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Tag Archives: voter ID

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (r): Rule of Law, meh…

22 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Jay Ashcroft, missouri, Secretary of State, voter ID, voter suppression

“…I don’t care what the Supreme Court says…”

Voter suppression.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (r) [2019 file photo].

Last night, in Springfield.

With promise to revive voter ID, Ashcroft announces 2020 re-election bid
[….]

Ashcroft’s vow comes a month after the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the law, which required people with non-photo IDs such election cards or bank statements to swear they were who they said they were before voting.

The court said the scheme was “misleading,” “contradictory” and unconstitutional.

But Ashcroft hasn’t given up.

[….]

“I don’t care what the Supreme Court says,” he said. “You all should make the decision, the people of the state.”

It’s not clear it will work. High court judges considered an idea similar to what the bill proposes and called it “nonsensical” last month.

[….]

Such respect for the rule of law. It runs in the family.

Previously:

Finally, documentation of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri. Zero. (August 12, 2012)

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): with Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC on voter ID (February 9, 2014)

Jay Ashcroft’s (r) voter photo ID tour – Warrensburg – June 16, 2017 (June 16, 2017)

Missouri voter photo ID law challenged in court case

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Missouri General Assembly

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General Assembly, HB 1631, Jason Kander, Jay Ashcroft, missouri, Secretary of State, voter ID

In 2016 the republican controlled General Assembly overrode then Governor Jay Nixon’s (D) veto of HB 1631, a more restrictive voter photo ID law.

“…my position is we should make voting available to as many people as we possibly can. I mean, and we should make it as easy as we possibly can for people to vote. Uh, and, uh, so we’re reviewing this, this is relatively similar to a measure that I vetoed a few years ago, uh, that would have, uh, made it very expensive and difficult, especially for senior citizens and others that didn’t have driving privileges to, uh, to get a separate state issued ID. So, um, it’s not an area that my, my general philosophy is let’s make voting, uh, easier for folks, um, so this kind of, uh, comes at that…” – Governor Jay Nixon (D), on HB 1631, June 16, 2016

“…I’m not, I’m gonna let you get back now to today’s opening ceremonies because I know I’m not who you came to hear and I know that none of this was what you wanted to hear. But I am your Secretary of State for a bit little longer, and as a result I feel a responsibility to tell you that even though you have the power to take away the right to vote from the citizens of Missouri, you shouldn’t.
And that if you choose to follow the example of Wisconsin or North Carolina, well then, I guess we’ll see you in court. [applause]”
– Secretary of State Jason Kander (D), January 4, 2017

That has come to pass.

Today Priorities USA filed a suit in Circuit Court in Cole County over Missouri’s voter ID law:

June 13, 2018 | Press Release
Priorities USA and a Missouri Voter File Suit Against Missouri’s Burdensome Strict Photo ID Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 13, 2018

Washington, DC — Today, Priorities USA and a Missouri voter filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cole County against the State of Missouri and its Secretary of State, John R. Ashcroft, requesting that the court restrain the Secretary from enforcing the state’s burdensome photo identification requirements in upcoming elections and declare that these requirements violate the Missouri Constitution.
In 2016, the Missouri General Assembly passed HB 1631, a bill containing new, burdensome photo identification requirements, over Governor Jay Nixon’s veto. HB 1631 lays out a narrow list of acceptable photo IDs that a voter must present in order to cast their ballot, along with an arduous process for eligible voters without photo ID that involves, at various stages, signing a confusing and misleading sworn statement under penalty of perjury, returning to the polling place with acceptable ID, or having untrained individuals match signatures in order to verify the voter’s identity.
A study conducted by the Missouri Secretary of State in 2014 indicated that the implementation of a comparable photo ID law could disenfranchise 220,000 eligible Missouri voters. The complaint filed today argues that HB 1631 would have similar effects, given the time and effort required to obtain even a free state-issued photo ID and the labyrinthine procedures for voters who forget or are unable to bring their acceptable photo ID.
“When state lawmakers passed HB 1631, they began to chip away at Missourians’ fundamental right to vote,” said Guy Cecil, Chairman of Priorities USA. “The Missouri Supreme Court rightfully found an earlier attempt to do the same thing unnecessary and unfair to Missouri voters. The legislature should not be permitted to evade the law and burden voting rights. In order to ensure that everyone in Missouri who wants to cast a ballot is able to do so, Priorities USA and many others will have to spend significant time, money and effort to educate Missourians about these new, onerous photo ID requirements. We’re asking the court to enjoin this law before the upcoming elections, and we look forward to our day in court when we’ll show HB 1631 to be the unconstitutional farce that it is.”
The lawsuit filed today comes on the heels of separate litigation brought about by the Missouri NAACP, which challenged HB 1631 on the grounds that the state did not provide adequate funding for the new photo ID requirements. While Priorities USA is not involved in the NAACP lawsuit and is presenting the court with a different legal argument based on the constitutionality of HB 1631, Priorities remains supportive of the NAACP’s parallel efforts to invalidate the law.
Earlier this year, Priorities USA joined a lawsuit challenging Florida’s law requiring candidates of the governor’s political party to be listed in the first position on every ballot. The Priorities USA Foundation, an affiliated non-partisan group that engages in voting rights advocacy, has also supported litigation in Indiana, New Hampshire, Florida, and Iowa against laws and practices that restrict the right to vote.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (r) [2017 file photo].

