Memo to Crotch Legislators: Make Yourselves Useful

Senator Matt Bartle (R-Lee’s Summit) hates, hates, hates the sex industry.  In 2004 he got legislation enacted to prevent strip clubs and businesses that sell adult sex merchandise from advertising on billboards.  Two years and many legal briefs later, the courts ruled it unconstitutional.  The businesses are legal in Missouri, the court said, so it would be illegal to discriminate against them in the billboard industry.  The state wasted mucho dollars defending that law and yet Bartle plans to rewrite the legislation in hopes of getting it by those “activist judges.”  Bartle has also tried to pass legislation banning lap dances and full nudity in gentlemen’s clubs, as well as legislation adding an extra tax on stores that sell adult toys.

Representative Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon, pictured at left) wastes her time and that of the legislators trying to give school districts the option of teaching abstinence only sex education.  Any such law would gag teachers in districts that chose abstinence only from even mentioning contraception.  Her focus, unlike Bartle’s attempt to get rid of sexually suggestive billboards, is actually harmful.  Dozens of studies show that pregnancy rates are higher among students who don’t have accurate information about contraception.

Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield, pictured at right) is working herself into a dither over teachers guilty of sexual misconduct with students.  Between 2001 and 2005, 87 licensed teachers lost their credentials in Missouri because of such behavior.  What’s got Cunningham’s knickers in a twist is the sort of situation involving a teacher named Greg Crowley:  he quietly resigned from the Kingston District in 2000 after allegations of sexual misconduct, and he managed to work in three more districts before losing his license.

It’s not like I’m recommending that we ignore the Greg Crowleys, but it’s a relatively minor problem in the big picture of state issues, a minor problem that Jane Cunningham plans to exploit to the fullest.

The chairwoman of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee said she plans to file legislation and hold public hearings on teacher sexual misconduct after the Legislature reconvenes in January.

“We need to know the level and the breadth of the problem in Missouri,” she said. “We can’t turn our back on a situation like this.”

Missouri’s crotch legislators waste legislative time and money on the useless (banning sexy billboards), the counterproductive (abstinence only), and the mostly irrelevant (making sure that teachers guilty of misconduct lose their licenses immediately).

None of these three Republicans is going to approve of stem cell research or SCHIP or giving more money to the St. Louis City Schools.  I know that.  But still, they could spend their time on worthwhile issues that don’t involve forcing their moral agenda on the rest of us.

For example, Missouri is one of only eleven states not to pass a law yet to protect consumers from identity theft.  Hey.  Jane!  Forget about Greg Crowley.  Do something to protect me if somebody gets hold of my personal information and starts opening charge accounts in my name.

In 39 other states, a security freeze is mandated by law:

In one-third of the estimated 10 million cases of identity theft each year, crooks use stolen personal information like Social Security numbers to open new accounts in their victim’s name. A security freeze gives consumers the choice to “freeze” or lock access to their credit file against anyone trying to open up a new account or to get new credit in their name.

When a security freeze is in place at all three major credit bureaus, an identity thief cannot open a new account because the potential creditor or seller of services will not be able to check the credit file. When the consumer is applying for credit, he or she can lift the freeze temporarily using a PIN so legitimate applications for credit or services can be processed.

Another useful issue that the crotch reps could spend their time on is public transportation.  Willy Kessler just complained that Cynthia Davis ignores people like her who use public transportation.  Willy resents Davis’s flippant attitude about the need for more buses.:

Buses work best in high-density areas with streets laid out on a grid.  St. Charles County is distinctively different from St. Louis County.

Willy believes Davis could do better for St. Louisans:

This line of reasoning is, of course, highly specious since I can point to numerous SF bay area communities that are laid out similarly and are still served by numerous feeder lines that converge on main roads and highways.  Wouldn’t a real, far-sighted leader investigate and try to find out how places that have good public transportation solve these “problems”?

And given the Highway 40 construction that’s going to drive all of us crazy for two years, not to mention the effects of global warming that our many cars are exacerbating, Willy resents Cynthia’s solution:  not more public transportation, oh no.  But this:

I believe we have enough kind-hearted friends and family members who will give a ride to their neighbors who don’t drive.

Do you mean to tell us, Ms. Davis, that as a state legislator, you can’t do any better than that?  Maybe if you got your mind off everybody else’s crotch, your thinking processes would improve.