…on the right hand side.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C141013 02/11/2014 EASTERN MISSOURI SENATE PAC Missouri Senate Campaign Committee PO Box 754 Jefferson City MO 65102 2/11/2014 $100,000.00

C141014 02/11/2014 SOUTHWEST MISSOURI SENATE PAC Missouri Senate Campaign Committee PO Box 754 Jefferson City MO 65102 2/11/2014 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

Well, that’s certainly a lot of money.

Who’s who?:

C141013: Eastern Missouri Senate Pac

3220 W Edgewood Ste E Committee Type: Political Action

Jefferson City Mo 65109

[….] Established Date: 01/16/2014

  Termination Date:

Treasurer Deputy Treasurer

Derrick Good John Sheehan

[….]

[emphasis added]

And:

C141014: Southwest Missouri Senate Pac

3220 W Edgewood Ste E Committee Type: Political Action

Jefferson City Mo 65109

[….] Established Date: 01/16/2014

  Termination Date:

Treasurer Deputy Treasurer

Miles Ross John Sheehan

[….]

[emphasis added]

And who contributed that money to these PACs?:

C071094: Missouri Senate Campaign Committee

Po Box 754 Committee Type: Political Action

Jefferson City Mo 65102-0754

[….] Established Date: 04/10/2007

  Termination Date:

Treasurer Deputy Treasurer

Tony Feather John Sheehan

[….]

[emphasis added]

You’d think it’d be easier just to write the checks from one source.

They do have resources to spend:

C071094: Missouri Senate Campaign Committee

Po Box 754 Committee Type: Political Action

Jefferson City Mo 65102-0754

[….] Established Date: 04/10/2007

  Termination Date:

Information Reported On: 2014 – January Quarterly Report

Beginning Money on Hand $281,957.19

Monetary Receipts + $223,310.00

Monetary Expenditures – $49,412.33

Contributions Made – $0.00

Other Disbursements – $0.00

Subtotal     $173,897.67

Ending Money On Hand   $455,854.86

[emphasis added]

A few of the contributions:

CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED – SUPPLEMENTAL



MISSOURI SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE [pdf] 1/15/2014

Committee To Elect Ron Richard

PO Box 2523

Joplin MO 64803

11/4/2013

$10,000.00

Dempsey for Senate

Two Westbury Dr.

St. Charles MO 63301

11/4/2013

$6,000.00

QC Holdings Inc.

9401 Indian Creek Pkwy Ste 1500

Overland Park KS 66210

11/14/2013

$15,000.00

Consumer Lending Alliance Inc.

92 Royster Drive

Crawfordville FL 32327

11/16/2013

$5,000.00

Citizens for Ryan Silvey.

PO Box 10626

Gladstone MO 64188

11/18/2013

$10,000.00

Enterprise Holdings Inc. PAC

600 Corporate Park Drive

St. Louis MO 63105

11/26/2013

$1,000.00

Advance America

135 N Church Street

Spartanburg SC 29306

12/12/2013

$5,000.00

Dempsey for Senate

Two Westbury Dr.

St. Charles MO 63301

12/12/2013

$4,000.00

[emphasis added]

And a whole bunch more.

Since that quarterly report:

C071094 01/07/2014 MISSOURI SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE Grow Missouri 308 E High St. Suite 301 Jefferson City MO 65101 1/6/2014 $25,000.00

C071094 01/22/2014 MISSOURI SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE Silvey for Missouri PO Box 10626 Gladstone MO 64188 1/22/2014 $40,000.00

Yep, republicans will always have the money the need and more.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: paying Peter, who then pays Paul (January 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: “…pawn to queen’s bishop three…” (January 14, 2014)

I’m assuming that you’ve read about the massive chemical spill last month that contaminated  water in West Virginia. Weeks later, the 300,000 residents of the Kanawha Valley still can’t get a straight story about whether or not it’s okay to drink the water. No matter how you try to spin it, it’s clear that this event occurred because of under-regulation as well as wilful lack of enforcement of the few regulations that are actually on the books. It’s not as if the risk wasn’t known since “the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement warned in a 2009 report that state environmental regulators were not taking effective action to reduce spills from coal mining operations.”

Today, I’m sure that you will be as thrilled as I was to learn that there’s now a Missouri angle in West Virginia’s on-going water contamination story. Namely, an operation of St. Louis based Patriot Coal, the Peabody Coal spin-off, experienced a coal slurry spill that released more than 100,000 gallons of coal slurry poured into an eastern Kanawha County stream.  