A year ago at Show Me Progress:

…When asked about the appropriation of funds by the General Assembly to assist his office in communicating these new requirements to voters and to assist them in acquiring the photo IDs Secretary [of State John] Ashcroft [(r)] again deflected the question. A local newspaper reporter pointed out in his question to Secretary Ashcroft that there were only twenty people in the room and there are more than 20,000 people in Warrensburg. How is the Secretary of State’s office going to communicate the new ID requirements to those voters? The answer was somewhat vague, along the lines of “we’ll keep doing what we’re doing”. There was no discussion of any estimate of the number of registered voters in the state who do not have the required photo ID or of the costs associated with providing those voters with the proper ID…

Inadequate funding and insufficient notice? If only someone had thought of that a year ago. Oh, wait…

Previously:

Gov. Jay Nixon (D): on SB 656 (“stand your ground”) and HJR 53/HB 1631 (voter ID) (June 16, 2016)

Gov. Jay Nixon: veto of HB 1631 – voter photo ID (July 7, 2016)

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): at the opening of the legislative session (January 4, 2017)

Jay Ashcroft’s (r) voter photo ID tour – Warrensburg – June 16, 2017 (June 16, 2017)

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): at the opening of the legislative session

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by Michael Bersin in Missouri General Assembly, Missouri House

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

General Assembly, House, Jason Kander, missouri, Secretary of State, voter ID

The Secretary of State officiates at the opening of the legislative session for the seating of the new House until the members of the body select their temporary Speaker. Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) took the opportunity to address voter suppression.

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) addressing the Missouri House at the opening of the legislative session - Jefferson City - January 4, 2017.

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) addressing the Missouri House at the opening of the legislative session – Jefferson City – January 4, 2017.

Secretary of State Jason Kander (D): I want to start by thanking all of you for putting yourselves out there to serve your local communities and our state. It is an awesome responsibility that I know you don’t take lightly. So thank you on behalf of Missourians for stepping up to do this job. We’re all counting on you to make our great state even better.

I am going to be brief today because I’m pretty sure the majority of you aren’t going to like what I have to say. But Missourians did vote to give me a four year term to serve as our state’s chief election official, so I want to use one of my last days in office to make a point.

To my friends in the minority party, I apologize in advance but I’m going to be talking mainly to the majority party. Obviously this November Missourians voted to turn over our state government – just as they did at the national level. Now, both here and in Washington, in all likelihood my Republican friends will have four years to shape the state and the nation how they wish.

As a Missouri voter, I’d ask you not to overstep when it comes to voting rights. Missourians might have voted to allow voter photo identification requirements, but that doesn’t mean they want it to be harder for eligible voters who have been legally voting for years to cast a ballot. Last year, when you passed a photo ID bill over my objection and over the Governor’s veto, you made a deal with Democratic legislators. They ended their filibuster and, in exchange, you included some of their provisions meant to at least limit the number of eligible voters the new law might disenfranchise.

Since making that deal, many of you have made public statements saying that the bill didn’t go far enough, and that you plan to revisit this issue in the future. Today is the first day of session, the new law hasn’t even taken effect, and yet some of you are already posturing to go back on your word and put forward brand new ways to make it harder for some Missourians to vote.

