Working people will be rallying against SB 1, the right to get paid less bill, in Kansas City, Missouri at the IBEW Local 124 Picnic Grounds at 301 E. 103rd Terrace from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

We plan on being there.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: your Friday big bucks contribution dump (March 4, 2011)

Campaign Finance: opponents of the earnings tax in Kansas City get a lot of help (February 26, 2011)

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

CONTRIBUTION OF MORE THAN $5,000.00 RECEIVED BY ANY COMMITTEE FROM ANY SINGLE DONOR – TO BE FILED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF RECEIVING THE CONTRIBUTION

C091269 FREEDOM PAC [pdf] 3/10/2011

American Democracy Alliance

1100 Main Street Suite 2600

Kansas City, MO 64105

3/10/2011

$100,000.00

[emphasis added]

The American Democracy Alliance? They appear to dump their money into right wingnut causes. Via the Missouri Secretary of State, their July 21, 2010 Annual Registration Report [pdf] lists a slightly different address:

1100 Main Street Suite 2700

Kansas City, MO 64105

[emphasis added]

So, who is bankrolling the bankrollers?

Any Missouri billionaires? Anyone? Anyone?

You wouldn’t dare flout a court order, would you? But the Public Service Commission is doing so. The PSC Chairman says that–get this–the members don’t have the “legal authority” to obey the court order.

Say what? Picture a Jon Stewart deadpan. Right before he goes ballistic and screeches, “You don’t have the legal authority to ignore a court order. That’s what you don’t have the legal authority to do!”

A judge has directed the PSC to roll back the last rate increase it gave Ameren, and the commission members–three of the five are Democrats!–say, so sorry, but we really can’t.

The backstory is that Ameren just got its bazillionth rate increase in a row, but this time something unprecedented happened. Court decisions have never, ever, not once directed the PSC to roll back rates. In the past, court decisions have simply aimed to set precedents that might protect consumers in future rate hike cases. For once, though, a judge, Cole County Circuit Judge Paul Wilson, looked at a rate hike and said to the consumer advocates protesting it that they had not only got it right, but that they had got it so right that he was going to order a rollback of rates. And not just for the big industrial customers of Ameren but for ALL its customers. Obviously, Wilson knew Ameren would appeal his order, but he felt that until that appeal was ruled on, the rates should go back to their 2009 level.

The order was unambiguous. It said you shall suspend the rates now, not you might want to do it if you’re in the mood.

And yet PSC Chairman Kevin Gunn says the commission’s hands are tied. He insists that Lewis Mills, from the Office of Public Council, which represents ratepayers:

could have sought a court order directing the PSC to reduce rates before asking the commission to take action.

“They came to us when they should have been going to the upper courts.”

And furthermore, according to Kevin Gunn, Mills didn’t say “Simon says.”

A bit of speculation about why the PSC is stonewalling might be in order here. Ameren now has its bazillion and first rate case before the PSC, due to be ruled on sometime this summer, more than likely. And once that ruling is published, all previous rulings will be moot. That’s how it works. Perhaps the PSC is dragging its feet, then, because it doesn’t want to drop rates back to the 2009 level for a matter of weeks or months before raising them again higher than ever.

If the commission drags its feet, the consumer advocates will have no recourse except to file a write of mandamus in the Court of Appeals in Kansas City, asking the Court to enforce Judge Wilson’s ruling. But that will be time consuming. And expensive. The Office of Public Counsel is seriously underfunded–thus Ameren’s spectacular record of success at getting its rate hikes approved. (More on the topic of funding for the Office of Public Counsel in my next posting about Ameren.)

It’s the time consuming aspect, though, that is crucial in this case, because by the time the Appeals Court might issue a writ of mandamus, the next ruling on a rate hike would be only weeks away, and the PSC could delay a bit or expedite its ruling, thus making Judge Wilson’s order moot.

