The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a prominent story today on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Their write-up was careful to strive for balance in the face of facts that paint a damming picture of unbalanced corporate influence in the legislative process. Consider, for instance, that, as the Post-Dispatch noted:

State lawmakers pay $50 a year to join. Corporate members pay as much as $25,000. According to ALEC’s IRS filings, over the past three years it has raised nearly $22 million from corporations, foundations and other sources, and just $250,000 in dues paid by state legislators.

We’re expected to believe that down-and-dirty-bottom-line corporate CEOs are ponying up $22 million for, as State Senator Jane Cunningham puts it, “a clearinghouse of ideas from like-minded lawmakers around the country … that helps elected officials get perspective they otherwise couldn’t”?

I bet I can describe that perspective down to a tee without ever attending an ALEC gathering. Of course, if I wanted to incorporate my insights into the “model” legislation produced by the special interest task forces – consisting of equal numbers of legislators and ALEC’s corporate representatives – I’d have to fork over the big bucks. Essentially, ALEC’s corporate members put up a massive chunk of change and get a big say about what goes into our laws. And supporters call it “research” assistance!

Just look at ALEC’s role in Missouri politics – take, for example, Senator Cunningham herself. The Post-Dispatch cites Cunningham for her role as a standard bearer for ALEC’s signature effort to gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by eliminating the individual mandate. Cunningham also came out swinging when it appeared that more reasonable Missouri legislators were going to get down to business and form a Missouri health insurance exchange as mandated by the ACA. Nor should we forget Cunningham’s effort to gut child labor protections or eliminate teacher tenure, not perhaps directly modeled on ALEC’s model initiatives, but definitely right in line with ALEC’s anti-government, free market fundamentalist approach.

Cunningham has been very busy doing ALEC’s business – and she is not alone. Just take a look at what ALEC’s little flock has been up to in Jefferson City – and then sit down and think very carefully about who is running our government and for whom.

…because our current reality is more insane.

A video from the AFL-CIO:

…[at 1:20] Suit No. 2: Next on the agenda, we have a discrimination problem.

Suit No. 3: That’s right. We are discriminating against Americans under the age of twelve who should have the right to work if they so choose.

Suit No. 4: Not to let them work is a violation of their rights.

Suit No. 3: Agreed. I am not going to sit on my hands while children are denied equal rights and access.

Suit No. 1: Not on my watch.

Suit No. 2: This is a great day for child laborers everywhere.

Suit No. 4: Hold on, isn’t child labor considered a bad thing?

Suit No. 3: He’s right. Child labor has been turned into a dirty word. Let’s call it paid child fun time.

Suit No. 4: Oh, I like it.

Suit No. 2: Pro-growth. All in favor.

All: Aye….

In Missouri:

Jane Cunningham hearts child labor (February 14, 2011)

HB 515: creating the workforce for Sen. Cunningham’s SB 222 (February 16, 2011)

SB 222 – This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

Paid child fun time. Yep, satire is dead as a door nail.

I was overjoyed to learn that Rep. Todd Akin has finally announced that he is running for Claire McCaskill’s senate seat.  As a resident of the 2nd congressional district,  I can now look forward to a time when Todd Akin will no longer be my representative in Washington – and, if we’re all really lucky, Claire McCaskill will kick his backside (or, maybe Sarah Steelman will do it in the primary) and Todd can go home and lick his wounds, out of sight and, blessedly, out of mind. Of course, I’m still not out of the woods. It seems like all the classic, GOP super-crazies are lining up to try to take over Akin’s old territory.  We’ve got Crazy Ed Martin, Crazy Jane Cunningham (probably) , and, as per her announcement today,  Ann Wagner, who is mostly remarkable because her sanity is not consistently questioned.