Before you go even further down this path, I hope you’ll keep in mind what happened when more extreme proposals were adopted in other states.

What these laws across the country mandate is that eligible voters have to get a specific ID that they don’t need for anything else just so they can vote. In America, we call that a poll tax. And just because of the time or the money or the impossibility of complying with that. And as a result not having maybe a birth certificate that they would need to comply with it. Doing that now is no less wrong than it was a half a century ago

After Wisconsin implemented a bill like that, turned it into a law, the voter turnout this past November was the lowest that they have had in twenty years. Election officials there say that it was the lowest in the highest poverty areas and they attribute it to the fact that that’s where people have the hardest problem affording the documents or getting the ability to be able to actually vote by getting that identification . And there were countless heartbreaking stories of people all over the state who were denied the opportunity to vote because of the new law.

In North Carolina an eighty-six year old woman went to the DMV to get an ID that she didn’t need. But she was going to need it if she was going to vote, so she set out to get it. She was turned away from the DMV because she couldn’t prove her maiden name. I think about the thousands of people who didn’t even get as far as she got, who didn’t bother to attempt it, because they knew all the obstacles that were out in front of them.

We’ve actually already had this debate in America. American heroes faced down batons, and dogs, and fire hoses to march across a bridge in Selma. [applause] Both here and on foreign shores, Americans of every color have given their lives for the simple idea that we all count and that all of us get to vote.

Now, you may not think that that’s important and if you don’t, you should at least know this. That in my four years as the Secretary of State of Missouri that there’s never been a case of voter impersonation fraud. And in my predecessor’s eight years, there was never a case. And in her predecessor’s four years, there was never a case. I could keep going, but I will give you the short version – and the short version is this – that there has never been a case of voter impersonation fraud in the history of the State of Missouri. Ever. That is the only form of voter fraud that a photo ID requirement can even pretend to prevent. I know that there are people who say otherwise, that it would deal with other forms of fraud, but we know that that’s true.

I know many of you personally. I know that you did not come here to try and restrict the rights of your constituents to vote. And the majority party in this chamber won a Senate seat, the Governor’s mansion, the Lieutenant Governor’s office, Secretary of State, Treasurer and Attorney General under the current system – clearly it ain’t working out that badly for you. [applause] You can applaud yourselves, I don’t care. Go ahead. It’s all right. The system’s working out for you. So , I would just say to you, even though you have the power to restrict the rights of your constituents of the State of Missouri to vote that I hope you be careful about it. Because you can go so far that your friends and family, that your neighbors, that your constituents in your districts could end up being denied the opportunity to vote.

I’m proud of the work that we’ve done in the last four years in my office as Secretary of State. And I’m proud that we were able to move early voting ahead to a point where a Republican member of this body, the Vice-chair of the Elections Committee filed it as a bill. I’m proud of the fact that in our office we worked to make it so that for first time Missourian’s can register to vote using an online form. I’m proud of the work that we did with you, with the state legislature, to make it so that participants in the Safe at Home program could vote absentee. Every single one of those changes, they made it easier to vote but none of them made elections less secure. So, the fact is, that you can pursue proposals like.

And I’m not here saying that there are no problems in elections. Clearly they are not perfect and there are problems. That’s why I created the first formal process in our state’s history to review and investigate election offenses and voting issues And I investigated, did more investigations than any Secretary of State in Missouri history, and I did all of it without disenfranchising a single eligible voter. You can protect the integrity of our elections without stopping anyone from from voting.

I’m not, I’m gonna let you get back now to today’s opening ceremonies because I know I’m not who you came to hear and I know that none of this was what you wanted to hear. But I am your Secretary of State for a bit little longer, and as a result I feel a responsibility to tell you that even though you have the power to take away the right to vote from the citizens of Missouri, you that shouldn’t.

And that if you choose to follow the example of Wisconsin or North Carolina, well then, I guess we’ll see you in court. [applause]

[compiled from audio and the remarks as prepared]

These remarks did not go over well with the republican majority. So poorly, in fact, that the ceremonial House resolution thanking the Secretary of State was not put forward for a vote:

HR 5
Expresses appreciation for the Secretary of State
Sponsor: Cierpiot, Mike (030)
Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2017
LR Number: 1132H.01I
Last Action:
Bill String: HR 5
Next Hearing: Hearing not scheduled
Calendar: Bill currently not on a House calendar

So much for comity.

