the changing roles of Native Americans, Immigrants, African Americans, women and others in Missouri history.

Examine changing cultural interactions and conflicts among Missourians after the Civil War.

Discuss the causes and consequences of the Dred Scott decision on Missouri and the nation.

Explain Missouri’s role in the Civil War, including the concept of a border state. Describe the consequences of the Civil War in Missouri including on education, transportation, and communication.

Compare and contrast private and public goods and services. Define natural, capital and human resources. Define economy. Explain supply and demand.

Conduct a personal cost-benefit analysis.

Define taxes and explain how taxes are generated and used.

Explain factors, past and present, that influence changes in our state’s economy.

Read and construct historical and current maps.

Name and locate major cities, rivers, regions, and states which border Missouri. Describe and use absolute location using a grid system.

Identify and compare physical geographic characteristics of Missouri. Describe human geographic characteristics of Missouri.

Describe how people of Missouri are affected by, depend on, adapt to and change their physical environments in the past and in the present.

Describe how changes in communication and transportation technologies affect people’s lives.

Identify regions in Missouri. Compare regions in Missouri. Compare the cultural characteristics of regions in Missouri. Explain how geography affected important events in Missouri history.

Research stories and songs that reflect the cultural history of Missouri.Describe how people in Missouri preserve their cultural heritage.

Identify facts and opinions in social studies’ topics. Identify point of view in social studies’ topics.

Present social studies’ research to an audience using appropriate sources.

Whew!!

How can anybody be expected to know all this stuff?  Aren’t you glad you’re not an immigrant seeking American citizenship? Actually, immigrants don’t have to go through all of this stuff.

But Missouri third-graders do.

What you’ve just read are most of the Missouri Department of Education’s grade level expectations for third grade social studies students and their teachers.  How well students perform under these guidelines determines how competent they are considered to be and, by reflection, how competent their teachers are.

The impetus for this goes back more than two decades, to 1996, when the Show-Me Standards were developed to gauge student performance.  The Show-Me Standards were replaced by the Missouri Learning Standards that were required by the legislature to be written because the legislature didn’t like the Obama Administration’s Common Core approach.  The MLS are pretty close to Common Core, though. The state education department says the standards “are relevant to the real world and reflect the knowledge and skills students need to achieve their goals.”  The department also says they work best when administrators, teachers, students and parents share the goals.

This state is big on “local control,” so the standards do not require local districts to closely adhere to them. Districts can still make their own decisions about textbooks and teaching strategies and curriculum. But they’re measured on a standard gauge.

Your observer/historian was chatting with another observer/historian in a local coffee shop a few days ago about these standards and we agreed on a regrettable fact about them.

These are standards for third graders.  The teaching of Missouri history used to be done in the fourth grade but the department has moved that teaching back to grade three now.

Consider this, then (we admitted it kind of scares us): Missourians went to the polls in November, 2016 and elected people who are in office today who have had little education in Missouri history since third or fourth grade and whose teaching in Missouri government was limited to elementary school or maybe a poli sci class in college.  State law requires American history and United States government courses in high school (but no world history or government studies is required in this undeniable era of globalization).

But there is also this:  Both of us believe it takes extraordinary people to turn written goals into personal learning for fifteen to thirty children of incredibly diverse personal and cultural backgrounds every day in our classrooms.  Our lamenting the fact that a lot can happen in the decade from the time one is an eight-year old third grader and when one is an eighteen-year old first-time voter is in no way intended as a swipe at the public education system.  Neither of us could confidently assume that today’s decisions and situations would be better if the study of yesterday’s decisions and situations were fresher in the minds of those who voted and those who were elected. But it would help, we thought, if learning and voting were closer together.

How would we cure that problem?  When we considered all the things our school systems have to do and all of the problems students bring to school with them, we have to confess neither of us is close to an intelligent solution.

But wouldn’t it be nice if all of us, voters, candidates, office-holders alike, had to be as smart as third graders?

Waiting for the Nobel Prize

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Today we want to recognize an important first step in re-shaping economic thinking so significantly that reducing or eliminating the national debt could be done easily, a concept so brilliant that—if appropriately expanded—could merit international recognition.

The tax bill recently approved by the House of Representatives in Washington proposes to tax graduate student tuition waivers.  For those of us who never got far enough in our higher education to be offered those waivers or who came along before they were widespread in higher education, here’s how they work:

A University tells a student pursuing a master’s degree or a doctorate they will not have to pay tuition if they help teach or do research beneficial to the university.  The university pays those students a small stipend for their work so they can eat and pay their rent.

The House bill wants to consider the tuition waiver as income.   And to tax it.

It is a matter of considering money a person never has and does not spend as income and then levying an income tax on those never-had and unspent funds.   Think of the possibilities!

Paying a tax on the raise you did not get could provide millions of deficit-reducing dollars to the federal government.  Paying a tax on a stock dividend that did not materialize would add even more.  Considering the difference between what you wanted on a car trade-in and what the dealer gave you as income and taxing that amount would add to the deficit-reducing federal income.