But maybe not entirely moot. At least the consumer advocates arguing this case could, and very well might, ask for a refund for all customers from February until the next ruling goes into effect. It would be a small victory, but a victory that might encourage the coalition of large industries like InBev and Noranda Aluminum, small businesses, and residential consumers represented by the Office of Public Counsel to continue banding together and putting up a united front in the fight against Ameren’s crusade to get ever richer.

All those groups opposing these constant rate increases should be making judges and the public aware that a for profit company that has been granted a monopoly does not, should not, have the right to gouge the consumers it is supposed to serve, especially not while we’re still roiled in the Great Recession. If Noranda Aluminum were to close its New Madrid plant because it can’t afford the huge amounts of power needed to run its factory, that would mean hundreds of jobs lost in one of the poorest areas of the state. And when those jobs are gone and those paychecks aren’t being spent, more jobs will be follow.

It’s wrong to the point of immoral for the PSC to grant upgrade after increase after hike to a corporation that is already making fat profits. The members of the commission might at least pretend they care about the state’s economy by not flouting the law.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells us today that Roy Blunt is proposing legislation, his aptly named, Gas Act, that he thinks will help stabilize rising gas prices. His solution? Gut Clean Air Act requirements that lead different regions to tailor gas mixtures in ways that lessen local air pollution.

The problems with this proposal are obvious – especially to those of us who live in or around St. Louis, which was recently ranked as one of America’s ten most toxic cities by Forbes Magazine. It’s worth noting here that The East-West Gateway Council credits some recent improvements in regional air quality in part to the use of cleaner fuel.

Nevertheless, Roy Blunt thinks we should sacrifice air quality to save a few cents at the pump – a solution, given our global oil situation, that will never achieve more than temporary results anyway. Another sad aspect of Senator Blunt’s proposal is that it doesn’t even sit that well with oil producers. The Post-Dispatch quotes David Sykuta, executive director of the Illinois Petroleum Council, as saying:

He (Blunt) is correct in saying that if you just suspend the special fuels program, it would lead to a little bit cheaper gas, …

But you have to have some long-term predictability in our industry. If you start changing it all with political science rather than real science, you can run into problems.

Actually, I’m not even sure it’s good political science. Particularly since there’s another solution that is almost guaranteed to have a real effect – the problem is that it runs counter to Blunt’s anti-regulation religion.

Seems that much of the problem with oil prices can be traced to speculation rather than actual shortages. This problem would respond to a firmer regulatory hand at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a stance that would be in line with powers granted by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. However, according to Think Progress:

Unfortunately, opposition from the commission’s Republicans – and one Democrat, Michael Dunn – has so far prevented the CFTC from acting to regulate dangerous speculation on gasoline and other commodities. But Dunn’s term is ending this summer. The White House told the Ed Show it is “vetting” replacements – but would not say if they’re looking for a nominee that favors rules to curb excessive speculation.

So can we all contact Senator Blunt and tell him “no, thank you” as far as his new legislation goes, and then ask him if he will support a CFTC commissioner candidate that will allow the commission to do what it is supposed to do and what we want it to do? Surely he will be happy to learn that he needn’t sacrifice his constituents health to get lower gas prices – just a little of his oil-industry fueled anti-regulatory fervor.

Crossroads, alarmed at Gov. Scott Walker’s falling poll numbers, has joined the fray with a one minute attack ad against unions that will run on national cable for a week.

This is war, folks, and you damn well know it. Join the fray. There’s a rally Friday afternoon in St. Louis organized by the local heroes of the AFL-CIO. Get to Kiener Plaza at Seventh and Market Streets in downtown St. Louis. The rally is from 4:00 to 7:00.

Wisconsin is just one front in war. There are 49 others. Let’s make Missouri look strong.

The office of St. Louis County Assessor–which will be an elective office as of April 5th for the first time ever–is not and should not be partisan. The winner of that election should leave his party affiliation at the door, and I have no reason to suppose that Republican L.K. (Chip)–you gotta love that nickname–Wood or Democrat Jake Zimmerman will do otherwise. Like many taxpayers, they both believe that the office has been drunk on high handedness.