Speaker Todd Richardson  (r) - Jefferson City - January 4, 2017.

Speaker Todd Richardson (r) – Jefferson City – January 4, 2017.

At the majority press conference in the House Lounge after the day’s adjournment:

[….]
Question: Secretary Kander, uh, raised some [cross talk] some concerns.

Speaker Todd Richardson (r): I’m shocked this is the first question. [laughter]

Question: Worth asking. Secretary Kander brought up some concerns that, uh, some members of your caucus might try to, uh, add in additional provisions to this state’s voter ID law. Uh, is that going anywhere under your leadership?

Speaker Todd Richardson (r): I think we worked very hard to get that law passed last year and we’re gonna be happy to work with Secretary Ashcroft to make sure that that law gets implemented fairly. I think the characterization that Secretary Kander had of this disenfranchising voters is part of the same line of misrepresentation of what voter ID is about that we’ve heard my entire time in the General Assembly. So, uh, we’re gonna continue to try to pass, uh, legislation that insures fair, uh, elections, but we’re not gonna do so in a way that disenfranchises voters.

Question: Can you tell us what happened to House Resolution 5?

Speaker Todd Richardson (r): House Resolution 5. Is, uh, could ask the Majority Floor Leader, who’s standing next to me, probably prefer that I answer the question for him. [laughter]

Uh, but we did not take up House Resolution 5.

Question: Was there a reason why you did not take up House Resolution 5? [laughter]

Speaker Todd Richardson (r): I have a, I have a great deal of respect for Secretary Kander. I served with him here in the Missouri House. Uh, but I think there is a, a time and a place, uh, for that kind of, of discussion. And I think the Secretary’s bringing that issue up, particularly the way he did during the session today was probably beyond, um, the responsibility of the Secretary of State.
[….]

Translation: he rained on our self congratulatory parade with his words of truth.

Ah, comity.

Veto session post mortem

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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Tags

democracy, gun regulation, gun violence, missouri, NRA, SB656, voter ID

You really should read this short article by The Political Animal‘s Martin Longman which discusses the implications of the Missouri legislature’s override of Governor Nixon’s veto of SB656 (deregulated “constitutional” carry)> and the Voter ID (voter suppression) bill. As Longman sees it, this type of legislation is dangerous in more than the obvious ways :

I could go into more detail on the merits and pitfalls of both bills, but I’d rather focus on the message they send. In making it much harder to vote at the same time that they make it much easier to carry a firearm, the Missouri GOP is inviting the conclusion that political disputes are best settled (and perhaps can only be settled) with violence.

That might sound extreme, but using the legislature and referendums to enact unconstitutional restrictions of your political opponents’ power is delegitimizing to representative government and therefore eats away at the consent of the governed. What you’re saying is that we need less democracy, less dissent, and more guns. It’s almost a recognition that, in undermining the legitimate governmental function of the state, you’ll need to arm yourself for protection.

I agree with Longman, and would suggest that what we see in this spate of increasingly extreme and weakly justified gun proliferation and voter suppression laws is part of the same phenomena that includes both the destructive, fantastical rhetoric and the hitherto unimaginable levels of legislative obstructionism on the part of Republican politicians.

These strategies are employed as tools by elected officials, often to further the goals of wealthy interests , the Citizens United crowd, who now expect to freely purchase government, and who saw the election of Barack Obama as antithetical to that end – and who view Hillary Clinton as the same type of threat. Combine that impetus with the latent racism stimulated by the election of the first black president, and you’ve got the situation that Longman describes, “when people lose faith in the ballot box and turn to the gun” in order to “arrest the march of history.”

Given the pervasive emphasis on guns in recent elections, there seems to be a lot of such people in Missouri. As we have seen, it has been fertile ground for the NRA. And, given recent state-level polls, not a bad place for growing Trumpkins.