Here’s one we thought of the other day when we went to Columbia where the gas price that day was nineteen cents less per gallon than the price in Jefferson City.  We used our grocery store gas rewards card to knock another forty cents a gallon off of the fuel we put in our tank.  Think how much the federal government could collect if it considered supermarket gas refunds as part of our personal income.

Soon the pre-holiday price reductions we are seeing in our stores will give way to the post-holiday sales prices.  If Congress were to take the simple step of taxing the hundreds of millions of dollars that are not spent because of those pre-and-post-holiday price reductions, the annual federal deficit could be eliminated and bites could be taken out of the total national debt.

The car companies are offering multi-thousand dollar incentives to clear their lots of 2017 models.  If Congress were to consider those price reductions as income and tax it, another important debt-reduction step could be taken.

Think of how much money is saved every single day by people who shop at the day-old bread counter at the grocery store.  It might seem like pennies for each loaf, but when applied nationally and for an entire year, taxing the savings on all of those loaves of day-old bread will add up to millions of dollars a year in tax collections.

Oh, and here’s a biggie.  An industry that decides to build a factory, a warehouse, or any other facility in a foreign country instead of in the United States because it can save millions of dollars in construction and operation costs:  If those savings were considered corporate income and taxed—even at the proposed lowered corporate tax rate—the economic benefit would be enormous.

And—oh, wait, there’s one more and it’s particularly appropriate at this time of year.  Further, it’s pretty comparable to the tuition waiver.   We are awash in online and catalog offers to provide customers with a benefit if the customer provides something of value to the merchant in return for which the merchant waives a fee or charge.  Give us money, says the merchant, and we will give you a sweater but we will waive the shipping charge.  Since the customer receives the benefit–a sweater—but spends no money to receive it, the shipping charge is thus income and can be taxed as such, just as a graduate student receives a benefit—an education—by providing something of value to the university (teaching or research assistance) but does not pay the equivalent of a “shipping charge” to get it and therefore faces paying income taxes on money never possessed or spent.

Think of the incredible benefits this economic philosophy of turning unspent dollars into taxable income could provide if applied widely, assuming the federal government doesn’t just increase spending to or beyond the amount of additional funds it would collect.  Congress could wipe out the national deficit and it could provide billions of dollars that could trickle down throughout America in programs and services beneficial to the poor, the hungry, the sick.

And to graduate students.

We’ll be watching for next year’s announcement of the Nobel Prize for Economics to see if this great advance is deservedly rewarded.

There used to be some courtesy—

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It is hard to imagine that we will ever see something like this article that was in the Jackson Independent, published in Cape Girardeau County on January 5, 1828:

GOOD EXAMPLE TO ELECTORS

The following resolution was unanimously adopted at a meeting of the friends of General Jackson, held in Northumberland County, Kentucky—

Resolved, That we will through the contest for the Presidential Chair, disprove of any vulgar, harsh and unbecoming epithets, or language used, either in relation to our own candidate or the administration party, believing that such things tend to inflame the public mind unnecessarily, and have injurious effects upon the morals of our country.

—Where are those followers of Andy Jackson when we need them?

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2017: A legislative anniversary that isn’t

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This is the seventieth anniversary of the first meeting of Missouri’s Unicameral General Assembly.

Not.

We’ve lost track of the number of years somebody proposed reducing the size of our legislature, usually by doing something mathematical with the number of Senators.   For instance, having three House districts for each Senate district. Using current numbers, that system would cut the size of the House from 163 to 102.  There have been proposals to increase the membership of the Senate to 35, presumably to avoid tie votes, with three or four Representatives per Senate district, for a total House count of 105 to 140.

The proposals might have gotten through the Senate but not surprisingly have had zero chance to finding favor in the House.

There was a time, however, when Missouri came close to eliminating the entire Senate.  All 34 members.   AND cutting the size of the House by one-half to two-thirds!

Imagine Missouri joining Nebraska as the only states with unicameral, or one-house legislatures.

Nebraska’s capitol actually has two legislative chambers.  The Senate, which has a Speaker, meets in the George W. Norris Chamber. The other chamber, used for ceremonial purposes, is called the Warner Memorial Chamber and was used by the Nebraska Senate for a short time before the change to the one-house general assembly beginning in 1937.

Missouri was not among the twenty-some states that immediately started considering switching to one-house legislatures but we weren’t far behind.  The issue was being widely discussed by the spring of 1941.  But opponents feared putting the issue on the 1942 ballot would deflect interest away from another important amendment that would give legislators their first pay increase since the adoption of the Missouri Constitution of 1875.  Lawmakers were paid five dollars a day for the first seventy days of a legislative session and then only a dollar a day for each day afterward.  Supporters of the pay raise believed higher pay would attract better men for the legislature (few women had served by then). But one newspaper suggested the opposite, remarking, “The people might look upon this pay increase with favor if at the same time they had the opportunity to reduce the number of lawmakers by half.”

An organization of businessmen announced in the spring of ’42 that they would circulate petitions calling for a unicameral vote in November.  The constitutional amendment would hike salaries to as much as $150 a month with six dollars a day for each day on legislative business.

