At the St. Charles County fundraising banquet Friday night, Jay Nixon told us how he got started in politics. It seems his dad was the mayor in DeSoto and his mother was on the school board, so phone calls at dinnertime were all too common. And when the phone rang, both of them would point at Jay to go answer it. He says that he began his political career in “constituent services” and that it’s no wonder he later pushed the “No Call List” idea.

That’s the humorous side of the story. Jay’s more serious when he explains that his dad became mayor to begin with because DeSoto lacked a sewage treatment plant and the local stream was turning to sludge. When a bond issue for a new plant was walloped at the ballot box, Jay’s dad did some research and learned that federal money was available if the community would apply for a grant and pay a small part of the cost. He ran for mayor on that issue, won, got the grant, got the plant, got the stream cleaned up, and sometimes got fish for dinner that Jay had caught in that stream.  

Nixon says that too many Republicans don’t know the difference between politics and policy. For them, it’s all politics and seldom about helping constituents. He, on the other hand, was raised to take that quaint phrase “public servant” without a hint of irony. And you know what? When he begins to list the issues  that matter to him, his voice vibrates with just that hint of outrage at the way the needs of our citizenry are being ignored that will convince you he’s sincere.

The payday loan industry, for example, made $300 million in profits in this state last year. It’s a slap in the face of Missourians that such usury is allowed to continue.

The way poor people, especially children, were kicked off Medicaid angers Nixon, and he promised to do all he can to provide health care for every child in the state.

But he reserved most of his disgust with Republicans for the travesties they’ve visited on our educational system.

“This war on public education shows a definite and stunning lack of respect for the people who work to educate our young.”

Nixon told us that when his father, who went to school on the GI bill, graduated from college, he had the first dollar he earned signed and framed. Jay himself, likewise, got to keep the first dollar he earned after graduation. OK, it went toward buying a Mustang, but that was his choice.

Nixon hearkened back to the days when the first community colleges were established in Missouri and spoke with pride about his mother, as a local school board member, being one of those who selected the man to head the community college in Jefferson County. Under Republicans, we get, instead of that kind of vision, constant funding cuts in higher education.

And because state universities have been losing funding, tuitions have risen, and many college graduates are saddled with debt.  Monthly payments of $600 for a new graduate aren’t unusual. So Nixon is proposing to expand the A+ program for students whose families earn less than $80,000 a year. As long as those students meet the required academic standards, contribute fifty hours a year of community service, and avoid disciplinary actions, they would be able to graduate from a state school debt free.

They could get the first dollar they earn signed and framed. Or they could start making payments on a Mustang.

I don’t know whether such grand plans can be instituted in the face of Missouri’s coming budget shortfalls. But I believe Nixon is serious about wanting to leave that legacy.

Awhile back, John McCain took some fire indirectly from a fellow Republican, Jo Ann Emerson, when she defended the concept of earmarks. Now it looks like it’s Claire McCaskill’s turn.

Barack Obama recently took a jab at John McCain for voting against  The Water Resources Development Act Of 2007, which appropriated billions for levees and flood control programs:

‘I know that Sen. McCain felt as strongly as I did,’ Obama said, ‘feeling enormous sympathy for the victims of the recent flooding. I’m sure they appreciated the sentiment, but they probably would have appreciated it even more if Sen. McCain hadn’t opposed legislation to fund levees and flood control programs, which he considers pork.’

McCain voted against the measure because he doesn’t believe in earmarks, and the bill was filled with them. But as McCain was all too happy to point out (h/t Political Fix), Claire McCaskill voted against the same bill for the same reason.

So who’s right? Barack Obama and Jo Ann Emerson are. Earmarks are not in and of themselves a problem. As a whole earmarks constitute approximately $18 billion (only .65% of the federal budget) and address many local needs. Of course, the process needs to be reformed to curtail the influence of lobbyists and increase transparency on which member of Congress is requesting an earmark, when they are doing it, and why. But Barack Obama has already done brilliant work on all those fronts and he’s only going to press harder once he gets in the White House.