Campaign Finance: Voter ID

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Michael Bersin in campaign finance

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campaign finance, initiative, missouri, Missouri Ethics Commission, Missouri NEA, voter ID

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission a committee opposed to a Voter ID initiative received a contribution from Missouri NEA:

C161289 08/15/2016 RIGHT TO VOTE Missouri National Education Association 1810 E. Elm Street Jefferson City MO 65107 8/15/2016 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

The committee:

C161289: Right To Vote
Committee Type: Campaign
1805 South Aurora Street
Eldon Mo 65026
Established Date: 06/29/2016
[….]
Ballot Measure History
Ballot Measures Election Date Subject Support/Oppose

Constitutional Amendment 6 11/08/2016 Shall The Mo Constitution Be Amended To State That Voters Be Required By Law To Verify One’s Identity/Statewide Oppose

[emphasis added]

It makes perfect sense. When people who are eligible to do so can’t vote public education gets screwed.

Gov. Jay Nixon (D): on SB 656 (“stand your ground”) and HJR 53/HB 1631 (voter ID)

16 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by Michael Bersin in Missouri General Assembly, Missouri Governor

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

governor, guns, HB 1631, HJR 53, Jay Nixon, missouri, SB 656, stand your ground, voter ID

Governor Jay Nixon (D) traveled to Warrensburg this morning to sign SB 997, a higher education bill, on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) - in Warrensburg - June 16, 2016.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) – in Warrensburg – June 16, 2016.

Governor Nixon spoke with media after the bill signing:

Question: ….Governor, as you’re looking at bills that you have to consider Senate Bill, uh, 656 is coming up. Where are you with that?

Governor Jay Nixon (D): Which one? I’m sorry.

Question: That’s the, uh, the, uh, um stand your ground.

Governor Nixon: Well, I mean, we’re, all the bills go through a pretty, uh, you know, thorough review. Um, you know, that’s one which I’m looking at very carefully because, uh, you know, a few years ago we, we struck a deal to put, uh, sheriffs in a position where they, uh, had the ability to, um, review and, uh, reject, uh, conceal carry permits. Uh, to move to a point which you took that power away from sheriffs, took that responsibility away from them and their communities is something that, uh, that, that we’re looking at very, very carefully. But, I, I haven’t made a final decision on the bill other than to say that, uh, when, when the legislature comes and, and moves policy pretty significantly from where we all agreed it should be a couple years ago that gets a very close review.

Question: So, are you getting any kind of public, uh, feedback on, on the bill?

Governor Nixon: Um, when I, when I make that decision I’ll do that publicly for sure. But we’re still in the bill review process and still, uh, gathering facts and information. And, and, uh, when I make my final decision I’ll certainly make that public.

Question: I have a question on the voter ID law. I understand that’s actually a two part law. Uh, I have it on good authority and the, as I understand it one part puts it on the ballot, that’s pretty much a gotta do thing, but what’s that second part that you have veto power over?

Governor Nixon: Yeah, the first part is to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot for this, this fall. I placed it on the November ballot so that the most people would have a chance to see, uh, whether they wanted to, uh, to support that or not. The second piece is they went ahead and passed in, in essence what’s called implementing legislation, uh, before that vote. Um, I look at this, this bill, um, you know, my position is we should make voting available to as many people as we possibly can. I mean, and we should make it as easy as we possibly can for people to vote. Uh, and, uh, so we’re reviewing this, this is relatively similar to a measure that I vetoed a few years ago, uh, that would have, uh, made it very expensive and difficult, especially for senior citizens and others that didn’t have driving privileges to, uh, to get a separate state issued ID. So, um, it’s not an area that my, my general philosophy is let’s make voting, uh, easier for folks, um, so this kind of, uh, comes at that. But, I haven’t made a final decision on that, but we’ll, uh, we’ll be acting on that one relatively quickly.

Question: [crosstalk] If you were to in theory, not that you’re going to, veto this what would it do in terms of the effect on the vote that [crosstalk] comes in November?

Governor Nixon: Well, it, wouldn’t really effect the vote in, directly, in the sense other than it would be, I would, I would lay out what I thought the, my position was at that time. But, you could, you could, uh, the public would then have to vote and assuming that veto was, uh, uh, upheld, uh, then the legislature has to come back next year and put, put rules and regulations in this. So, um, but, uh, I think we’re a long way to the finish line there. I do think that the basic philosophy I have is let’s make voting more open and easy, and especially for, for seniors and, and other folks that don’t drive. Um, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s , it’s extremely challenging to say that, uh, we should make it more difficult for them to cast what is, uh, one of the fundamental rights of citizenry….