Although at this early point the spill seems to be much more limited than the earlier one,  officials described it as having a “significant environmental impact.” It’s worth noting at this juncture that there are indications of laxity on the part of Patriot Coal:

A slurry line ruptured at the Kanawha Eagle Prep Plant near Winifrede, W. Va., south of Charleston, between midnight and 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, the state agency said. Workers shut down slurry pumps after the break was discovered and the spill was reported to authorities just after 7:30 a.m., the agency said. Coal slurry contains solid and liquid waste from the coal preparation process.

Dale Petry, director of emergency services for Kanawha County, told the Charleston Gazette that the spill should have been reported more promptly. “I need to know about it a little bit sooner,” he said.

State regulators said the chemical company responsible for the Jan. 9 MCHM spill did not promptly report the incident and did not take effective measures to control the spill. State and federal officials have been harshly criticized by health experts and local residents, among others, for inconsistent and confusing statements about the safety hazards of the chemical spill.

It’s also worth noting that Patriot Coal is not friendly to the idea of environment regulation. The company, which has been in bankruptcy, attributed its problems – along with efforts to stiff its union employees by cutting retirees pensions – at least in part, to the onerous burden imposed by “environmental regulation.” In case you’re inclined to feel sorry for Patriot Coals’ hard luck story, you should also be aware that at the time they were also trying to get the bankruptcy court to approve of bonuses for the company CEOs that ranged from between 11 and 45 percent of their salaries.

It’s also worth noting in passing that Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt is among the four  politicians who received the biggest campaign donations from Patriot Coal in 2010 (along with failed candidate Todd Akin). Blunt is pretty blunt, so to speak, about how he regards environmental regulation; he doesn’t like it. He’s a frontline fighter against EPA regulations. Last year he sponsored the Regulatory Improvement Act of 2013, which a press release defined as “legislation to streamline, consolidate, and repeal onerous and costly government regulations in order to reduce compliance costs, encourage growth and innovation, and improve competitiveness.” A Wall Street Journal op-ed declared that it would “liberate American business.” Although Blunt claimed that the law would not be used to constrain environmental protections, he used tactics similar to the provisions of the bill to try to neutralize the regulatory function of the EPA.

What I would suggest is that next time you hear coal company CEOs and their paid-for politicians jawing about “onerous” environmental regulation that they claim stifles innovation, job growth, competiveness, mom and apple pie, you stop and think about those folks in West Virginia who have been living with contaminated water since Jan. 9th and still don’t know when or if the situation will improve. Also, maybe give a thought to Patriot coal, which just added a fillip of injury to the greater insult suffered by the citizens of West Virginia.

Update:  Think Progress has photos of the Patriot spill – pretty ugly stuff.

Once again Missouri Republicans are out to limit the franchise so that only the “right” types of people cast their votes. Of course, that’s not what GOPers are saying. To hear them tell it, they’re pushing SB511 and its companion, SJR31,  the latest iterations of the annual GOP voter suppression bills, to ward off the threat of massive voter fraud that exists only in the overheated imaginations of the more gullible souls on the right. If you doubt me, you can check out the nature of the complaints sent to the Secretary of State concerning voting irregularities in Missouri. The actual consequence of the ID laws, according to Secretary of State Jason Kander,  is that 220,00 Missourians could be disenfranchised if these measures are enacted:

Among the hundreds of thousands of eligible Missouri voters that could be kept from voting by SJR31 & SB511 are students with current school-issued photo ID’s, senior citizens who no longer drive, Missourians who rely on public transportation, and women who have changed their last names due to marriage or divorce.

“This is not just a simple identification requirement,” Kander said. “This is essentially ‘REAL ID’ all over again, as the legislature wants everyone in our state to be required to have a certain kind of identification. …

This is not the only sin against democratic government that Missouri Republicans have committed in the recent past: Remember Prop. B, the popularly approved puppy-mill initiative that the legislature decided to dismantle just because they could? And Prop. B was just the latest winning ballot initiative to be treated in a cavalier fashion by a predominantly Republican legislature. Nor is this discomfort with the consequences of democracy limited to Missouri Republicans. State and federal GOPers are united in their in opposition to numerous positions supported by a majority of Americans such as minimum wage increases, extending unemployment benefits, ending workplace discrimination against LGBT people. Heck, most Americans want Republicans to stop the repeal Obamacare charade they’ve been playing at and get down to the brass tacks of making the law better – or, at the very least, doing something constructive with their time.