However, some comments Wagner made recently in an interview in the über-right West Newsmagazine* might suggest that she too is just a little out to lunch in that endearing GOP way. In what was possibly a bid to reassure West County conservatives that she represents continuity with the reality-challenged Akin, Wagner described her motivation for getting back into domestic politics. It seems that it all started during the four years that she spent in Luxembourg as the U.S. ambassador:

She returned to America at the end of Bush’s term and said she immediately got the sense that things in the country had changed with the election of President Obama.

“I was leaving one socialist continent and had the feeling that perhaps I was returning to another one,” Wagner said. “That worried me, so I jumped right back into politics.”

Aren’t we fortunate that we have Ann “Wonder-Woman” Wagner ready to go to battle with the evil socialists in Washington D.C. – just like all those rich socialists she saw in Luxembourg where people enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world? And she’s got her job cut out for her:

“Our country is near financial ruin,” Wagner said, “The federal government has put handcuffs on job creators and their policies are killing private sector jobs.”

I realize that that last bit is just regular old GOP boilerplate – I think they may be legally required to say that – but I do think, since she’s so worried about “financial ruin” in the U.S., that it’s too bad she couldn’t have made it home a little bit earlier and tackled the real architect of our financial woes. You know – George W. Bush, the guy who cut off vital revenue streams to give tax cuts to rich men, spent money like a drunken sailor on things like unnecessary and seemingly endless Middle Eastern Wars, while letting Wall Street drive the economy into the gutter.

*West Newsmagazine, May 11, 2011, pp. 40-41. The text of the interview does not seem to be available online.    

An article in The Hill today highlights the GOP’s intention to go after purple state Democrats – think Claire McCaskill here –  for voting against the GOP wish list resolutions that would have denied federal funding to Planned Parenthood and funds needed to implement the Affordable Care Act. According to GOP strategists, the case against McCaskill will be strengthened by the recent defection of Missouri’s Attorney General, Chris Koster, to the dark side:

McCaskill will come under criticism for voting to preserve funding for the implementation of healthcare reform after Chris Koster, Missouri’s Democratic attorney general, endorsed a multi-state lawsuit challenging the law. Koster filed a legal brief in federal court this week supporting a lawsuit in Florida challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate.

So Koster’s little exercise in how not to waffle effectively may prove to be the gift that keeps on giving – to Republicans. It certainly seemed to please his erstwhile GOP colleague, Crazy Jane Cunningham, who expressed her gratitude in her usual overblown style:

I sincerely thank our attorney general for his step forward in defending citizens’ rights and freedoms and confronting federally mandated health care.

With Democrats like Koster, we don’t need Republicans to gum up the works.

Representative Wayne Wallingford (r) introduced a bill that is apparently a companion to Senator Jane Cunningham’s SB 222 celebration of child labor.

… It is the intent of the general assembly that all embryos created in Missouri be birthed….

Obviously this addresses future labor needs (pun intended) in the State of Missouri.

The bill:

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 515

96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES WALLINGFORD (Sponsor), LICHTENEGGER, HINSON, FITZWATER, SCHARNHORST, KORMAN, FLANIGAN, JONES (89), McNARY, SMITH (150), CAUTHORN, McCAHERTY, FREDERICK, DIEHL, ROWLAND, FRANZ, COOKSON, CONWAY (14), LASATER, SCHOELLER, CURTMAN, HAMPTON, ENTLICHER, RIDDLE AND WRIGHT (Co-sponsors).

1145L.01I                                                                                                                                                  D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 453, RSMo, by adding thereto four new sections relating to embryo transfer.

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

           Section A. Chapter 453, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto four new sections, to be known as sections 453.250, 453.252, 453.254, and 453.256, to read as follows:

           453.250. 1. Sections 453.250 to 453.256 shall be known and may be cited as the “Embryo Transfer Act”.