Jake–since Zimmerman’s website calls him Jake, so will I–tells the tale he got from a friend of his, a progressive guy:

someone who likes paying his taxes. He just thought the assessor’s office got it wrong. You know, they took a snapshot at a particular time in the real estate market, and he said ‘Look, I’ve got the facts, I’ve got the sale value of the house down the street, and I can tell you, my house is not worth this much.’ And he knew that he would win during the appeals process, so he went in not during the appeals process but in the initial stage, the informal hearing, when the assessor’s staff has the opportunity to say, ‘you know what, you’re right, we’re gonna change it.’ And he goes and he meets with the woman and he very carefully lays all this out and he gives her the documentation. And she says, ‘You know I think you may be right, but the law says we can do it this way, so we’re going to do it this way.’ [With his wicked grin, Jake twirls a finger in the air and in a high pitched voice hoots at the stupidity of it, then continues his story.]  And the guy says ‘Look. I knew I was going to win. I had to go to the Board of Equalization, but once I got there, it took five minutes. I gave them the documentation, they said of course you’re right, and they reduced my assessment.’

The question is, why was he forced to jump through a totally unnecessary bureaucratic hoop? It’s not like it saved the assessor’s office any time. It’s not like it made the process more efficient. It’s not like St. Louis County got any more money out of it at the end of the day. That’s just public management stuff.

By the same token, Chip Wood tells the story of waiting several hours when he challenged his assessment. When his name was called, the staffer took his papers and dismissed him. He could have mailed them in and saved hours. Both these candidates get it, that the cavalier treatment of St. Louis County property owners has to stop. So as far as who wins, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other, right? Uh-uh.

Because the winner doesn’t just wave a magic wand and get staffers to change their habits. So how might the new assessor reform his work force? I suspect L.K. Wood doesn’t know. At a recent forum for employees of the County Assessor’s Office, Wood opened his remarks by saying that he doesn’t trust the government, and that he’s going to do something about it. He may not have even noticed his foot in his own mouth, but if your first message to the people who might work for you is ‘I don’t trust you,’ you set up a self fulfilling prophesy. If you tell people they’re a bunch of dirty bureaucrats, they’re going to behave like dirty bureaucrats.

Jake wants to communicate a “we’re all in this together” culture with his employees if he wins.

If you want public employees in a tiered level management structure, if you want them to have your back, you’ve got to demonstrate that you’ve got theirs. So to me, that means I’ve gotta be prepared to take some slings and arrows. I’ve gotta be prepared to go out and do a bunch of town hall meetings. I’ve gotta be prepared to listen to taxpayers about what their grievances are. … I feel like if I can demonstrate to the people in that office that I’m committed to them and that I’m gonna support them if they do their jobs right, but we’re gonna have a one hundred percent commitment to listening to the taxpayer? Then my hope and my philosophy is that that’s how you sort of build a culture of responsiveness to the taxpayer that maybe wasn’t there before.

Instead of focusing on responsiveness, Chip Wood is taking aim at inefficiency in the office. Nothing wrong with eliminating waste, except that his mantra reveals some disturbing ignorance: “The cost per assessment in St. Louis County is $33.42 per Assessment when compared to the State Average Assessment of $14.00 per Assessment.” Jake points out, though, that 60 percent of the economic activity in the state occurs in St. Louis County. Franklin County doesn’t have Centene’s or Express Scripts or the Galleria, and those commercial properties are much more complex to assess. A real estate magnate like Wood should be aware of that.

Jake will look at wasteful spending, of course, but it isn’t his priority. He lays out on his website the job he’ll expect staffers to do and what he himself will do. It’s common sense stuff:

• No more drive-by inspections. The inspector has to get out of the car and examine the property, as well as know the value of homes in the neighborhood.
• If the value of your home goes down, so should your assessment.
• The process of challenging an assessment will be simplified.
• Jake will fight to freeze assessments for seniors. “[N]o one should live with the fear of being taxed out of their home.  If your income is frozen your assessment should be too.”
• Jake is so determined that the office will be responsive to people that, not only will every call be answered promptly, but “You will have the direct number of the person handling your case.”
  

