In an op-ed in Monday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jamie Merisotis of the Lumina Foundation noted that:

… the demand for skilled workers is growing, and there are thousands of good-paying jobs available right now around the state. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough college-educated residents to fill those positions. And unless the pace of degree attainment picks up significantly, Missouri won’t have enough talent to meet its future workforce needs.

While Mr. Meriotis went on to detail ways to graduate more students form Missouri colleges, the issue of “brain drain” – the retention of those graduates in Missouri – as well as enticing out-of-state college graduates to accept jobs in Missouri are equally important.

General wisdom has it that regions that do best at attracting college graduates are “economically vital as well as physically or culturally appealing.” Economic viability speaks for itself and Missouri obviously has some problems in this area.

Think, however, as well, about the state’s cultural appeal. Social culture and political culture are closely related, so to get a handle on what it is about Missouri that might be off-putting, it could be instructive to review some of the bills that were vetoed by Governor Nixon after this last legislative session, bills, for instance, to ward off non-existent threats from Sharia law, or to forbid any sustainability activities that might mirror the U.N.’s suggested (purely voluntary) Agenda 21 guidelines. An especially illustrative situation is that occasioned by the veto of HB436.

HB436 reflects the belief of some of the not-so-bright lights in the legislature that they can decide to “nullify” all federal gun laws – new federal laws as well as those that have been on the books for years – and prohibit their enforcement by federal officials. Additionally, the bill not only provides sanction for arming teachers, but specifies that they can be fired if they refuse to carry guns. Pure nuttery that contributes to Missouri’s growing reputation as a preserve for rightwing buffoons.

Of course this law violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause and was quite correctly vetoed by Governor Nixon. However, it seems likely that the veto will be overturned and Missouri citizens will eventually have to pick up the costs of defending this exercise in idiocy in the courts – where it will almost decidedly be overruled.  

And what is worse, the Governor’s veto may be overturned by virtue of complicit Democrats in the House. Reps. Keith English (D-68), Ben Harris (D-118), and T.J. McKenna (D-114) have all indicated that they’ll vote to override. Even worse yet is that two of these Democrats don’t even necessarily think that HB436 is a good law – they’re just going along to get along. Rep. McKenna noted that:

We love our guns and we love hunting. It’s not worth the fight for me to vote against it, […]  the bill is completely unconstitutional, so the courts are going to have to throw it out.

Rep. Harris was even more explicit about why he plans to vote to override:

“Being a rural-area Democrat, if you don’t vote for any gun bill, it will kill you,” Harris said. “That’s what the Republicans want you to do is vote against it, because if you vote against it, they’ll send one mailer every week just blasting you about guns, and you’ll lose” re-election.”

Rep. Ed. Schieffer (D-011), who claims to be still undecided, has much the same message – which is that lots of Missourians won’t tolerate common sense in their lawmakers:

“I personally believe that any higher court will probably rule this particular gun law unconstitutional – on that, I probably agree that the governor’s right,” Schieffer said. “But I may end up still voting for the gun bill, because I don’t want to be on record for not supporting guns.”

Rep. Keith English alone seems to be willing to overlook the legal problems with the poorly conceived bill,  instead evidently subscribing to the prevailing GOP belief that the mere mention of the 2nd amendment, however inappropriate, banishes the rest of the constitution:

“I represent Democrats, of course, but I’m also a gun supporter,” English says. “This is a huge Second Amendment supporting state. I’m here to speak for those people.”

So there you have it. This is the type of crazy political culture that Missouri has to offer its young college graduates or high achieving graduates from other states who may be considering a job offer in Missouri. If you were a bright young thing and the world were your oyster, would you be willing to locate in a state that has become a laughing stock, where government is obviously tanking, and a sizable majority of its citizens don’t care so long as their lawmakers talk that good ol’ 2nd amendment talk?  

I noted last week the comments of a Guardian correspondent, Michael Cohen, that the most interesting aspect of recent politics was the “rapid descent of the Republican Party into madness.” Today Steve Benen remarks that “there’s a strain of madness in today’s GOP, and it remains terribly unsettling.” Benen’s comment was occasioned by  Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of Brian Nieves’ “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” the mother of all nullification bills. Benen derided the bill itself as well as Nieves’ – described as “a deeply confused Republican state senator” – response to its veto  

Benen aptly summarizes the gist of the bill:

Many of us have grown accustomed to a certain degree of nuttiness in Republican policymaking in the 21st century, but even by today’s GOP standards, this was just insane: “The bill seeks to nullify any and all past and future federal laws that might infringe upon Missouri’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, which is very different from the Supreme Court’s and which can be summarized thusly: Anything goes.”