           2. As used in this section, the following terms shall mean:

           (1) “Agent”, a licensed attorney, fertility clinic, relative within the second degree of consanguinity, or other legal entity that participates in embryo transfer, except entities that participate in stem cell research;

           (2) “Embryo” or “human embryo”, an individual fertilized ovum of the human species from the single-cell stage to day seven;

           (3) “Embryo relinquishment” or “legal transfer of rights to an embryo”, the relinquishment of rights and responsibilities by the person or persons who hold the legal rights and responsibilities for an embryo and the acceptance of such rights and responsibilities by a recipient intended parent;

           (4) “Embryo transfer”, the medical procedure of physically placing an embryo into the uterus of a female;

           (5) “Legal embryo custodian”, the person or persons who hold the legal rights and responsibilities for a human embryo;

           (6) “Recipient intended parent”, a person or persons who receives a relinquished embryo and who accepts full legal rights and responsibilities for such embryo and any child that may be born as a result of embryo transfer.

           453.252. 1. It is the intent of the general assembly that all embryos created in Missouri be birthed.

           2. A legal embryo custodian may relinquish all rights and responsibilities for an embryo to a recipient intended parent prior to embryo transfer. A written contract shall be entered into between each legal embryo custodian and each recipient intended parent prior to embryo transfer for the legal transfer of rights to an embryo and to any child that may result from the embryo transfer. The contract may cover more than one embryo collection from the donor. The contract shall include the designation by the recipient intended parent or parents or an agent of such parent or parents who is authorized to act on behalf of such parent or parents. The contract shall be signed by each legal embryo custodian for such embryo and by each recipient intended parent in the presence of a notary public and a witness. Initials or other designations may be used if the parties desire anonymity. The contract shall nullify any prior written agreement governing disposition of the embryo. Any subsequent embryo relinquishment or legal transfer of rights to an embryo shall be subject to the same agent restrictions set forth in subdivision (1) of subsection 2 of section 453.250.

           3. If the embryo was created using donor gametes, the sperm or oocyte donors irrevocably relinquish their rights to the embryo to an agent of an in vitro fertilization clinic.

           4. Upon becoming a legal embryo custodian, the legal embryo custodian shall designate a successor legal embryo custodian for the embryo who is authorized to act in the event of the death or incapacitation of the legal embryo custodian. Upon the death or incapacitation of the legal embryo custodian, the designated successor legal embryo custodian shall become the legal embryo custodian.

           5. Prior to the creation of an embryo:

           (1) The legal embryo custodian shall establish that the embryo donor has been screened and tested negative for all infectious agents on the United States Food and Drug Administration’s Complete List of Donor Screening Assays for Infectious Agents and HIV Diagnostic Assays. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to an embryo in existence prior to the effective date of this section; and

           (2) The person or persons creating the legal embryo shall designate a legal embryo custodian for the embryo who is authorized to act in the event of the death or incapacitation of the person or persons creating the embryo. Upon the death or incapacitation of the person or persons creating the embryo, the designated legal embryo custodian shall become the legal embryo custodian.

           6. Upon embryo relinquishment by each legal embryo custodian under subsection 2 of this section, the legal transfer of rights to an embryo shall be considered complete, and the embryo transfer shall be authorized.

           7. A child born to a recipient intended parent as the result of embryo relinquishment under subsection 2 of this section shall be presumed to be the legal child of the recipient intended parent; provided that each legal embryo custodian and each recipient intended parent has entered into a written contract.

           453.254. 1. The court shall give effect to any written waiver of notice and service in the legal proceeding for embryo transfer.

           2. In the interest of justice, to promote the stability of embryo transfers, and to promote the interests of children who may be born following such embryo transfers, the court in its discretion may waive such technical requirements as the court deems just and proper.

           453.256. A completed embryo transfer contract shall terminate any future parental rights and responsibilities of any past or present legal embryo custodian or gamete donor in a child which results from the embryo transfer and shall vest such rights and responsibilities in the recipient intended parent.

“…except entities that participate in stem cell research…”

Interesting.

And we all thought the right wingnut republicans in the General Assembly di
dn’t have a plan.

In Kansas City on February 6, 2011.

