When you spend your time in the General Assembly tilting at right wingnut windmills like Agenda 21, Sharia Law, and Nullification you don’t have a lot of time to tend to the nuts and bolts of grassroots campaign fundraising. And woe to you if you have an opponent in the general election.

Such is the fate of Representative Paul Curtman (r) in the 109th Legislaticve District:

C091246: Citizens To Elect Paul Curtman

Po Box 355 Committee Type: Candidate

Pacific Mo 63069 Party Affiliation: Republican

[….] Established Date: 10/09/2009

[….]

Information Reported On: 2014 – 30 Day After Primary Election-8/5/2014

Beginning Money on Hand $21,995.80

Monetary Receipts + $2,535.00

Monetary Expenditures – $2,102.27

Contributions Made – $825.00

Other Disbursements – $0.00

Subtotal     ($392.27)

Ending Money On Hand   $21,603.53

[emphasis added]

His opponent in the November general election is Barbara Bollmann (D):

C141207: Campaign For Barbara Bollmann

10 Dover Lane Committee Type: Candidate

Villa Ridge Mo 63089-2001 Party Affiliation: Democrat

[….] Established Date: 04/09/2014

[….]

Information Reported On: 2014 – 30 Day After Primary Election-8/5/2014

Beginning Money on Hand $686.94

Monetary Receipts + $0.00

Monetary Expenditures – $3.95

Contributions Made – $0.00

Other Disbursements – $0.00

Subtotal     ($3.95)

Ending Money On Hand   $682.99

[emphasis added]

That’s what you call a low burn through rate.

Not to worry. Today, via the Missouri Ethics Commission, generous donors come to the rescue to help make the Missouri General Assembly safe for continued useless right wingnut paranoid legislation:

C091246 09/19/2014 CITIZENS TO ELECT PAUL CURTMAN Janell Brunner 11939 Manchester Rd #151 St Louis MO 63131 Home Maker 9/19/2014 $10,000.00

C091246 09/19/2014 CITIZENS TO ELECT PAUL CURTMAN John G. Brunner Trust 11939 Manchester Rd # 151 St Louis MO 63131 9/19/2014 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Saved by the big dollar donors…

Today, via Twitter:

Paul Curtman ‏@paulcurtman

Next yr, instead of the #moleg having a charity softball game, we should have a cage fight. We could probably raise a lot more money. 11:24 AM – 2 May 13

On the other hand, mocking the right wingnuts in the Missouri General Assembly is quickly becoming one of the most popular sports in America.

At least to Glenn Beck.

Previously:

HB 421: channeling the Specie Circular (February 5, 2013)

Today the Missouri House is dealing with HB 421, which extends a tax break to gold and silver speculators. I kid you not.

Via Twitter:

Sean Nicholson ‏@ssnich

Your MO House is talking about gold and silver because Freedom. #moleg 2:33 PM – 24 Apr 13

Cathy Sherwin ‏@cathysherwin

Thank goodness #moleg is covering important biz today like giving tax breaks to folks hoarding gold. 2:35 PM – 24 Apr 13

Cathy Sherwin ‏@cathysherwin

Somebody give #moleg a gold star already. 2:45 PM – 24 Apr 13

Sean Nicholson ‏@ssnich

When civilization ends and we have to buy smokes with gold coins, we’ll regret making fun of @PaulCurtman. #moleg 2:45 PM – 24 Apr 13

Michael Bersin ‏@MBersin

@ssnich It’s obviously a strategic move against wallet and purse manufacturers by supporters of the portable ingot cart cartels. 2:59 PM – 24 Apr 13

Believe it.

Yet another right wingnut gun bill, introduced yesterday:

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 420

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES CURTMAN (Sponsor), BURLISON, LICHTENEGGER, KOENIG AND BROWN (Co-sponsors).

1178L.01I    D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To repeal section 21.750, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to legislative preemption of firearm regulation by political subdivisions.

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

           Section A. Section 21.750, RSMo, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 21.750, to read as follows:

           21.750. 1. The general assembly hereby occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation touching in any way firearms, components, ammunition and supplies to the complete exclusion of any order, ordinance or regulation by any political subdivision of this state. Any existing or future orders, ordinances or regulations in this field are hereby and shall be null and void except as provided in subsection 3 of this section.