IMG_7106

Previously:

Voter ID and the GOP art of hoodwinkery (April 7, 2016)

CCS HCS SB 656: hypocrisy (May 14, 2016)

Missouri GOPers run amok with taxpayer dollars

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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abortion, Medicaid extension, Planned Parenthood, Tobacco loophole, voter ID, Wasteful government spending

Paul Waldman described Donald Trump’s “flexibility” in regard to the rightwing gun culture as “a perfect expression of the larger Republican bargain, where the party’s elites pretend to share the base’s cultural values and priorities, and in exchange are put into office where they pursue an agenda of tax cuts and regulatory rollback.” We’ve seen lots of this type of trade-off in Missouri, although I’m not sure some of our dimmer legislators are just pretending to share the world view of their more backward constituents. There can be no doubt, however, that almost all GOPers in our state’s government elevate the welfare of rich constituents and campaign donors, in the form of tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks, over all else.

This dual focus on social conservatism and conservative economic ideology can create contradictions that are often costly for Missouri’s citizens. The just-ended Missouri legislative session demonstrates how middle and working class taxpayers often have to pony up to pay for the pursuit of GOP economic freedoms and religious preferences. The members of the erstwhile “fiscally responsible” party seemed ready to fall all over themselves to spend the taxpayers’ once sacred dollars on right-wing legislative trinkets.

Voter ID. Cost to taxpayers: $17 million over three years. If Missouri voters go ahead and agree to change the state’s constitution in order to implement voter ID, the law that was passed stipulates that “the state would be required to provide free photo IDs and any underlying documents necessary to obtain them, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards.” None of which comes free of charge. Voter ID is a pretty expensive “fix” for an alleged voter fraud problem that doesn’t actually exist. As for the estimated 220,000 Missourians who could be disenfranchised, for our free-market GOP it’s no big deal since suppressing potentially Democratic votes will make it easier to elect folks who want nothing more than to secure that vaunted economic freedom (i.e., tax cuts and regulatory rollback) for their wealthy patrons.

Planned Parenthood Cuts. Cost to taxpayers: $8 million in 2016. In a move to avoid legal repercussions that defunding Planned Parenthood of $4 million in federal dollars would incur, legislators sacrificed the $8 million dollars the federal government allocated to Missouri to pay for women’s reproductive health, and replaced it with Missouri taxpayer money that they stipulate cannot go to agencies that perform abortion. Of course, none of the federal money could have been used for abortions in the first place. The goal was to destroy Planned Parenthood, the only venue for abortion in Missouri. It was driven by a set of widely discredited, manipulated videos tricked out to show that the agency sold aborted fetal material for medical research purposes (utilizing aborted “Baby parts” to save lives! Oh! the horror!).

Failure to expand Medicaid. Cost to taxpayers: $16.2 billion over 10 years (plus $6.8 billion lost to Missouri hospitals). I hope that I don’t have to explain this item, and that you already realize that our lawmakers are willing to short state taxpayers in a major way for no reason other than they don’t like the black man in the White House and strategically attempt to sabotage all of his initiatives – particularly the successful ones like Obamacare that put Republicans in a bad light. Oh, and there’s that thing about encouraging dependency. Right-wing folks purport to believe that using the People’s government to ensure the People’s wellbeing is as immoral as making rich folks pay their fair share. Because, you know, dependency. Once again, that’s about $1.6 billion lost to Missouri taxpayers this year alone – not to mention the estimated 700 Missouri deaths that could have been prevented.

Failure to act on an agreement to close the tobacco loophole: Cost to taxpayers: $50 million. If you want to know more about the “tobacco loophole,” read this Politifact Missouri article. The important point for my argument is that by failing to act legislatively to update the state’s tobacco law subsequent to an agreement negotiated by Attorney General Chris Koster and several big tobacco companies, the legislature cost the state $50,000 this year. There’s no reason for this negligence, none at all. Unless, of course, lobbyists for smaller tobacco companies, the losers in the agreement, dumped enough of the green stuff in Jefferson City to insure that the lawmakers assigned it a lesser priority than curtailing non-existent voter fraud or punishing Planned Parenthood for malfeasance that never happened.