• Jake intends to stop politicians from using assessments for backdoor tax increases. “Assessments should not be used to raise taxes and I will stand up to politicians who think otherwise.”

Jake’s history makes his claims of concern for ordinary taxpayers credible. As an Assistant Attorney General, for example, he prosecuted internet scammers.

I inherited, when another lawyer moved on, a tech geeks case, and the tech geeks had a very innovative business model. They would advertise a laptop on e-bay for fifteen hundred bucks, and you would send them fifteen hundred dollars, and they would not send you a laptop. They would keep the fifteen hundred dollars. It’s a great business model, and I’m sure you can’t find anything wrong with it.  So, needless to say, people were unhappy, and I remember talking to a guy who was a college student–not at one of the state universities, but at a community college. He had saved up enough money for this laptop, but he did not have a few extra hundred dollars sitting around for tuition. He was tremendously aggrieved. I mean, these people had ruined probably a year of his educational future.

Anyway, we got them. We sent the investigators out and got a confession out of the woman who had done it and ended up getting an arrest made. And then I found out after the fact, someone said, ‘You know the last woman who had this case, she wanted to close the file. She said it was small potatoes, you know, gonna take too much time to track down.  The AG’s office has better things to worry about than fifteen hundred dollar computer fraud.’ My philosophy is that fifteen hundred dollars may be small potatoes to the lawyer, but it isn’t small potatoes to the guy who got defrauded.

Similarly, I don’t care if you’re a big commercial real estate developer who has the resources to fight the county assessor’s office all the way through the appeals process, but you hate that it takes three years and you’re infuriated at stonewalling; or if you’re a senior citizen who is potentially looking at being taxed out of your home over a difference of a couple hundred bucks. It ain’t right  to give people the bureaucratic back of your hand no matter which person you’re dealing with, but the difference is that it’s frustrating for the commercial developer. But to the senior citizen, it’s a difference of two hundred bucks, but they cannot afford to hire a lawyer to represent them. If they don’t have a way to get through, and if they don’t know that someone’s going to return their phone call, then that’s the person who gets taxed out of his house.

That’s a Democrat talking. Good on him. I expect him to leave his politics at the door if he’s elected. But I’d still rather have the Democrat than the Tea Partier in that office.

If you live in St. Louis County, get your fanny to the polls on April 5th. It matters.

CORRECTION: Jake’s office informs me that he misspoke when he said that 60 percent of the economic activity in the state occurs in St. Louis County. It’s more like 25 percent.

Maybe the HRCC didn’t say.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

CONTRIBUTION OF MORE THAN $5,000.00 RECEIVED BY ANY COMMITTEE FROM ANY SINGLE DONOR – TO BE FILED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF RECEIVING THE CONTRIBUTION

C091068 HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE INC [pdf] 3/8/2011

David Humphreys

PO Box 4050

Joplin, MO 64803

Tomko Roofing Products, Inc

3/8/2011

$50,000.00

[emphsis added]

That could pay for a lot of robocalls.

Not jobs, but, this being the republican controlled Missouri General Assembly, conceal carry.

Introduced yesterday:

HB 778

Allows certain persons to carry concealed firearms in the state capitol building or at a meeting of the general assembly if it is held in the state capitol building if they have a concealed carry endo

Sponsor: Riddle, Jeanie (020)

Co-Sponsor: Parkinson, Mark (016) … et al.

Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2011

LR Number: 1229L.01I

Last Action: 3/08/2011 – Read Second Time (H)

Bill String: HB 778

Next Hearing: Hearing not scheduled

Calendar: HOUSE BILLS FOR SECOND READING

“Certain persons?” Who could that be?

