Legislators too busy with bad bills to worry about ethics.
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The Missouri House was awfully busy last week, passing or advancing a passel of terrible bills that would harm the public interest in any number of ways. Among the highlights:
• House Joint Resolution 9, which would allow voters to enact early voting in the state, but only at the cost of disenfranchising voters who don’t have photo identification.
• House Bill 258, which would overturn the will of state voters who wanted waiters and waitresses to be paid the minimum wage.
• HB 795, which would allow more businesses to avoid paying the minimum wage.
• HB 668, which would lower the age for getting a concealed weapons permit from 23 to 21, allow people to carry guns on college campuses and make it clear that you have the right to shoot anyone who is unlawfully on your property anywhere, not just in your house.
• HJR 36, our personal favorite, which would allow voters to eliminate corporate and personal income taxes and replace them with a sales tax. If you earn less than federal poverty guidelines, you would get a monthly rebate. Otherwise, every Missourian, from Joe Sixpack to Betsy Billionaire, would be taxed at the same rate on everything he or she buys, except, of course, for corporations, which wouldn’t be taxed on the goods and services they buy from each other.
The “awfully” in “awfully busy” is the right word. No wonder our legislators don’t have time to reform their own sleazy ethics rules.
Our friends at The Kansas City Star asked House Speaker Ron Richard, R-Joplin, why he wasn’t interested in any of the 18 bills kicking around the Legislature that would reform campaign financing or government ethics. Mr. Richard said the House was too busy to take up ethics reform. Besides, he said, the Senate wasn’t interested.
“I don’t need to make a statement just to butter up the press on ethics when it’s not going to make it any farther than this,” he said.
Well, sure. It’s just the press that’s interested in the huge amount of money that’s pouring in to election campaigns, much of it laundered through party committees. It’s just the press that’s connecting the dots between all that money and the bills that are getting priority treatment.
Oh, wait. The FBI also is interested. As The Star previously reported, the FBI is looking into “pay-to-play” allegations that legislative favors are being handed out in return for campaign contributions.
One beneficiary of Missouri’s laughable ethics laws is Mr. Richard’s own legislative director, Thomas W. Smith Jr. of St. Charles. As The Star reported last week, Mr. Smith, 34, is paid $64,000 a year for his efforts, but it’s his side job that is raising eyebrows. He runs a “political consulting” firm that last year generated nearly $500,000 in income. He also runs several political committee money laundromats from an office in St. Charles.
The last speaker of the Missouri House, Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill, ran his own political consulting business. This year it’s only the speaker’s top aide. Perhaps this is “reform.”
And here’s the weird thing: It’s not against the law. It’s legal for the individual who has life-or-death control over whether a bill even gets a hearing to run a side business “consulting” for other politicians. And it is not illegal for a lobbyist to serve as a legislator.
GOP lawmakers said they see no problem with the arrangement. That they see no problem is the real problem.
Perhaps if Missouri wasn’t so cheap and paid the general assembly a living wage, we would get some people running for office with half a brain. We get what we pay for, which is clearly ignorance.
Does this surprise anyone? Just because the Speaker of the House runs a bowling alley in his spare time doesn’t mean he’s an all-American guy. Just because many of the GOP drive tractors doesn’t mean they are down to earth. Drinking beer and beating your wife doesn’t make you a political star who can right wrongs. Baling hay and driving a truck doesn’t make a person honest. Missourians were duped years ago into believing that people like this had our best interests at heart. However, what we have seen from these people is mind numbing: pedophilia, theft, character assassination, lawbreaking, hard core drugs, porn, FBI and MSHP investigations, rise in domestic violence, governor stepping down (c’mon folks, that’s really what happened), economic trainwreck, foreclosures, major job loss, attacks on the poor, etc. The redneck politicians need to go back to their taverns, barns, and creeks from which they crawled out of.
Funny. The one person currently in office who has actually had his name associated with the FBI investigation - House Minority Leader Paul LeVota - isn’t mentioned here. Instead, the Post tries to make it look like a Republican issue.
The Post has a problem with people show a picture ID to vote, our most treasured right. Would they also be in favor of allow people to apply for a concealed carry permit without a picture ID?
Gee whiz! Why are you always picking on the Republicans when big money rip-offs occur and the need for campaign finance reform is so high? What’s that you say? They are the ones that alway block reforms and enjoy huge quasi-legal campaign donations more than anyone? Oh. I guess when you tell it straight, the Republicans accuse you of bias and damn fools and hate groups echo the conservative party line like good little wealth groupies. Odd how they yell about crooks in the legislatures but vote for them anyway.
Thank God we have a free and independent press.
This is another problem caused by term limits. The creeps know they won’t be re-elected so they just concentrate on getting as much power and money as they possibly can quickly and without paying any attention to the people.
Can someone explain to me why our legislators think that it was important again to overturn the will of the voters in the state of Missouri. House Bill #258 overturns the vote by the “majority of the voters of the state of Missouri. WHY?? The party in charge in Jeff City seems to be making a habit of this by once again overturning a vote by the people. Why would this group of legislators pass this bill? Well I guess because the Restaurant Association has a bigger lobby the the waiters and the busboys. WOW what a victory, screwing mostly younger people trying to make a few bucks waiting tables. I sure hope these mostly younger future voters remember who stuck in their backs– the Republicans in control in the MO. House. I sure will and will make sure I tell everyone waiter that takes care of me while eating dinner out.
WHY IS THIS NOT FRONT PAGE NEWS?? Missouri government has some of the most ridiculous ethical loopholes in the entire nation - so closely bordering on illegal that the FBI is now investigating many of our state lawmakers - and it’s tucked away in a blog posting?!
Perhaps if the Post called more attention to the fact that our elected officials are not really working for us, the citizens, but rather for the industry or company that pays them big bucks, the people of Missouri would finally DEMAND ethical reform in our state government. Sadly, I think very few people are even aware that this is a problem.
So I have no problems with any of the bills except hjr 36 because it does not lower taxes. The will of the people is not sacrosanct. The majority of people have no right to tell people how to spend their money, including how much you should pay someone else. People spend their life and liberty to obtain property. For anyone (or any group) to force someone to spend their property in a certain way is the same as robbing their life and liberty.
The key here is to limit government power. Supposedly we lend power to our representatives. The answer isn’t to change representatives, it is to limit the power of any representative. Who cares if they are Republicans or Democrats. If their power is limited, including the power to tax, then it doesn’t matter how corrupt they are.