These are the big money-wasters from the last session that I know about. There may be more, but if you tally up the cost of these four items, the total cost to Missouri taxpayers comes to something in the vicinity of $1.7 billion for one year – and some have financial implications that last for several years. That’s an awful lot for hard-pressed Missourians to pay when all that they’re getting for their money is an election year boost for Republican politicians so that they can make good on their implicit pledge to insure that those who have, get more.

Will Kraus, voting fails, and more hoodwinkery

07 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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photo ID, St. Louis County Board of Elections, voter ID, Will Kraus

I wrote earlier today about state Sen. Will Kraus (R- 8) and his enthusiasm for photo voter ID requirements that have the potential to disenfranchise 220,000 voters. I had read earlier in the day about the St. Louis County election snafu last Tuesday – the county didn’t have time to reprogram voting machines between the municipal elections and the primary elections a couple of weeks ago. Subsequent database problems resulted in too few ballots at around 60 precincts.  I didn’t realize that the two issues were related, however, until I read a post on the Progress Missouri team blog that first points out that:

Sen. Kraus actually sponsored the 2014 legislation that changed the date of the Presidential Primary from February to March, in spite of warnings the new date was too close to April municipal elections and could cost millions, $37.5 million to be exact. His bill gave local election authorities just 3 weeks to prepare for another election.

Yes, those in charge of running elections in St. Louis County should be held accountable for much of what went wrong on Tuesday. But so should lawmakers like Sen. Kraus, for sponsoring legislation that got us into this mess in the first place. Elections—and bad bills—have consequences.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that Kraus might be a little apologetic about ignoring the all the evidence that it would be difficult – especially for larger muncipalities – to hold two elections so close together? But not our boy Will. He’s too busy making lemonade out his own personal lemons. He’s trying to get credit for punishing the board of election for their failure to manage the problem he tossed into their laps, noting in a press release today that, “Missouri voters deserve a better election process, plain and simple” […] “The board [i.e., St. Louis County Board of Elections] members need to take responsibility for this and allow the governor to appoint new members.”

But Kraus is more than a strutting malefactor trying to divert attention from his own culpability  by pointing out that the other guys did a bad job. The Progress Missouri piece adds an observation that enlarges the perspective from which Kraus’ posturing should be considered:

Sen. Kraus is currently sponsoring extreme Photo ID legislation that could make it harder for around 220,000 registered Missouri voters to cast a ballot—namely women, seniors, students, and minorities.

So while we appreciate Sen. Kraus sharing his concerns for voters who may have been disenfranchised on Tuesday, we’d feel a lot better if he also cared about the 220,000(!) registered voters that could be be prevented from voting under his extreme proposal.

Voter ID and the GOP art of hoodwinkery

07 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Glenn Grothman, photo ID, Steve Tilley, voter ID, Voter supression, Will Kraus

State Senator Will Kraus (R-8) is seriously worried that there’s going to be a massive outbreak of voter impersonation sometime in the future, declaring that, “in the state of Missouri, without an ID, it’s pretty easy to get somebody else’s utility bill and say, ‘Hi I’m Bob Jones, I’m here to vote.’” Of course no one votes in Missouri without identification –  which might be why there are almost no cases of the type of voter impersonation that’s got Kraus all excited.

The point seems to be that Kraus and his GOP pals in Jefferson City  want to change the Missouri Constitution to mandate the use of very specific types of state, military or federal photo ID. Not everyone has these IDs and they can be difficult to obtain. Other types of photo ID, such as student IDs, are not acceptable to our persnickety GOPers. The fact that this constitutional amendment would almost immediately disenfranchise about 220,000 registered voters in Missouri – just in time for a big presidential election – does not seem as important to these representatives of the people as stopping a type of voter fraud that essentially doesn’t exist. A study in 2012 showed that there were only 10 provable cases of voter impersonation in the U.S. over a 12 year period.

But Missouri lawmakers like Kraus are obsessed. They’re willing to obligate the state to pay the $16 million dollars over a three year period that would be necessary  to implement the requirement in a fair way, which means paying for the IDs, for obtaining supporting documents necessary to obtain the IDs, and advertising the  requirement so that all eligible voters know what it takes to vote. Bear in mind that Missouri is a state that can’t even afford to repair its crumbling highways  and bridges.