The bill:

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 778

96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES RIDDLE (Sponsor), PARKINSON, JONES (89), SCHOELLER, ALLEN, KEENEY, SMITH (150), SILVEY, TILLEY, ENTLICHER, RICHARDSON, WALLINGFORD, KORMAN, LEARA, BROWN (116), HIGDON, HOUGHTON, SCHATZ, PHILLIPS, GRISAMORE, LAIR, FISHER, LOEHNER, SCHAD, ROWLAND, SHUMAKE, CAUTHORN, FUNDERBURK, HINSON, HAMPTON, CROSS, CRAWFORD, BRATTIN, DAVIS, WHITE, FREDERICK, McCAHERTY, BERRY, BARNES, LANT, REIBOLDT, FUHR, BROWN (85), FITZWATER, LEACH, COOKSON, FRAKER, BAHR, WYATT, HAEFNER, MARSHALL, CONWAY (14), GUERNSEY, ASBURY, LARGENT, MOLENDORP, COX, BERNSKOETTER, REDMON, KLIPPENSTEIN, ZERR AND FRANZ (Co-sponsors).

1229L.01I                                                                                                           D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To repeal section 571.107, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to carrying concealed firearms in the state capitol building, with existing penalty provisions.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

           Section A. Section 571.107, RSMo, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 571.107, to read as follows:

[….]

(5) Any meeting of the governing body of a unit of local government; or any meeting of the general assembly or a committee of the general assembly, except that nothing in this subdivision shall preclude a member of the body holding a valid concealed carry endorsement from carrying a concealed firearm at a meeting of the body which he or she is a member. Possession of a firearm in a vehicle on the premises shall not be a criminal offense so long as the firearm is not removed from the vehicle or brandished while the vehicle is on the premises. Nothing in this subdivision shall preclude a member of the general assembly, a full-time employee of the general assembly employed under section 17, article III, Constitution of Missouri, legislative employees of the general assembly as determined under section 21.155, or statewide elected officials and their employees, holding a valid concealed carry endorsement, from carrying a concealed firearm in the state capitol building or at a meeting whether of the full body of a house of the general assembly or a committee thereof, that is held in the state capitol building;

[….]

[emphasis in original]

Heh. Except, members of the general public who hold valid conceal carry permits wouldn’t be able to carry in the galleries of the House or the Senate. That’s quite an exception, don’t you think? Wouldn’t letting those in the general public with valid conceal carry permits actually carry in the galleries and everywhere else in the capitol make everyone safer? Just asking.

And, there’s a very interesting absence among the co-sponsors of the bill:

Representative Denny Hoskins (r) – Town Halls: campus conceal carry (June 21, 2009)

[….]

Question:  So, are you going to allow people in the gallery in the House have con… guns? ‘Cause they can’t now. I’ve looked at the legislation, sir. They cannot now.

Representative [Denny] Hoskins: I, I wouldn’t be against that.

Question:Why don’t you introduce that as your legislation then? So that your colleagues could, people in the gallery can have guns in case somebody enters.

Representative Hoskins:  Well, and, and they currently, uh, they can have them out in the hallways. It’s just that they can’t have them in any, uh, I think…[crosstalk]

Question: Well you’re worried about the Kirkwood case, though?

Representative Hoskins: Right.

Question: Don’t you think you ought to have armed citizens sitting above you as you debate, uh, legislation on the floor of  [crosstalk] the General Assembly?

Representative Hoskins: If they’re, uh, properly trained and law abiding [crosstalk] citizens.

Question: Then intro…, why don’t you introduce that, too? The next time you want to make me safe, why don’t you make yourself safe and introduce the same thing? End the, the restriction in the House for conceal and carry?

Representative Hoskins: …but…[crosstalk]

Question: If Kirkwood is, is your, if…[crosstalk]

Representative Hoskins:  I, I didn’t introduce the legislation, so…[crosstalk]

Question: Yeah, but you’re my representative.

Representative Hoskins: I know.

Question: You voted to, to have guns where I work. You understand why I’m concerned about this?

Third person in audience: Are you concerned when you go to Wal-mart? Because people go to Wal-mart. Are you concerned when you walk down the street? Because people walk down the street with guns all the time. [crosstalk]

Question: Sir, I drove a taxicab in the City of Chicago for five years.