Sorry you got dinged in the crossfire, Claire. But Barack is correct on this one.  

Some days the Letters to the Editor can be quite entertaining.

This metaphysical question about license plate slogans appeared in today’s Kansas City Star:

If South Carolina or Florida goes ahead with “I believe” license plates…

…Can you imagine the constitutional implications of a collision between “I believe” and “Show Me?”

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Maybe this is yet another reason McSame can’t be in a position to appoint the next Supreme Court justices.

Though you’d think the apparent drive to do so in Florida might have more to do with a corporate mouse and its companion fairy.

Despite a half hour thundershower (I tried to hold my umbrella over the Fritos, but they ended up a soggy mess), we had a great time. Once the weather cleared, the temperature was ideal.

My condolences to those of you who missed it. It was excellent company (there were maybe 25 of us?).

Mary, thanks a bunch for doing the planning.

Brett Penrose is probably wondering if their commercials will feature older male session musicians:

The movement conservatives in Missouri are once more taking aim at our non-partisan  judicial selection process.

You remember the Missouri Plan – it is the one that is so screwed up that 36 other states have adopted it and it is taught in law schools as an example of the non-partisan way that the judiciary should operate, that all might have equal confidence in the inherent fairness and non-partisan nature of our courts.  But then, a sense of fairness does tend to elude those driven by the movement conservative ideology.

The Missouri Plan was put before the voters of the state in 1940 and passed overwhelmingly  in response to the hijacking of the justice system by the powerful political machines of Tom Pendergast in Kansas City and Edward Butler of St. Louis. Under the Bosses, justice resided in their pockets, and nowhere else.

The amendment passed by our grandparents 68 years ago,  dubbed “The Missouri Plan“, replaced judicial elections with a judicial commission comprised of judges, lawyers and citizens to  review and interview applicants for vacancies on the bench, and winnows the field to three choices. The Governor then has sixty days to select the new judge from those three candidates. If he fails to do so in the allotted time, the decision reverts to the recommending body. At the first General Election following one year on the bench, the new judge faces the voters who decide whether the appointed judge shall be retained.

In balloting to determine whether judges be retained, the state Bar Association issues ratings for the judges before the election, and the ratings and recommendations are made available to the public. It is in the best interest of attorneys and citizens alike for judges to be fair-minded and non-partisan, so the ratings are extremely apolitical.

With Matt Blunt-force trauma stepping down to spend more time with his legal team, the foam-flecked loons are plotting to make it an issue once more, with the appointment of Stephen Limbaugh to the federal bench leaving a vacancy on the state supreme court.

Kraske today:

Within minutes of the Limbaugh vote, conservative critics of the Missouri court plan began mobilizing. They issued a series of news releases that, taken in sum, signaled that once again the state’s highly touted nonpartisan selection plan is in their crosshairs.

“I am committed to appointing a Missouri Supreme Court judge who will faithfully interpret our constitution and will not legislate from the bench,” Gov. Matt Blunt said.

Translation: Send me a conservative I can support.

John Elliott, president of the conservative Adam Smith Foundation, said he hoped the Appellate Judicial Commission, the group that screens candidates and prepares a slate of three judges for Blunt, “does not repeat last summer’s mistakes and nominate his replacement under a cloud of secrecy and corruption.”

He added: “In the event that does occur, I strongly encourage the governor to use his constitutional authority to reject the commission’s nominees.”

Translation: We’re prepared to go to war over this pick.

Said Charlie Harris, president of the Missouri Bar: “We … will see the same thing we saw this fall – an all-out assault on the nonpartisan court plan. My message to all citizens of the state and all lawyers of the state is to weather the storm.”

Game on.