The GOP fervor for unnecessary photo voter ID suggests that maybe something else is going on. Maybe it is the power of Democratic voter coalitions that they really find frightening. For instance, Wisconsin Republicans enacted a very restrictive voter photo ID law. A former legislative staffer remembered that when it was first proposed, “some Republicans were ‘giddy’ over the legislation’s ‘ramifications’ and the effect it would have on minority and young voters,” both groups that tend to vote Democratic. On Tuesday, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) had this to say on uses of photo ID:

I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well …

If you have to resort to voter suppression to beat Hillary Clinton, maybe she isn’t as weak as you think.  Of course, giddiness about the prospect of beating back the hordes of brown American voters and college-age hippies might be what’s making our own Missouri GOPers too “giddy” to exercise their best judgment, not to mention their higher moral faculties.

Why is it that Republicans fear that they will loose in a fair contest? Shouldn’t free market advocates endorse the free marketplace of ideas?

Do you  think GOP disinclination to stay on the up and up might have something to do with the string of disasters that have resulted when conservative ideologues got their way in government? After all, unregulated financial (i.e., free) markets gave us the crash  of 2008; tax cuts in Kansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and elsewhere have been economic disasters. Hare-brained GOP efforts to run government like a business led to poisoning the children of Flint. Obstructionist GOPers in the Federal legislature have shown themselves incapable of the flexibility necessary to govern fairly – or to govern at all.

Republican ideology just doesn’t have much of a track record, although the facts are often obscured or denied. Religious and racial bigotry may be all that has kept the party going. Voter suppression provides one more tool.

If GOP ideology is demonstrably bankrupt, what is it that fuels the Republican drive to power at any cost?  We know, of course, that many of our lawmakers are true believers and live in a perpetual state of misinformed denial. We also know that many are simply dumber than the proverbial post. But don’t you think it might also have something to do with people like the Koch brothers,  the Humphries of Joplin, and St. Louis’ Rex Sinquefield? The so-called 1%, the folks who gain when the rest of us lose? And, incidentally, the same folks who rain dollars on our rambunctious GOP ideologues. Whether you’re right or wrong, nobody wants to disappoint the folks who pay the bills and open the doors to affluence. And once the goal is clear, who wouldn’t use any tool that presents itself?

 

HB 1108: For what purpose?

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

HB 1108, Mike Moon, missouri, photo, voter ID

Finally, documentation of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri. Zero. (August 12, 2012)

[….]

Here it is. The number of voter impersonation fraud cases documented in Missouri since 2000 is exactly zero:

Missouri has 17 cases of alleged election fraud since 2000. By category, Third Party Organizations had the highest percentage of accused at 88 percent (15 cases), followed by Voter at 12 percent (2 cases). The most prevalent fraud was Registration Fraud at 88 percent (15 cases). The status of most cases was Pleaded at 71 percent (12 cases). Responses to requests for public records varied from state to state. Some state and local officials were quick to respond by sending available records; others failed to provide a single document.

[….]

A bill, introduced today by Representative Mike Moon (r):

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 1108 [pdf]

98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE MOON.

2275L.02I D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To repeal section 115.230, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to electronic voter verification systems.

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

Section A. Section 115.230, RSMo, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 115.230, to read as follows:

115.230. 1. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, any election authority may use an electronic voter identification system or an electronic signature pad to verify a voter’s address, registration status, and signature information at any polling place. Any such system or pad shall be able to read identifying information from an official Missouri driver’s license or nondriver’s license issued by the department of revenue, and shall be capable of allowing an election authority to manually enter the voter’s information from a valid form of personal identification containing the voter’s signature.

2. (1) Each election authority shall use an electronic device at each polling place that allows the election authority to capture a photograph or a digital image of each voter casting a vote. Any such device shall allow the election authority to enter the voter’s identifying information from a valid form of personal identification containing the voter’s signature into the device and to associate each voter’s photograph or digital image with the voter’s identifying information. Any such device shall also be compatible with any electronic voter identification system used by the election authority.

(2) In the event that an election authority does not have an electronic device at each polling place that complies with the requirements of this subsection, the election authority shall request funding for the fees and costs necessary for purchasing and using such electronic device. All such fees and costs shall be compensated by the secretary of state with funds appropriated by the general assembly for such purpose.

[emphasis in original]

Smile!

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