Third person in audience: Profess…[crosstalk]

Question: You bet. And no gun was gonna keep me safe. And when I finally had one pointed at the back of my head, had I pulled one out, he’d of got me before I got him…[crosstalk]

Third person in audience: [garbled]…they don’t have that in Illinois…[crosstalk]

Question: What? He’d of killed me before.

Third person in audience: Illinois doesn’t have a conceal carry permit.

Representative Hoskins: Sir, where, where do you think that, uh, guns should be allowed?

Question: Ooh, I, lord knows, having hit a deer, we gotta have, we gotta kill deer in this state. Oh, I love hunters. Please kill deer. Please kill the deer. But I don’t, you think I need a gun in here in this library right now? You think I, I, I feel unsafe? Do you feel unsafe? Because nobody has a gun?

Representative Hoskins: [inaudible] All right. Thank you….

[underline emphasis added]

“…I, I wouldn’t be against that…”

That must be the reason he didn’t sign on to the bill, right?

Previously:

Campaign Finance: cough, cough, well, that’s interesting (February 21, 2011)

Yesterday, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

CONTRIBUTION OF MORE THAN $5,000.00 RECEIVED BY ANY COMMITTEE FROM ANY SINGLE DONOR – TO BE FILED WITHIN 48 HOURS OF RECEIVING THE CONTRIBUTION

C101045 RETAILERS FOR ALLOCABLE SHARE [pdf] 3/7/2011

Altria Client Services Inc

6601 S.Broad Street

Richmond, VA 23230

3/7/2011

$15,000.00

[emphasis added]

Altria? Where have we seen that name before? Oh, yeah:

Broken Clock Twitter: The Roy (r) and Sarah (r) Show (April 4, 2009)

[….]

Roy D. Blunt…

…Among government watchdog groups he is mainly known for his ties to lobbyists. In 2002 there was an uproar when Mr. Blunt tried to include a measure supported by the tobacco industry in the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security. The provision was aimed at restricting Web sales of tobacco. Representative Blunt, who was dating Abigail Perlman, the chief lobbyist for Philip Morris, agreed to remove the rider from the final bill. (The Senate later approved the same restrictions on tobacco Internet sales, and they became law.)

Mr. Blunt has continued to have ties to the tobacco industry. He divorced his wife of 35 years, Roseann Ray, to marry Ms. Perlman, who became chief lobbyist for Altria. (He famously cleared his second marriage with the House Ethics Committee to get “a waiver of the limitations of the gift rule to allow me to accept gifts in connection with my wedding.”) Abigail Blunt now lobbies for Kraft Foods, which was spun off from Altria in 2007.

His son, Andrew has long lobbied for Altria subsidiaries, and his daughter Amy Blunt Mosby, a lawyer, has also represented tobacco interests…

A small slice of contributions to Roy Blunt’s campaign(s), via the Federal Election Commission:

…ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 03/20/1997 500.00 97032221285

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 08/27/1997 1000.00 98032700443

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 10/09/1998 2000.00 98033750051

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 10/15/1999 2000.00 20035094886

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 10/15/1999 2000.00 20035094886

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 06/15/2000 1000.00 20035920488

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 07/20/2000 -329.00 20035964094

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 06/18/2001 5000.00 21990199913

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 02/21/2002 5000.00 26940306381

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 07/17/2003 1000.00 23991734785

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 11/20/2003 2000.00 23992445717

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 05/20/2004 2000.00 24961598138

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 05/20/2004 3000.00 24961598138

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 01/27/2005 5000.00 25990050299

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 03/30/2006 5000.00 26940095112

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 02/22/2007 5000.00 27930267527

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 09/27/2007 1500.00 27931394340

ALTRIA GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (ALTRIAPAC) 04/25/2008 3500.00 28931588902…

[….]

I wonder why big tobacco loves Missouri so much? Maybe because there’s absolutely no hope that the republican controlled General Assembly will do anything to raise tobacco taxes from last in the nation.