Missourians might recall that we already did this last summer when Ronnie White announced his retirement.  The movement conservatives, feeling their grip slipping, attacked the non-partisan process.  They said the process is too secretive and lawyers have undue influence.  The far-right fringe was pissed that Blunt had to select Patricia Breckenridge – they would have much preferred a conservative-activist stooge who would have furthered baby Blunt’s wacky agenda to an actual judge.  According to the naysayers, if the wingnut governor isn’t free to pick a wingnut for the bench, the process is broken.

But in reality the system has worked very well for us for 67 years, and has served to keep the state courts as apolitical as possible, while efficiently and promptly filling vacancies on the bench with qualified jurists. In the years since 1940, it has been expanded to include all circuit court judges in Clay, Platte and St. Louis Counties.

One of the most elegant features of the plan is the way it defangs the money monster. Success in partisan elections depends on money, on the financial contributors of donors (a very specious proposition when we are talking about the very concept of Justice) and that is what pisses off the wingnuts the most – if they can’t influence a process with money, it must be wrong.

The Missouri plan works so well that in the intervening decades, 36 additional states have adopted the plan in whole or in part.

Detractors say that the process is too reliant on the input of lawyers, but that argument doesn’t get off the starting blocks with me.  Who better to make judgments about legal professionals than other legal professionals?  How deep is your experience with judging the competence of jurists?  Mine is a thimble of the ocean.  If you are like most people you don’t know diddly about the court system because you have no business before the bar of justice.  If the wingnuts have their way, judges would be elected like state legislators, and what a nightmare that would be if judges owed political favors to certain segments of the electorate, and naturally had a political bias against others.  How could you call that justice?

The move to abolish the Missouri Plan gets full-throated opposition from the Missouri Bar Association and other professional organizations representing attorneys of diverse political backgrounds.  Proponents of the plan say it eliminates the influence of politics as effectively as is possible.  They say that a better alternative simply doesn’t exist.

By the way, I have had a word or two to impart about the Adam Smith Foundation in the past, pointing out some things that weren’t mentioned in Kraske’s article.  They are a little hard to take seriously, but he didn’t tell you that.  Let’s go to the Blue Girl, Red State archives, shall we?  

In June, a thinly-veiled BluntCo initiative rolled out to attack the judicial selection process.  Flying under the flag of something called “The Adam Smith Foundation” the minions of the governor went on the attack, while simultaneously playing the victim card….neat trick, that.

June 26th, 2007

 Adam Smith Foundation Launched (Jefferson City) – The Adam Smith Foundation is proud to announce its official launch as an organization committed to promoting conservative principals [sic] and individual liberties for Missouri. Our Foundation seeks to provide Missourian’s with information they need to hold their State and local elected officials as well as activist judges directly accountable for their actions.

“There are countless leftist political groups in Missouri, but only a handful of conservative organizations. We strive to fill an important void by holding politicians in Jefferson City accountable.” said
John Elliott, organization President. “Big spenders in state and local governments have forgotten that tax dollars belong to the citizens, and we will promote ways to reduce the size of government.”

Blunt pursues this agenda at the peril of further splitting the Missouri GOP. When State Senator Kris Koster left the Republican party in August, he cited the Blunt Administrations attack on the judiciary was one of his key reasons for switching parties. Koster, a former prosecuting attorney for Cass County summed up the Blunt administration very well when he said “I can’t think of another administration in our lifetime that has such disregard and such contempt for the third branch of government.”

‘Nuff said.

[Please keep in mind that this is not a post about Kris Koster.  When I went to my archives, one of the posts I cited mentioned  his reference to the attacks on the court system as one of the reasons he gave for  switching parties last summer.  I feel compelled to state that because even the most oblique reference to Koster means that he dominates the discussion in comments.   ~~BG]

Gary Grigsby (left) at the American Legion Boys State of Missouri on June 20th.

Sometimes it’s not just statewide office holders who make those memorable speeches.

Gary grew up in Slater, Missouri in Saline County about which he’s fond of saying about politics when he was growing up: “It wasn’t until I was twenty one years old and could vote that I realized there was a general election, because my county was so Democratic that when the Democrat won the primary that was it, they took office.”