And yet, it passed the GOP-led state legislature anyway. …

See where we’re all going when it comes to to the question of GOP lunacy? Neives’ entirely bonkers response to the veto was perfectly in character, replete with the emotive capitalization, and lavish use of exclamation marks that seems to characterize all his writing efforts:

I just couldn’t resist sharing this! Here we see our esteemed governor B___slapping BOTH the 2nd AND 10th Amendments at the same time! He then has the Gall, the Nerve, to stand in front of the people of Missouri and “say” he supports the 2nd Amendment?!?! … *

These words not only reveal the superficiality and ignorance of Nieves, but the reflect the fevered mental processes of a person who has moved so far beyond rationality that he should excite fear. Instead, fellow Missourians in the heavily Republican 26th district continue to elect him to state office. When it comes to the idea of collective madness, need one say more?

* The RiverFront Times offers a screenshot of the Nieves Facebook rant from which the quote above was taken; the RFT notes that cooler heads seems to have prevailed and the post has subsequently been removed (or RFT access was blocked). If your’re in the mood for a laugh, there’s more on the Facebook comments here.

The fallout from the 2013 legislative session ought to give Missourians pause. To date, Governor Nixon has vetoed 23 bills that made it out of the session – and he still has 10 days in which to increase that total. And given that the infamous gun bill that seeks to nullify all federal gun legislation is still outstanding, we can only cross our fingers and hope that our governor will go for at least one more veto.  

Some of these bills are truly, horrendously dangerous and the governor had no other option but to veto them. I’m mainly thinking here of the corporate tax cut bill that aimed to take us down the same road as Kansas – which just had its economic development credit rating downgraded as a result of its tax “reform.” Others, while potentially harmful, are little more than exercises in fantasy. Here I’m referencing bills like those that sought to ban Sharia law or Agenda 21, you know, major threats that keep us up at night – at least those of us who’re both brain dead and paranoid.

Some bills, however, failed the smell test because they were, as the Governor noted, “shoddily drafted.” In other words, the whiz kids we sent to Jefferson City can’t manage to write legislation that doesn’t overshoot its goals or isn’t so carelessly crafted that it could withstand a legal challenge. I guess it’s just too hard to write laws when you don’t have some outside lobbyist or the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) handing you model legislation you can crib off of.

So far, I’ve just been describing what the Republican majority in the legislature actually did. What they didn’t do is equally remarkable. Transportation infrastructure funding, tax credit reform, the state’s outstanding education needs, you name it, they couldn’t deal with it effectively – and given their favored solutions, we should all probably hold our tongues and hope the stalemate continues.

Finally, in addition to what the legislators did that they shouldn’t do, and what they couldn’t do, there are the things they wouldn’t do. Foremost in that category is make sure that over 260,000 uninsured Missourians get health care. In order to keep these folks uninsured, our brilliant lawmakers had to turn down big wads of federal money – money that Missouri tax payers send to the federal government that would have been returned to the state. And that money would not only have helped the uninsured, but would have boosted the health care industry and created jobs.

To be fair, House Speaker Tim Jones has appointed some study groups to consider “Medicaid reform” prior to the next session. There are those who think that this action may be a ploy to escape the possibly very bad consequences of not taking the Feds’ Medicaid offer. What these groups will manage to produce, though, remains to be seen and if there’s a way to punish those who have to rely on Medicaid and to pare benefits to the minimum, I’ll bet Jones’ pals will manage to find it.

So all this leaves us with the question: Why do you suppose that our lawmakers are working to destroy the quality of life in our state? Why do they want Missouri to be a laughing stock? Do you think it might have something to do with the Republican majority in Jefferson City? Michel Cohen of the Guardian, speaking of the national level GOP, suggests that there could be some truth to that answer:

What is the single most consequential political development of the past five years? Some might say the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama; others might point to the passage of the most important piece of social policy (Obamacare) since the 1960s; some might even say the drawing down of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in reality, it is the rapid descent of the Republican party into madness.

Never before in American history have we seen a political party so completely dominated and controlled by its extremist wing; and never before have we seen a political party that brings together the attributes of nihilism, heartlessness, radicalism and naked partisanship quite like the modern GOP. In a two-party system like America’s, the result is unprecedented dysfunction.

Add comically ignorant and it sounds like Missouri’s GOP to me.