If all of this evidence leads you to conclude that the “we the people” contingent has a very narrow conception of just who comprises the “we” in that formulation, you wouldn’t be alone. The disdain for the popular will shown by the folks who precipitated the last government shutdown, for instance, led  former Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons to declare:

…  there’s a “new breed of politician. A lot of the highly conservative element that’s come in … are actually anti-democratic. The will of the people, … which is a founding principle of this country, is no longer relevant,” …

This conservative anti-democratic bias isn’t new. It can be traced to a dispute that has deep roots in American political life, one side of which is elaborated in James Madison’s Federalist no. 10, often read as an argument for limiting democracy by moderating the ability of “faction,” i.e., partisan politics, to affect the established interests of the elite. Though this document is treated as ultimately authoritative by many conservatives, it was considered aberrant by many of Madison’s contemporaries. That fact hasn’t stopped conservatives though. Although many on the political right argue exclusively from authority, they also frequently exhibit a strong proclivity to pick and choose among various potential authorities when they attempt to interpret the Constitution’s true meaning.

It’s instructive to do a google search on the phrase “republic vs. democracy.” I warn you that you’ll come upon some examples of incredibly tortured logic, simplistic and often wrong-headed definition, and linguistic confusion. One writer actually suggests that the difference resides in the fact that in a republic, after a vote is taken, the members of the minority may go along with the majority result or not based on the individual’s personal preference. Others, such as the dominionist Christian Wallbuilders, define a republic as rule by law which should not be based on the “rapidly fluctuating feelings and emotions of the people,” as in a democracy, but rather on Christian biblical principles to which elected or appointed representatives must defer. In general, though Federalist no. 10 is the usual starting point, the tenor is similar to that of medieval academics reverently distilling received authority into arcane arguments – with the distinction that most of the medieval thinkers were much less tendentious and had a head for nuance, something that seems to muddle modern conservatives.

Somewhat saner writers begin with Madison’s conception of a classical democracy where citizens vote directly for every issue – although citizenship itself may be restricted. They argue that our Constitution envisions instead a representative Republic, where an elected political elite makes the decisions. Of course, the ideas have merged over the years and most of us would agree that the United States is a representative democracy, with a bill of rights to protect minorities. This merger has been incorporated into the Constitution and informs most Americans’ conception of our government; as Peter Levine observes:

… the 15th, 17th, 19th, and 24th amendments to the Constitution, the state constitutions, two centuries of legislation, and Lincoln’s interpretation of the Civil War as a struggle for government “by the people” have made us a representative government on the basis of one person/one vote, which is a reasonable definition of a democracy.

For all practical purposes, the distinction between the two terms has become meaningless for reasonable people. For those, however, who have an axe to grind with the direction democracy is taking in the U.S., it provides a shield to deflect criticism when they seek to obstruct the common will. Conservative interpreters of Federalist no. 10 still view the Constitution as a document that limits the power of majorities, and they deny the validity of changes that have moderated aspects of 18th century elitism in the document – changes which they often seek to eradicate. Most of us have seen the lists of Constitutional Amendments that Tea Partiers would like to do away with, most recently the 17th amendment that provides for direct election of senators.  

Within this context, suppressing and limiting the franchise, drawing voting districts  to ensure political hegemony (gerrymandering), and enabling monied interests to essentially buy elections, are acceptable because they are meant to ensure the election of elite representatives who will moderate the enthusiasms of the democratic “mob.” The distinction between “republic” and “democracy” supports a system, embraced by the Republican party, that works fine for folks like the Koch brothers and Missouri’s Rex Sinquefield, and when it’s threatened, it’s not surprising that you hear the squealing of little piggies like billionaire Tom Perkins, who last week warned his fellows that progressives were even now preparing the tumbrils to cart the 1% off to the guillotine.  

   

If Bob Yates hasn’t already most adequately and quite succinctly ridiculed Republican Senator Roy Blunt’s effort to avoid the obviously dishonest position of the Ann Wagners in the GOP, who want to assure the gullible masses that, yes, indeed, the most recent CBO report said that 2.5 million people would lose their jobs, Duane Graham at The Erstwhile Conservative has put finis to the task with a full and detailed takedown of the Fox News Sunday interview with Blunt. Graham and Yates both record the shift in Republican rhetoric from a false story about lost jobs to an ugly story about enabling “moochers” who, Blunt and his fellows imply, just don’t want to work. As Graham puts it:

… notice how Blunt, like all Republicans are now doing and will continue to do until election day this November, focuses on those alleged “2.3 million” people who “don’t want to work” or “don’t have to work.” That is essentially the argument that was made more generally during the 2012 election.