            2. No county, city, town, village, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state shall adopt any order, ordinance or regulation concerning in any way the sale, purchase, purchase delay, transfer, ownership, use, keeping, possession, bearing, transportation, licensing, permit, registration, taxation other than sales and compensating use taxes or other controls on firearms, components, ammunition, and supplies except as provided in subsection 3 of this section.

           3. (1) Except as provided in subdivision (2) of this subsection, nothing contained in this section shall prohibit any ordinance of any political subdivision which conforms exactly with any of the provisions of sections 571.010 to 571.070, with appropriate penalty provisions, or which regulates the open carrying of firearms readily capable of lethal use or the discharge of firearms within a jurisdiction, provided such ordinance complies with the provisions of section 252.243.

           (2) In any jurisdiction in which open carry of firearms is prohibited by ordinance, open carry of a firearm shall not be prohibited in accordance with the following:

           (a) Any person with a valid concealed carry endorsement who is open carrying a firearm shall be required to have a valid concealed carry endorsement from this state or a permit from another state permit which is recognized by this state in his or her possession at all times;

           (b) The open carrying of a firearm shall be limited to a firearm sixteen inches or less in overall length;

           (c) Any person open carrying a firearm in such jurisdiction shall display his or her concealed carry endorsement upon demand of a law enforcement officer;

           (d) In the absence of any reasonable and articular suspicion of criminal activity, no person carrying a concealed or unconcealed handgun shall be disarmed or physically restrained by a law enforcement officer unless under arrest; and

           (e) Any person who violates this subdivision shall be subject to the penalty provided in section 571.121.

           4. The lawful design, marketing, manufacture, distribution, or sale of firearms or ammunition to the public is not an abnormally dangerous activity and does not constitute a public or private nuisance.

           5. No county, city, town, village or any other political subdivision nor the state shall bring suit or have any right to recover against any firearms or ammunition manufacturer, trade association or dealer for damages, abatement or injunctive relief resulting from or relating to the lawful design, manufacture, marketing, distribution, or sale of firearms or ammunition to the public. This subsection shall apply to any suit pending as of October 12, 2003, as well as any suit which may be brought in the future. Provided, however, that nothing in this section shall restrict the rights of individual citizens to recover for injury or death caused by the negligent or defective design or manufacture of firearms or ammunition.

           6. Nothing in this section shall prevent the state, a county, city, town, village or any other political subdivision from bringing an action against a firearms or ammunition manufacturer or dealer for breach of contract or warranty as to firearms or ammunition purchased by the state or such political subdivision.

[emphasis in original]

Hmmm. Any local ordinance forbidding open carry would be overridden for anyone openly carrying with a conceal carry permit from any state.

“….In the absence of any reasonable and articular suspicion of criminal activity, no person carrying a concealed or unconcealed handgun shall be disarmed or physically restrained by a law enforcement officer unless under arrest….”

Think of the possibilities.

And law enforcement will probably have to be issued sixteen inch rulers. For firearms.

In popular culture:

Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen: Then let’s finish it, right now!

Buford’s Gang Member #1: Uh, not now, Buford. Uh, Marshal’s got our guns.

Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen: Like I said, we’ll finish this tomorrow.

Another right wingnut bill, introduced yesterday:

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 421

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES CURTMAN (Sponsor), SMITH (120), BURLISON, LICHTENEGGER, KOENIG AND SWAN (Co-sponsors).

0958H.02I   D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To repeal sections 143.111 and 408.010, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof two new sections relating to legal tender.

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

           Section A. Sections 143.111 and 408.010, RSMo, are repealed and two new sections enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as sections 143.111 and 408.010, to read as follows:

           143.111. The Missouri taxable income of a resident shall be such resident’s Missouri adjusted gross income less:

           (1) Either the Missouri standard deduction or the Missouri itemized deduction;

           (2) The Missouri deduction for personal exemptions;

           (3) The Missouri deduction for dependency exemptions;

           (4) The deduction for federal income taxes provided in section 143.171; [and]

           (5) The deduction for a self-employed individual’s health insurance costs provided in section 143.113; and

           (6) The deduction for any capital gains income included in Missouri adjusted gross income from the exchange of gold or silver under subsection 3 of section 408.010.

           408.010. [The silver coins of the United States are hereby declared a legal tender, at their par value, fixed by the laws of the United States, and shall be receivable in payment of all debts, public or private, hereafter contracted in the state of Missouri; provided, however, that no person shall have the right to pay, upon any one debt, dimes and half dimes to an amount exceeding ten dollars, or of twenty and twenty-five cent pieces exceeding twenty dollars.]

