Or, letting a lobbyist pull your puppet strings.
“…’A lot of people come with a lot of ideas. I talk to constituents, they may mention something to me, I look into it. There’s some reason the law is the way it is. We can or can’t proceed with their suggestion,’ Dohrman told The Star…”
What the hell does that even mean?
Representative Dean Dohrman (r) [2016 file photo].
It’s about HB 573 and SB 259 and gutting Title IX in Missouri – for someone with a personal agenda.
Yesterday in the Kansas City Star:
Saga of Missouri Title IX bills shows sway of lobbyists, dark money in state government
[….]
Toward the end of October 2018, McIntosh met with state Rep. Dean Dohrman, R-La Monte, a friend who would sponsor the House version of the bill. McIntosh followed up with Dohrman and his staff by sending a series of articles decrying what he called a lack of due process for those accused of sexual assault on campus.
[….]
For the next month, the McIntoshes and Dohrman’s legislative staff worked together to write the bill.
They exchanged drafts, with both McIntosh and his wife outlining provisions they wanted included. The bill was crafted such that the expulsion of McIntosh’s son could have been retroactively appealed to the board of commissioners that his mother presided over.
In an email to Dohrman last fall, a nonpartisan legislative analyst assisting with the bill said, “You should be aware that significant legal concerns are likely to be raised regarding this legislation.”
Dohrman said he didn’t involve himself in the details of the bill’s drafting.
“I put in some input here and there, of course, but that’s a complicated matter and I thought it was best for me to hear it out through the whole process before I put in my two cents, if you will,” he said. “It wasn’t a blind acceptance on my part.”
“When I get a bill that’s extremely complicated I kind of let the person work it out,” Dohrman told The Star in recent interview. “You know, and we had (legislative research) involved, and I was there of course. I just kind of let it work out to see where it went.”
Dohrman said that McIntosh’s involvement shouldn’t lead people to believe lobbyists write all laws.
“A lot of people come with a lot of ideas. I talk to constituents, they may mention something to me, I look into it. There’s some reason the law is the way it is. We can or can’t proceed with their suggestion,” Dohrman told The Star. “Lobbyists, of course, that’s their job, and they’re there more often, but it’s an open process, as it should be.”
[…]
“…It wasn’t a blind acceptance on my part…” Narrator: “It was.”
“…Dohrman said that McIntosh’s involvement shouldn’t lead people to believe lobbyists write all laws…” This one.
“…Lobbyists, of course, that’s their job, and they’re there more often, but it’s an open process, as it should be….” “Open process”. That’s laughable. We wouldn’t be reading about this sordid tale if the republican majority in the General Assembly had managed to gut CLEAN Missouri provisions about Missouri Sunshine Law access to legislative communications.
Previously:
HB 573: Why? Who? (March 9, 2019)
SB 259: Really? For what purpose? (March 11, 2019)
HB 573 and SB 259: Let the army of lobbyists go forth… (March 12, 2019)
HB 573 and SB 259: What took you so long? (March 12, 2019)
HCS HB 573: if you put marshmallows and sprinkles on a mud pie it’s still a mud pie (March 13, 2019)
“…political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize…” (April 24, 2019)