Read both pieces. Roy Blunt deserves everything that Yates and Gaham have to say about his despicable performance.

And when you’re done, read a couple of posts from Paul Krugman’s NYT blog to get a better idea about what is fueling Blunt’s nasty little insinuations and why they’re so bogus. According to Krugman, those who leave the labor force will reduce labor input and decrease GDP somewhat, but the fact that wages and benefits are not being paid to those leaving the labor force would perfectly balance the decrease, rendering the effect neutral, were it not that those individuals would also no longer pay the taxes that correspond to their lost labor. He concludes:

So yes, reduced labor supply adds modestly to the true cost of health reform, although it also adds to the benefits. But the key word is “modestly”.

Why, then, are the usual suspects so incensed? Partly because they don’t understand any of this. Beyond that, there’s a moralistic streak: people should be forced to work, for their own good, you see (are there no poorhouses?). And of course, there’s the underlying rage that a disproportionate share of the beneficiaries (though by no means a preponderance) will be Those People.

But when you take paternalism and prejudice out of the picture, what you’re left with is some pretty prosaic economics. Should you care how much other people work? Yes, a little – but not so much that it should change anyone’s views about health reform.

As to whether or not this shift in Republian rhetoric will have the desired effect, Krugman’s analysis of the initial strategic misfire suggests why it will not – at least, with anybody other than the true believers:

The thing is, my read […] is that the CBO affair actually ended up hurting Republicans. By the end of the week a barrage of press reports, plus those mighty figures Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, had effectively changed the story from “CBO predicts massive job losses” to “Republicans lie about CBO report.” In reality, it’s unlikely that it would have mattered at all even if the first story had stuck. But to the extent that such things matter at all, Republicans ended up losing the week.

It’s hard not to conclude that since everyone who’s paying the slightest attention knows that Republicans have been lying vigorously about the whole CBO business, why should they believe anything that mouthpieces like Blunt now have to say, no matter how much more subtle the latest story happens to be? What is even more interesting, though, is the fact that this exact type of talk, the 47% business, is what helped do Romney in back in 2012. Why does Blunt & Co. think it’ll be more successful now?  

Previously:

Campaign Finance: trying to get a statewide road tax on the ballot for 2014 (November 6, 2013)

Why would such interests campaign for us to invest in public infrastructure? Just asking.

Since the beginning of the year, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C131133 01/02/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Burns and McDonnell 9400 Ward Parkway Kansas City MO 64114 1/2/2014 $25,000.00

C131133 01/02/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Crawford, Murphy, & Tilly, Inc. 2750 West Washington St. Springfield IL 62702 1/2/2014 $20,000.00

C131133 01/11/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Missouri Construction Industry Advancement Fund PO Box 94 Jefferson City MO 65102 1/10/2014 $22,464.99

C131133 01/11/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Pace Construction Company 1620 Woodson Road St Louis MO 63114 1/10/2014 $57,500.00

C131133 01/13/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Associated General Contractors of Missouri Inc. PO Box 94 Jefferson City MO 65102 1/11/2014 $10,266.66

C131133 01/22/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Industry Advancement Fund Heavy Constructors 3101 Broadway Suite 780 Kansas City MO 64111 1/21/2014 $10,266.67

C131133 01/22/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Emery Sapp & Sons Inc. 2602 N Stadium Blvd Columbia MO 65202 1/21/2014 $75,000.00

C131133 02/07/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Site Advancement Foundation (SAF) 2705 Dougherty Ferry Road Suite 203 St Louis MO 63122 2/7/2014 $7,093.34

C131133 02/07/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Kiewit Infrastructure Co 7926 S Platte Canyon Road Littleton CO 80128 2/7/2014 $50,000.00

C131133 02/10/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR SAFE TRANSPORTATION & NEW JOBS INC Missouri Construction Industry Advancement Fund PO Box 94 Jefferson City MO 65102 2/10/2014 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Alas, it looks like we’re doomed to subsist in a socialist hellhole where people pool their resources for the greater good toward construction of public projects which also allow large corporations to make money. We could just walk cross country and pay ferry tolls to intrepid pure capitalist entrepreneurs at private river crossings. Will we ever come to realize the gross inefficiencies of the state? Just asking.  