Previously at Show Me Progress: Jane Cunningham hearts child labor (February 14, 2011)

At Think Progress:

Missouri Lawmaker Pushes Bill Rolling Back Child Labor Laws

Missouri State Sen. Jane Cunningham (R) is pushing a bill which would dramatically claw back state child labor protections….

In the comments at Think Progress:

Total repeal of the 20th century is going on. What are we to do?

Walk like an Egyptian.

Maybe you remember seeing this Krugman column that talked about the Texas Attorney General who opposes regulating CO2 on the grounds that:

It is almost the height of insanity of bureaucracy to have the EPA regulating something that is emitted by all living things.

[….] This argument says that we should adopt an equally laissez-faire attitude toward sewage.

But hey, there was a time when conservatives did, in fact, argue for doing nothing about effluent of any kind. In the years leading up to the Great Stink of 1858, which finally got the British to build a London sewer system, The Economist editorialized against any such foolish notion (pdf):

suffering and evil are nature’s admonitions-they cannot be got rid of.

Or, to put it (almost) in the modern vernacular, stuff happens.

And given the way we’re heading – with politicians arguing that the federal government has no right to ban child labor – don’t be surprised to see the anti-sewer movement making a comeback, and to see elected representatives, even if they know better, holding their noses and going along.

Seems that Mike Lee, the wingnut who replaced Senator Bob Bennett from Utah, believes that Congressional laws banning child labor are unconstitutional.

“Congress decided it wanted to prohibit that practice, so it passed a law. No more child labor. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to that law, and the Supreme Court decided a case in 1918 called Hammer v. Dagenhardt,” Lee said. “In that case, the Supreme Court acknowledged something very interesting — that, as reprehensible as child labor is, and as much as it ought to be abandoned — that’s something that has to be done by state legislators, not by Members of Congress.”

Our own Sen. Jane Cunningham agrees that this issue belongs to the states. But if you think Lee is nuts, heartless, and laughable, then consider that Cunningham is nuttier, meaner and more asinine, because she doesn’t even go along with Lee’s avowal that child labor is “reprehensible.” Cunningham has introduced a bill to minimize Missouri’s child labor laws. No, I’m serious.

Mike Hall’s AFL-CIO blog posting about it says:

I could find all kinds of colorful words and descriptions to show just how crazed and outrageous is S.B. 222.

But let’s just use the official summary of the bill from the Missouri state Senate website and if you don’t believe me, click here and read it yourself.

• This act modifies the child labor laws.
• It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen.
• Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed.
• It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed.
• Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished.
• It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ.
• It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

Even though Cynthia Davis (R-hunger is a great motivator for children) lost her state senate bid last fall, her ignoble, penurious spirit endures in Jane Cunningham. We’ll have to hope that Missouri’s legislators refuse to hold their noses and go along.

On Tuesday, January 18th a state Senate committee hearing considered Senator Jane Cunningham’s (R-Chesterfield) nonbinding resolution (SR27) urging AG Chris Koster to join the frivolous lawsuit challenging the mandate in the health care reform bill. Twenty activists urged the Republicans on the panel to remember that government’s purpose is to protect us in situations where we as individuals cannot fend for ourselves. We cannot, for example, prevent health insurers from dumping the most vulnerable and getting fat on premiums from their healthier customers. Those who attended the hearing spoke repeatedly about Judith Parker’s testimony. Parker’s four year old granddaughter has cancer, and the whole family fears that by the time the little girl is five, she will have reached the lifetime caps that health insurers would continue to impose if it were not for the Affordable Care Act.

The audio track is not the best, but I’ll transcribe what I can hear. What I can definitely hear is the passion in Parker’s voice. And although the camera doesn’t show Parker’s face, we can see, at the end, the concern that her remarks elicited from Sen. Jolie Justus (D-KC).