           1. For purposes of this section, the term “nonbank depository” shall mean a private storage firm used for the safekeeping and depositing of gold and silver issued by the federal government.

           2. In furtherance of the inherent rights of privacy and private property, the extent and composition of a person’s monetary holdings, including those on deposit with any nonbank depository, shall not be subject to disclosure, search, or seizure except upon strict adherence to due process safeguards, including but not limited to:

           (a) Issuance of a lawful warrant or writ by a judicial officer sitting in the county within which such holdings exist;

           (b) Under an adequate showing of probable cause with respect to the particular person or entity in question; and

           (c) Such warrant or writ being executed only under the authority of the duly elected sheriff of such county.

           3. Any nonbank depository operating under the provisions of this section shall be subject to such rules and regulations as the secretary of state requires.

           4. A nonbank depository must have written authority from the depositors for all transactions.

           5. A method of establishing the value of gold and silver to be accepted by the state shall be based on the London PM fix for that day’s transaction.

           6. Any rule or portion of a rule, as that term is defined in section 536.010, that is created under the authority delegated in this section shall become effective only if it complies with and is subject to all of the provisions of chapter 536 and, if applicable, section 536.028. This section and chapter 536 are nonseverable and if any of the powers vested with the general assembly under chapter 536 to review, to delay the effective date, or to disapprove and annul a rules are subsequently held unconstitutional, then the grant of rulemaking authority and any rule proposed or adopted after August 28, 2013, shall be invalid and void.

[bold emphasis in original, strikethrough emphasis added]

You get a tax break for speculating in the gold and silver market?

Heh. Pay your tax bills with silver coin, based on the afternoon price fix rather than the face value? Think of the possibilities.

“…A method of establishing the value of gold and silver to be accepted by the state shall be based on the London PM fix for that day’s transaction….”

Why London? Why not an American commodities market, eh? Just asking.

What is this, a precious metals market manipulator protection act?

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

Some time ago, Rep. Paul Curtman’s (R-105) gold currency measure, HB1637, caught my eye – partly because it was so patently ridiculous. I had started to write about it and the role that gold has played in the more paranoid wingnut fantasies over the past decades (there are folks who read the Wizard of Oz as an allegory about the gold standard), but decided that I would put it on hold, and if we were really lucky, Curtman’s promenade on the cazy side would be brought to a halt by more seasoned hands in the legislature.

Turns out, there are no such seasoned hands – in the Missouri House, that is, which has just voted to send Curtman’s fantasy opus to the Senate. In the – I hope – unlikely event that this bill makes it through the Senate, Missouri will join Utah in recognizing gold and silver coins issued by federal mints as legal tender.

On the surface it just sounds goofy. Only a fool would really try to use gold and silver to make purchases. Think about it – would you be willing to trade a gold coin with a commodity value of $1200 for the $50 dollars of groceries it’s face value would get you?

Curtman, however, was inspired by a development in Utah. An enterprising soul there has offered to hold gold in a depository and issue a debit card that can be used to spend down the actual, commodity value of the gold credited to the debit card holder. As Curtman conceded:

The provisions of the bill won’t be utilized unless and until a business like the one in Utah is developed in Missouri. Curtman says, “Right now it’s a new concept and so there’s not really regulatory authority over it, so that’s one of the parts of the bill … if this happens, the Secretary of State’s Office would be the one to handle it, because it’s commodities exchange.”

So what does Curtman hope to achieve? Would you believe he sees this as an important hedge against inflation? Although inflation is currently a non-issue, this rationale is telling. As Ed Kilgore observes:

The idea that hyperinflation is the major economic peril facing America at the moment requires a truly special perspective on current events. But throughout history, “hard money” advocates have conflated currency with morality, and more generally, creditors with virtue. That makes latter-day goldbugs nothing more or less than the outer edge of a conservative movement increasingly inclined to define the defense of “haves against have-nots” as the defense of civilization under seige by redistributionist barbarians.