Rep. Ann Wagner’s (R-2) is hopping mad – or, more likely, hopping around, trying to get off the liar’s hot seat (remember the refrain “liar, liar, pants on fire”?). What’s got her hopping? A recent editorial in the St. Louis Post Dispatch that had the temerity to suggest that the deficit was falling, the economic outlook is improving and that the findings of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on Obamacare economic impacts have been grossly misinterpreted by folks like Wagner. So what does she do to relieve the gut-churning evidently induced by the good news? Why, write a letter to the editor, of course, insisting that they take it all back – a letter which she then proudly forwarded to her lucky constituents, a move meant, undoubtedly, to let the Tea Party types among them know what a big, fearsome Obama-hater she really is.

Rep. Wagner attributes her motivation for writing to her tender concern for constituents who, according to her claims, have been telling her about all the ways their lives  have been ruined by Obama administration policies, especially Obamacare:

Every day I hear from hardworking families in the 2nd District who are struggling to make it to the 15th and the 30th of every month in this tough economy. These are real people struggling under the weight of President Obama’s failed agenda.

Wagner added a few details in the constituent email:

Every day I hear from far too many hardworking families in the 2nd District who have seen their premiums skyrocket, their health insurance cancelled, who have been forced to change their doctors, and have seen their hours cut back at work.

I haven’t followed every pronouncement from Rep. Wagner on the topic of Obamacare, but when she starts moaning and groaning about her constituents’ Obamacare-related suffering, concrete details are few and far between. Which is probably intentional given that similar “true” stories promulgated by Wagner’s GOP colleagues have not been able to withstand close scrutiny. Remember, for instance, the subsequently debunked Bette story in Cathy McMorris Rogers response to the SOTU? Of course, it’s also likely that the complaints that she has received in response to her solicitations for Obamacare hardship stories reflect a partisan bias that skews perceptions. A Gallup poll released last week showed that only 19% of Americans said that they had been hurt by Obamcare and, of that 19%, 60% were Republican or Republican-leaning.  Which, in turn suggests that what Steve Benen identifies as political “tribalism” leads people to respond to polls – and requests from politicians for political ammo – in the way they think they should.

The real point is not that Missourians are suffering due to Obamacare, but that Rep. Wagner has invested lots of capital in questionable rhetoric and she’s up in arms  when folks like the Post-Dispatch editorial staff who, after looking carefully at the recent CBO report, point out that she and her GOP cohorts have distorted its contents. Her claims are simple:

The numbers in the CBO report couldn’t be clearer: Due to Obamacare, the equivalent of 2.5 million people will leave the workforce over the next 10 years, and government-run health care will add another trillion dollars to our national debt.

This is where the burning pants really ignite. Wagner is willfully wrong on both counts.

The CBO report does not say that jobs will be lost, just that some people will voluntarily leave the labor force or reduce their hours of work because they don’t need to keep working in order to secure affordable health insurance. Hours will not be reduced by employers, but by employees. In fact, as the Washington Post points out, “the CBO declares that ‘there is no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of the ACA,'” thus  decimating one of Wagner’s talking points about employers cutting employee hours to escape paying for health insurance. There’s lots to be said on this topic, and I think most of it got said last week – and none of it supports Rep. Wagner’s hyperbolic assertions, including a statement from the author of the report she considers so clearly negative, CBO director Doug Elmendorf. In fact, as Elmendorf pointed out, the report indicated that Obamacare would have a positive employment effect:

Elmendorf also noted that the ACA is actually expected to boost the economy in the near-term by making health insurance and medical care affordable for the poorest Americans, giving them the freedom to spend money in other areas of the economy. “On balance, CBO estimates that the ACA will boost overall demand for goods and services over the next few years,” states the report.

As for the business about increasing the deficit:

…the CBO reduced its estimate of the net cost of the ACA by $9 billion through 2024, in part because of the number of states that have refused to implement the law’s Medicaid expansions. And the CBO still maintains that, over the 10-year window of its analysis, the ACA will reduce the federal deficit. In fact, that trend is expected to increase in subsequent years, with the ACA leading to greater deficit reduction.

So what should we think about Rep. Wagner’s whining ways? Paul Krugman’s summary of GOP duplicity could have been tailor-made to her measure:

… .Remember, the campaign against health reform has, at every stage, grabbed hold of any and every argument it could find against insuring the uninsured, with truth and logic never entering into the matter. Think about it. We had the nonexistent death panels. We had false claims that the Affordable Care Act will cause the deficit to balloon. We had supposed horror stories about ordinary Americans facing huge rate increases, stories that collapsed under scrutiny. And now we have a fairly innocuous technical estimate misrepresented as a tale of massive economic damage.