Gary Grigsby’s remarks:  

Thank you Bill, Mr. Director, staff, Boys State citizens – because you’re what it’s all about, my family – in the balcony, and my fellow Legionnaires.

In 1962 four young men from my home high school and I traveled to Warrensburg. And we came to Missouri Boys State here on the campus of what was then known as Central Missouri State Teachers College. And like you, we knew little of the impact that this week to shape a lifetime would have. Now, I recall a Jim Whitfield who was Dean of Counselors and having much darker hair, ran us from the dorms, and I mean ran from the dorms, which were over near where you are to over near the Multipurpose building where you had your pictures taken yesterday. Most of the staff of my Boys State had fought in World War II and the Korean war. A few…even in World War I. Now today some of our veterans from Vietnam – my era, Iraq, Afghanistan and others. My Boys State was maybe four hundred and eighty. Six hundred was a number that came along, just over nine hundred a few years ago. And you’re the largest Boys State that we have had. Nine hundred and eighty one. [applause]

Now why do we do this? In the words of John Adams, written over two hundred years ago, he said, and I paraphrase:

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, etcetera.

Our founding fathers wanted a better life for us, and for the future generations, for you and for those that are yet to come.

It’s my sincere hope that we can one day move from a time when our world is no longer focused on war and the resources that that consumes.

There is no other program for which doctors, lawyers, judges, businessmen, soldiers, college professors, and students alike would come to volunteer their services, yes volunteer. Most even take a week of personal vacation time to be here and take part in your week to shape a lifetime.

In 1962, then as now, the American Legion was actively keeping the torch of freedom burning brightly. And as your session of Missouri Boys State draws to a close I ask you to reflect on the changes which most certainly have occurred in each of you. In, two major changes, that occurred to me directly, resulting from this week of Boys State. One, I lost an election for the first I ever experienced that. I lost to Jim Heffenstreet [sp]who was then elected governor. I lost in the primary. Number two, I continued to lose sleep, what seems like a lifetime of sleep, for you, coming back to these sessions.

When you go back to your schools and communities you are tapped, you’re called, to lead. Grasp the opportunities which come before you, for they come only once. I look at serving on the MBS staff as an opportunity to give back to the program, for what was so long ago given to me. I’ve never gotten over that week. I hope this too has been for you a week you’ll never forget.

It was at my Boys State where the legislature passed legislation that led to you getting the Boys State manual ahead of time. Imagine coming to Boys State and not having the opportunity to read  that manual before you got here. Tough, huh? Oh yeah, I’m sure you studied it [garbled]. [laughter]

My family know that the week that Boys State is here is sacred. No vacations are scheduled because I’m going to be here with you, my extended family.

After graduation from MU I went on active duty in Spring of 1968. My Marine officer basic school was in Quantico, Virginia. And one of my friends, a Missourian, who had been to some of my pre-officer training with me, J.W. Simms from Carrollton, Missouri came to basic school about a month after me. Many times he came to me and begged for me to help him study for a test because he wanted to be an infantry officer. He wanted to be a Marine officer on the front line and tell his troops, “Follow me.” J. W. Simms was awarded several service awards, including the second Purple Heart, which was awarded posthumously. He died in Vietnam. He was charging some objective, that was a military objective, and saying to his troops, “Follow me.”

So tonight I challenge you to take up the fallen banner of my friend J.W. and many like him, of our fellow Legionnaires in the balcony, who died defending freedom for you and me. Take it up. And charge forward against those who would suppress our freedom and life and liberty. Grasp each opportunity that comes before you, for they only come once, saying, “Follow me.” Thank you very much. [applause]  

Oh. My. God.

“I’m not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I’m sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do,” Bond said.

Missouri Republican Senator Kit Bond, speaking on wiretapping without a warrant.

(h/t Tiny Revolution)