Last Saturday (March 5), Claire McCaskill spent an informal hour visiting with several members of the group Progressive Democrats–STL. My impressions of the meeting can be summarized by referencing a post in which, early in this blog’s history, I compared her to the little girl in the poem who, when she is good, is very good indeed, but when she is bad, is … , well, maybe “horrid” would be an overstatement.  It’s difficult to be too hard on somebody who seems so willing to put all her cards on the table.

McCaskill is an attractive politician who comes across as sincere in her efforts to please her constituents, balance their often conflicting demands in the best way possible, and remain true to at least a modicum of her own beliefs. She seems painfully aware of what a difficult challenge this formula poses for a Missouri Democrat, and has clearly pinned her hopes on the ever-swinging center – and she deserves respect for not equivocating about that fact, even in a roomful of hard-core progressives.

In response to concerns about Democratic messaging, McCaskill seemed to me to be right on the money when she noted that it must be shaped by the current Republican overreach. She noted that Roy Blunt’s winning margins in the counties he took in the last election were less than hers in 2006, and, in so many words, observed that while some independents who had previously voted for her were willing to buy the GOP message in 2010, it is unlikely that they realized then that they were voting for the wholesale attack on the middle class that the GOP is now orchestrating in both Washington and on the state level. In short, she seems to think that Democrats have a chance in Missouri in 2012.

So far, so good – McCaskill is not just very good when she’s good, she’s obviously also very smart about politics. The latest GOP-led orgy of corporate giveaways, financed by benefits looted from the tax-paying middle class, does seem to be alienating lots of regular, every-day, working people who are waking up to the fact that they, not some mythical welfare queens, are the ones under attack.

Subsequently, however, McCaskill’s very good persona shone a little less brightly. While she affirmed her intention to stand firm against cuts in Social Security benefits, as I observed in an earlier post, the question comes down to how one defines benefits – and, last Saturday at least, McCaskill made it clear that she will probably go along with efforts to up the eligibility age.

The Senator rationalized this position by noting that such changes would be pushed so far into the future that they would affect “babies not even born yet.” She contended that if such measures are not taken, the Social Security burden will become unmanageable in the future, partly, she suggested, because average life spans are increasing. These statements are, of course, disputable from several points of view, and it would have been interesting to hear how McCaskill responds to arguments against them, had time and the nature of the gathering permitted that type of back-and-forth.

     

The same constraints governed the discussion about her signature deficit cutting crusade, although it was evident that she is firm that fixing the deficit is a major here-and-now priority, rather than an admittedly real problem that might, nevertheless, more effectively be dealt with after we dig ourselves out our current economic hole – a position that many serious economists hold. To her credit, she did, if I remember correctly, concede that the deficit is not only a spending problem, but also a revenue problem.

Finally, I was interested to hear McCaskill’s response to a question about how we can counter the potentially ruinous effects of the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision. She believes that transparency legislation, specifically the Disclose Act,  would have effectively curtailed the damage. She claimed that corporations would be shy about being identified with attacks of the sort that we saw during the last election. Here, as is often the case, the proof is in the pudding, and, as McCaskill noted, given the way the congressional votes stack up, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get to sample any of that Disclose Act pudding. We will not be able to learn, at least in the short term, if transparency is sufficient to discourage dishonest partisan political “speech” on the part of corporations.

One of the goals of the meeting, I believe, was to try to communicate to Senator McCaskill the depth of progressive longing for elected Democrats who are unafraid take a strong, values-based stance – and how that longing, if thwarted, might end up turning on her. It was clear that she understands that she runs that risk; but it was also clear that she thinks that, as far as progressives go, she can count on the fear and loathing excited by the extreme GOP candidates (think Ed Martin and Sarah Steelman) who have so far entered the race.

The meeting did succeed in suggesting ways that groups like the Progressive Democrats-STL can work with the Democratic party to counter GOP inroads in Missouri, thanks to the fact that McCaskill was willing to share her considerable knowledge of practical Missouri politics with the group. One of the other attendees remarked that the progressive task is not to move McCaskill more toward more progressive positions, but to do what is necessary to move Missourians in that direction.  True that – although it doesn’t mean that we should ever let McCaskill off the hook. Leaders, after all, are supposed to lead.