To conclude, sorry Rep. Wagner, but Obamacare is beginning to work out, the economy is getting better despite harmful GOP budget cutting, and lots of things are really getting better for lots and lots of Americans – despite the best GOP efforts to hide the truth.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C031159 02/09/2014 MISSOURIANS FOR KOSTER Ironworkers Political Education Fund 1750 New York Avenue, NW Suite 400 Washington DC 20006 2/7/2014 $35,000.00

[emphasis added]

Somehow, with their love of right to get paid less legislation, I don’t see the republican candidates for Governor in 2016 successfully tapping into organized labor for campaign contributions.

( – promoted by Michael Bersin)

Today, Roy Blunt shows why we Missourians should be appalled that he represents us in the US Senate.

The following is taken from a posting on the Huffington Post.

As we all know, the CBO report did not say jobs would be lost because of the ACA.  So the new talking point is that the ACA discourages work. Today, on Fox News Blunt said the following:

“I think any law you pass that discourages people from working can’t be a good idea,” Blunt said. “Why would we wanna do that? How does that allow people to prepare for the time when they don’t work?”

If Blunt really believes that, then why do we have ANY law that discourages people from working?

After all, Social Security and Medicare allow people to stop working. Personally, both laws will allow me to retire before I die. Likewise, limiting the working week to 40 hours discourages work.  And, let’s not forget we have laws against child labor.

As we will see this week, Republicans used to think something must be done about job-lock, but not anymore.

Now, because the Republican MUST oppose anything Democrats propose, a law that makes it easier for people to change jobs or choose to retire before they die is destroying the American Dream (as (re)defined by the GOP).

I did not know that the American Dream was for all of us to work literally all of our entire lives.

Why is ANYONE a Republican today?  

“….it’s pretty simple, the, uh, bill is so blatantly unconstitutional that even the sponsors concede that the only way for it to ever take legal effect is to change our constitution….”

Missouri Constitution

Article I

BILL OF RIGHTS

Section 25

Elections and right of suffrage.

Section 25. That all elections shall be free and open; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.

   Source: Const. of 1875, Art. II, § 9.

[emphasis in original]

Missouri Constitution

Article VIII

SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS

Section 2

Qualifications of voters–disqualifications.

Section 2. All citizens of the United States, including occupants of soldiers’ and sailors’ homes, over the age of eighteen who are residents of this state and of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote are entitled to vote at all elections by the people, if the election is one for which registration is required if they are registered within the time prescribed by law, or if the election is one for which registration is not required, if they have been residents of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote for thirty days next preceding the election for which they offer to vote: Provided however, no person who has a guardian of his or her estate or person by reason of mental incapacity, appointed by a court of competent jurisdiction and no person who is involuntarily confined in a mental institution pursuant to an adjudication of a court of competent jurisdiction shall be entitled to vote, and persons convicted of felony, or crime connected with the exercise of the right of suffrage may be excluded by law from voting.

   Source: Const. of 1875, Art. VIII, § 2 (as amended November 4, 1958).

   (Amended November 5, 1974)

[emphasis in original]

Think about that.

Yesterday Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) spoke on the Melissa Harris-Perry show against republican voter suppression efforts through voter ID legislation pending in the Missouri General Assembly:

http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/EmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_mhp_6mo_140208

The transcript:

Melissa Harris-Perry: Missouri republicans are ready to give the Show Me State motto a whole new meaning by introducing a requirement for showing voter ID.The Republican controlled state legislature recently held a hearing on a bill that would put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November which, if approved by voters, would allow for a voter ID law. The law would require Missouri voters to show state or federal government issued identification in order to cast a ballot. Military IDs would count. Student IDs would not. Missouri’s state Supreme Court, back in two thousand six, struck down a voter ID law and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to revive it two thousand eight. But at the end of January the Washington Post reported that Missouri Republicans believe they’ve fixed the objectionable provisions by allowing residents without proper identification to receive the new IDs they’ll need without cost. Still, Missouri’s Secretary of State says the bill could keep hundreds of thousands of current Missouri residents from voting. Joining me now from Missouri is Jason Kander, the Secretary of State for the Show Me State. Nice to have you with us, Mister Kander.

Secretary of State Jason Jander (D): Great to be with you, thanks so much.                  

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay, so, given this insistence on this new voter ID provision I assume that there must be a serious problem with voter fraud in your state. can you tell me about what you have encountered as Secretary of State?