A petition drive led by former state Superintendent of Schools Charles A. Lee submitted about 85,000 signatures to the Secretary of State on July 1, calling for a one-house legislature of fifty to seventy-five members as of the 1945 session.

But the whole campaign blew up a few days later when Springfield Justice of the Peace Tom Burns, known as a “marryin’ justice,” and a colleague, Erwin A. Greenhaw, were charged with arranging to have thousands of signatures forged in a “signature mill” in Burns’ basement, paying women and girls three-dollars a day to fake signatures.  Lee’s committee had paid them more than $2,500 to gather signatures on the unicameral petitions. His group withdrew the petitions, which killed the drive for the vote in 1942.  Burns and Greenhaw were later convicted on petition forgery charges. Burns spent two years in the pen. Greenhaw was fined $500.

The incident led State Representative Edgar Keating of Kansas City to introduce a bill in the 1943 legislature  “In recent years the initiative petition has gone to the point of being a racket,” he said, a statement buttressed by the admission of Notary Public Lee Weaver, who said he notarized many of the petitions without ever seeing the person who supposedly circulated them, admitting he had done the same thing for Burns and Greenhaw in the 1936 petition campaign that took the state’s conservation department out of politics.

The House passed the bill on February 25, by a vote of 112-0 with 38 members absent.  The strong vote made no difference to the Senate, which sent the bill to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee where it was never heard from again.

The issue returned in the long session of 1943-44 but was killed in a House committee when five rural members outvoted the two representatives from St. Louis city.  The amendment was similar to an amendment being circulated in a petition backed by a group called “Crusaders for Missouri.”

By now, a constitutional convention was underway, too.  A convention committee endorsed keeping the bicameral system, forcing delegate Stanford Lee Morton of Clayton to withdraw his unicameral proposal and plan to offer it in resolution form to the entire convention later. He wanted voters to have a choice when they voted on the proposed constitution but that idea was opposed by Con-Con President Robert E. Blake, an anti-New Deal Democrat from Webster Groves, and other delegates who wanted to send the proposed document to the vote as a single piece.  Morton had wanted an 81-member unicameral legislature with one Republican and one Democrat from each of the thirty-four senatorial districts and thirteen at-large members elected in partisan elections each of the state’s then-thirteen congressional districts.

When the Crusaders of Missouri submitted their petitions, Secretary of State Gregory Stockard ruled they were one day too late.  But the State Supreme Court said Stockard was mistaken and had to accept them.  This time there was no skullduggery and the petitions were found to have enough signatures to make the November ballot. The Crusaders plan called for a legislature of fifty to seventy-five members with a total payroll of $90,000 a year, the lawmakers elected in standard partisan elections to serve two-year terms. The 1945 legislature would decide the size of the new General Assembly, which would meet for the first time in 1947.

But the proposed state constitution got in the way.

The Missouri Supreme Court on September 27, 1944 guaranteed Missourians would get to vote on a unicameral legislature when it refused to review a Cole County Circuit Court ordering the issue to the November 7 ballot.

However, the convention voted the next day to send the proposed constitution to voters with a two-house general assembly retained.  And just before the convention adjourned with delegates singing one verse of “America” and a prayer that was the second verse of the song, the delegates set February 27, 1945 for voters to decide if Missouri would have its first new constitution in seventy years, a document 11,000 words shorter than the 1875 document that had been amended sixty times.

The Crusaders of Missouri decided to give up their campaign a week after that. The group said it feared its proposal would interfere with the adoption of the constitution.  Plus, adoption of a unicameral legislature in November would become meaningless if voters adopted the constitution with a two-house legislature in February.  The Crusaders asked Stockard to withdraw their plan from the November ballot.  But Stockard couldn’t do it.  Once on the ballot, it stays on the ballot, he said.

The Crusaders decided they would quit campaigning at that point.

On November 7, almost 365,000 Missourians voted for a unicameral legislature, only about 13-hundred fewer than approved calling the constitutional convention.  But 402,000 “no” votes were cast.  The unicameral proposition failed by just 37-thousand votes even though supporters had not campaigned for the last four weeks before the election. The plan carried St. Louis city and county and almost carried Jackson County. Outstate Missouri defeated it by 118,000 votes.

Missourians approved the new constitution in February, 312,032-185,658.  More than fifty-thousand fewer Missourians voted “yes” for the entire constitution than voted for the unicameral general assembly proposal.

A unicameral bill was introduced in the 1945 session but it was killed in a House committee with Miller County Representative Lucien Mace commenting, “It would take some of the power from the country and give it to the cities.”

The Sikeston Herald commented in its May 19th edition, “While the two-house system of government in Missouri may be cumbersome at times, it is believed in the capitol to be the best system yet devised to keep any section of the state from being the balance of power.”

Sikeston, of course, is part of rural Missouri.

And that is why 34 Senators and 163 Representatives still meet each year in Jefferson City.  And why we are not celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the Missouri Unicameral this year.