Anti-redistributionist frenzy aside, hard currency has been a cause célèbre among the paranoid right for generations. U.S. currency was decoupled from gold in 1971, but the desire to return to the good old, hard currency days is near and dear to the right wing heart for the very reasons that most economists eschew it. Delinking gold from the currency allows policy makers greater flexibility to respond to changing economic conditions. Fanatic free-market advocates, however, distrust this flexibility and prefer to leave the value of the currency to the vagaries of the market. As The Economist mockingly observes, “the quintessential gold bug is an investor who expects every form of paper wealth to collapse, along with civilisation itself.”

It gets even nuttier, however. The way many conspiracy theorists spin it, paper money is part of a plot to create an economic collapse:

According to this theory – and it has many forms – an elite will usher in an age of hyper-inflation in order to improvise [sic] citizens in the developed world. Having achieved this they be in possession of the only real assets (property, gold) and thus have even greater political power.

A final irony: If you know anything about Curtman, you of course remember that he is very fond of representing himself as a fearless defender of the Constitution. Consequently, a particularly amusing aspect of Curtman’s efforts to establish an alternative currency is that it arguably contravenes Article One, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. To be fair, hard currency enthusiasts respond that Article One, Section 10 suggests that states may recognize gold and/or silver currency – an argument that, it has been pointed out, hinges on ignoring the purpose of Section 10 and its limitations. Constitutional considerations aside, the Economist is probably correct that for folks like Curtman, the real attraction of gold depends on “airier considerations, such as whether you think Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.”  

Ever since I witnessed State Rep. Paul Curtman (R-105) (then just Citizen Paul Curtman) strutting his constitutional defender stuff at a constituent meeting with Claire McCaskill’s staff early in 2009, I’ve taken an interest in his charmingly comic tendency towards bombast and self-glorification, usually centering on discredited right-wing claims about the Constitution. Consequently, I’ve been working on and off on a post dealing with some of the tricky constitutional issues involved in his recent list of legislative priorities for the current session.

One of those priorities, though, did not merit much effort; it was pretty easy to dismiss his anti-Sharia bill out-of-hand, although it’s difficult to say if that will be the case in the lege given some of their recent antics. I wrote a short paragraph:

Curtman’s ongoing effort to combat the nonexistent threat of Sharia law – disguised as a quest to ban foreign law from Missouri Courts – has garnered the most attention. Such a law would not only incorrectly define Sharia as foreign rather than religious law, institutionalize religious and ethnic bigotry, and potentially drive away foreign companies that might otherwise do business in Missouri, but would arguably be in violation of the 1st amendment’s freedom of religion clause. Additionally, the American Constitution Society (ACS) points out that:

…the domestic law of the United States recognizes law of nations. […] Legislation that forbids courts from considering international or foreign law raise serious questions about the separation of powers and the independence of courts and judges […] If supporters of these measures genuinely wish to protect the Constitution, they would do well to trust the framers’ respect for international law and religious freedom …

It would be interesting to see Curtman put real, careful arguments such as those made by the ACS into his constitutional pipe and smoke them. The result couldn’t be worse than whatever pseudo-constitutional blend he’s smoking right now.

Before I could finish my foray into Curtman’s constitutional misreadings, however, the courts spoke, issuing a ruling that should, if we could only rely on the intelligence of our legislators, put finis to anti-Sharia initiatives in Missouri. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Oklahoma’s recently passed anti-Sharia law doesn’t meet constitutional muster:

Given the lack of evidence of any concrete problem, any harm Appellants seek to remedy with the proposed amendment is speculative at best and cannot support a compelling interest.15 “To sacrifice First Amendment protections for so speculative a gain is not warranted . . . .” Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Democratic Nat’l Co., 412 U.S. 94, 127 (1973).

Anti-Sharia legislation introduced by Curtman last year was similar to the Oklahoma law which, I assume, is the case with the bill he is pushing this session.  Consequently, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the 10th Circuit ruling has implications for Curtman’s Missouri effort. Oklahoma may indeed decide to take this to the Supreme Court, but as Think Progress‘ Scott Keyes’ notes:

Today’s decision is a seminal moment in the ongoing battle against Islamophobia. As anti-Muslim individuals continue to push Sharia hysteria in other states, many legislators may think twice before passing a law deemed unconstitutional by the 10th Circuit.

The question is whether or not Missouri legislators will have the will to think twice. They should; they certainly have more important things to worry about than placating the anti-Sharia hysteria of an ignorant and bigoted minority – like maybe finally getting serious about a $5 million deficit that is threatening a state already ranked last or near last in almost every measure of quality of life.