Secretary of State Kander: Well, you know, the sponsors of this legislation say that it’s targeted at voter impersonation fraud, which is something that we actually haven’t had in Missouri. Uh, so, you know, this would be the most extreme law in the entire country if it were passed. Two hundred and twenty thousand registered voters, uh, could be disenfranchised. So, in fact, even calling it a photo identification law I think sort of underplays it. It’s really a law that requires a very specific form of identification. So, as you mentioned, student IDs wouldn’t be good enough, the voter identification card you receive in the mail wouldn’t be good enough, an expired driver’s license, and actually, a military ID that has expired, you know, like a lot of veterans, you know, I, I carry my military idea still, like a lot of veterans. It expired in November twenty thirteen. If this law were to pass I wouldn’t be allowed to present it and vote in twenty sixteen. So, you know, a law like that, anything that’s gonna disenfranchise a single eligible voter, that’s something that I’m going to fight against.        

Melissa Harris-Perry: So, Mister Kander, I think that that’s so important the, the clarification you made there because often when I’ve had this conversation with people who support voter ID here at the table they say to me, well, you know, you need an ID to get on a plane and all of those sorts of things. But the notion that, that is in fact quite hard to comply with this law, that it’s not just sort of reasonably demonstrate that you are who you say you are.  

Secretary of State Kander: Right. Well, it makes, the bill, it makes a show of trying to say, well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get an ID for, ID for you, the state’s gonna pay for it. But it really just makes a show of it. I mean, at the end of the day there’s still underlying documents that cost money, there’s the fact that you have to take off work, spend your time and your money to go stand in line to get an ID. And we’re talking about a constitutional right. So, it’s pretty outrageous. And, you know, you mentioned that, uh, the Republicans in my state like to say that they’ve fixed it. I think you’d find their fix pretty interesting. What it actually is, is we have of all the state constitutions in the country our state has one of the strongest voting rights provisions in a constitution anywhere in the country. So the Republican strategy here is to amend our state constitution, to weaken the voting rights provision and then pass the most extreme version of this kind of law in the entire country. So, it’s pretty simple, the, uh, bill is so blatantly unconstitutional that even the sponsors concede that the only way for it to ever take legal effect [crosstalk] is to change our constitution.  

Melissa Harris-Perry: You know, that, look, let, so let me ask you this, because you as the Secretary of State being out this early in front of this, so you, you haven’t waited until, next week the, the state legislators, state legislators are voting on this, you’re talking at this point about trying to raise some awareness, about a change to a constitution. Why get in front of this so early?        

Secretary of State Kander: Well this is a constitutional right. I mean, it’s incredibly important. You know, as I said, two hundred and twenty thousand registered voters in my state could be disenfranchised by this. Melissa, that’s eight percent, that number is eight percent of the number of people who voted in my state in the twenty-twelve presidential election in Missouri. That is a substantial number. And I’m the chief election official in my state. I have a couple of jobs, you know, that, that go with that. The first is to make sure that only eligible voters vote, but it also is to make sure that the eligible voter has the opportunity to vote. I take both of those really seriously.    

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mister Kander, hold for me for just one moment. Dorian, I want to come out to you on this because it was striking to us that Missouri is now a state that I would be talking about in the context of voter ID law. And when you kind of look at the map of the fifty states you’re just seeing these expansive restrictive voter ID laws spreading. We did have it turned back in Pennsylvania. Uh, you know, both in Texas and North Carolina there that you see in yellow, those are being challenged by the DoJ. But all those states you see in red, these things are in place and, and now Missouri potentially bringing it up, too. What is happening here?

Dorian Warren: So, it, it’s clear, this is not just a southern strategy even though it’s [inaudible] in the south, but it is a strategy of the Republican Party. And if you can’t win by attracting new voters, what’s the alternative? Kick voters out, suppress the vote. And so this is essentially, we’re seeing the ghost of Jim Crow in all of these states come alive again. Republicans are breathing new life into Jim Crow laws, just under a different name. And it’s a strategy because they know they can’t attract new voters, so they have to restrict the entire electorate to try and rig the game to stay in power.          

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yep. Mister Kander, in addition to being out in front of challenging this you’ve also taken proactive steps, things you, uh, folks in Missouri can now register to vote on line. Is that right?