I want to tell you about my granddaughter, who, as we speak here today, is in Children’s Hospital in St. Louis County. She is there with an infection after twenty months of chemotherapy for cancer. She has no resistance. It’s hard for me to sit here today with her in St. Louis. She has another nine to ten months of chemotherapy to go. The reasons why I am here and not with her … there are three compelling reasons.

I’m just getting rid of a cold and I can’t be in the room with her. I’m thankful for all of modern technology. I can visit with her as soon as I get home, as I do, on Skype. We visit two or three times a day and check with each other.

I am here because we (inaudible) and we pray, my family and I, we pray that (inaudible) will keep her with us. We are also burdened with the sheer fact of what’s gonna happen. Is she gonna reach the end of her coverage this year? She came very close to it last year. And when is she gonna run out with her lifetime coverage? She’s four years old, for pete’s sake, and we are worried about lifetime coverage. we are looking forward to the fact that if this particular bill does not stay in place, she will not be able to get (inaudible).

So why am I here. Because she is worth being here to speak up for affordable and accessible health care. And if you go into any of the hospitals, the children’s hospitals and other hospitals, it is not just my granddaughter, it is all of them. I urge you to go talk to those who are seriously ill and don’t know whether or not their coverage will continue. I urge you to go talk to those who if they had just gotten preventive care sooner would not be so seriously ill.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. (inaudible)

I hope to learn at some point which Republican senators did not stay in the chamber the next day to vote on Cunningham’s resolution. All of them on the panel voted it out of committee, but I’d be pleased if I saw that some of those same senators didn’t want to support it on the final floor vote. Judith Parker’s testimony is not hysterical, although she and her family may well have felt moments of hysteria. Her calm passion in the face of people who would deny a four year old the health care she needs speaks volumes about her commitment. And the fact that anyone could vote to dismantle reform speaks volumes as well.

[As happened with the video on my previous posting, the video is not showing on the front page on my server. If you’ll click “Discuss”, you’ll find the video beyond the fold.]

An editorial in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch quite sensibly observed that Proposition C was a very poor tool for amplifying the anti-Obamacare message nationally:

The megaphone is muffled when the message is “One in every six registered Missouri voters (71 percent of the 23 percent who turned out) sent a message to Washington.”

On the other side of the state, the Kansas City Star struck the same deflationary note:

…a light turnout made clear what the vote wasn’t: a sweeping referendum on health reform. An electorate seriously riled up about an issue sends more than roughly a fourth of registered voters to the polls.

The silliness of all the conservative celebratory braying is recognized even outside the state. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post put the matter very succinctly:

I’m really not sure why conservatives are so excited that an electorate primarily made of Republican primary voters passed  an anti-individual mandate ballot initiative in Missouri. I don’t even understand why conservatives would be excited if it passed during a normal election. For one thing, states can’t invalidate federal laws. … . Moreover the focus on the individual mandate speaks to how weak the conservative case against the bill is. The individual mandate can be replaced. That wouldn’t be a good thing, but you could substitute automatic enrollment, or some form of lock-out..

All very rational – however, if we were living in a rational political world, there would never have been a proposition C. If you want to gauge the effect of Proposition C in our current political Bizarro World, look no further than the first page of today’s Post Dispatch.

Despite the excellent editorial,  the cover story on Proposition C gave State Senator and Proposition C cheerleader, Jane Cunningham (R-Dist.7), full bragging rights. The reporter evidently felt that bringing up real, verifiable facts like the small turnout was not necessary when he could manufacture a story about how Missouri voters “overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance.” I am afraid that this reporting path will prove to be that most traveled before this is all over.

Nor do we have to wait too long to see just how an orgy of Proposition C triumphalism is going to encourage the crazies to go even further. FiredUp! reported yesterday that State Senator Jim Lembke (R-Dist. 1) is so emboldened by the Prop C victory that he proclaimed his support for having Missouri defy the federal mandate that requires emergency rooms to treat the uninsured – which does, at least, have the virtue that it tells anyone who is interested just how mean-minded Proposition C-loving GOP fringers really are.