Secretary of State Kander: Yeah, you know, I appreciate you mentioning that. Um, I’ve been in office a year. I’m very proud of our record of, of, you know, really following through on our philosophy of making sure that every eligible voter, uh, should meet more convenience at the polls. I think that that makes sense, that’s why we’re the sixteenth state now to have an online voter registration form. We’re pushing for early voting, uh, we actually for the first time have bipartisan legislation on it. I’m gonna continue to work on that. But again, I just think that my job is to make sure that, uh, there’s more convenience for eligible voters. And, for some reason, there are Republicans in my state and around the country who are very uncomfortable with that. And I don’t really understand that. I think that it’s pretty fundamental.                  

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mister Kander, you’re so eminently reasonable [laughter] you, you [crosstalk]….

Secretary of State Kander: Well, thank you.

Melissa Harris-Perry: ….may not get a lot of play on this cable TV situation. [laughter] Your voice is all moderate and you have all this empirical evidence and such. I, I appreciate you for joining us on MHP Show.

Secretary of State Kander: Hey, thanks very much.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Thanks. Thank you for joining us from St. Louis….      

What the republican controlled House has proposed to change the Missouri Constitution:

SECOND REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 47

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES COX (Sponsor), DUGGER, DOHRMAN, WALKER, ENTLICHER, WILSON, KELLEY (127), ANDERSON, DAVIS, ROWLAND, SWAN, CRAWFORD, MORRIS, HOSKINS, KOLKMEYER, GANNON, BROWN, PFAUTSCH, CROSS, GATSCHENBERGER, LEARA, REDMON, BERNSKOETTER, HURST, WHITE, MCGAUGH, FITZWATER AND LOVE (Co-sponsors).

4459L.01I      D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

JOINT RESOLUTION

Submitting to the qualified voters of Missouri an amendment to article VIII of the Constitution of Missouri, and adopting one new section relating to elections.

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein:

           That at the next general election to be held in the state of Missouri, on Tuesday next following the first Monday in November, 2014, or at a special election to be called by the governor for that purpose, there is hereby submitted to the qualified voters of this state, for adoption or rejection, the following amendment to article VIII of the Constitution of the state of Missouri:

           Section A. Article VIII, Constitution of Missouri, is amended by adding one new section, to be known as section 10, to read as follows:

           Section 10. A person seeking to vote in person in public elections may be required by general law to identify himself or herself and verify his or her qualifications as a citizen of the United States of America and a resident of the state of Missouri by providing election officials with a form of identification, which may include requiring valid government-issued photo identification. Exceptions to the identification requirement may also be provided for by general law.

           Section B. The official ballot title for section A shall read as follows:

           “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended so that it will be permissible under the Constitution of Missouri for the General Assembly to enact a general law requiring voters to show valid photo identification in order to vote in person at a public election?”.

[emphasis in original]

“….by providing election officials with a form of identification, which may include requiring valid government-issued photo identification….”

“….I mean, at the end of the day there’s still underlying documents that cost money, there’s the fact that you have to take off work, spend your time and your money to go stand in line to get an ID. And we’re talking about a constitutional right. So, it’s pretty outrageous. And, you know, you mentioned that, uh, the Republicans in my state like to say that they’ve fixed it. I think you’d find their fix pretty interesting. What it actually is, is we have of all the state constitutions in the country our state has one of the strongest voting rights provisions in a constitution anywhere in the country. So the Republican strategy here is to amend our state constitution, to weaken the voting rights provision and then pass the most extreme version of this kind of law in the entire country. So, it’s pretty simple, the, uh, bill is so blatantly unconstitutional that even the sponsors concede that the only way for it to ever take legal effect [crosstalk] is to change our constitution….”

Res ipsa loquitur.

This evening, via Twitter:

GaryHarris-SaraWalsh ‏@MoGOP19

Catherine Hanaway announces run 4 Governor in 2016 @ Moniteau Co Republican Club’s Lincoln Day dinner 2nite [….] 5:18 PM – 8 Feb 2014

Catherine Hanaway (r) was a member of the Missouri House, Speaker of the House, and a U.S. Attorney. She ran for Missouri Secretary of State in 2004, losing to Robin Carnahan (D):

Official Election Returns

State of Missouri General Election

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

As announced by the Board of State Canvassers

on Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Secretary Of State   Precincts Reporting 3920 of 3920

  Carnahan, Robin DEM 1,367,783 51.1%

  Hanaway, Catherine L. REP 1,243,003 46.4%

  Davis, Christopher LIB 51,964 1.9%

  Ivanovich, Donna CST 15,576 .6%

Total Votes   2,678,326

[emphasis added]

That republican primary is going to be really interesting to watch. Their base will make it so. I recommend investing in popcorn futures.