MO Constitution

Yesterday's Jefferson City News-Tribune has a letter to the editor that is a genuine candidate for most insane letter to the editor ever published.  Mr. Frank Rycyk writes, inexplicably...

The Missouri Constitution mandates that the governor and the attorney general are each elected, separately, by a vote of the people. At the federal level, the attorney general is appointed by the president.

Is it wise to have these two top elected officials, in Missouri, of two different political parties? One might argue that this creates a system of checks and balances.

Appearances suggest otherwise. Is Missouri becoming the laughing stock of the other states?

There has got to be a better way! A Missouri constitutional amendment may be in order.

We might actually have a situation, for once, where the federal government is doing something better than Missouri.

I submit that having the attorney general and other top-level officials, appointed by the governor would be a better way.

I admonish the Missouri legislation and/or the Missouri citizens to create a constitutional amendment which will avoid such poor displays of partisan politics in the future.

We could, in other words, "avoid such poor displays of partisan politics" by allowing a governor like Matt Blunt to appoint an Attorney General of his own choosing, someone non-partisan and fair-minded like Thor Hearne, perhaps.  We'd then no longer have to worry about becoming a "laughing stock" for other states because all of the governor's law-breaking and malfeasance could be swept tidily under the rug by his own appointee.  Voila!  Problem solved.  No messy investigations or accountability. 

Check out the new Missourians for Fair Elections website:  

http://mofairelections.blogspot.com/

And call your Senator and tell them not to mess with the constitution and our voting rights.

Although there were many other worthy submissions of offensive quotes, the Heartless Quote of the Week goes to Senator John Loudon, hands down:

Republican Sen. John Loudon ridiculed concerns [voiced by nuns, elderly, disabled, student, poor and minority voters] that the photo ID requirement amounted to a tax on voters.

"The only thing taxing is you have to get off your duff and get an ID that's given away for free," Loudon said.

Yes, Loudon told that to Kathleen Weinschenk, who has cerebral palsy and doesn’t drive -  and who wouldn’t be able to vote without a government-issued photo ID if the heartless GOP has their way.  Story Continued »

Delbert Scott finally says what we’ve all known.  The mean GOP knows it might not control the legislature and Governor’s mansion so, before they are ousted, they are going to force through a constitutional amendment to weaken our voting rights, as well as an extremely unpopular accompanying measure that could disenfranchise as many as 240,000 registered, law-abiding Missouri voters – including the elderly, disabled, poor, students, nuns, Lillie Lewis and Kathleen Weinschenk.  From CDT's Rosenbaum:  Story Continued »

The Joplin Globe, from ultra-liberal southwest Missouri, says 'no thanks' to GOP photo ID voting requirements:

Those without photo ID generally are women, the elderly or the poor.

We have enough bureaucracy.

Heaping on one more barrier, or making the system even more prohibitive for some, smacks of political gamesmanship.

Let’s get down to taking care of problems that are real.

Dealing with real problems?  Novel idea.

Blogger Digby on our state's little photo ID party:

There's a big voter disenfranchisement scheme unfolding in Missouri this week. It could be a very big problem --- they want it in place before November...

We know this hits African Americans and Latinos hard and it's designed to make them think twice about putting themselves through this legal hassle. But there's another group that's going to be hard hit by this ---- the elderly. And in Arizona, where they now require proof of citizenship, even though they've been voting for 60 years, they are now just out of luck

The people who think we should limit the franchise in Missouri want very badly to make the median Missourian believe that new voting laws will only affect the sorts of people whom we aren't really supposed to care about.  Fact is, as Digby notes, the Photo ID voting law's most profound effects will be on elderly Missourians whose "citizenship" has never been in question.

If you only read one article today, read this, which details the back story on the Republican attempts to shove through a restrictive measure that will prevent registered law-abiding voters from voting. 

Bush Operative Pushes Voter-ID Law
by Jason Leopold

May 14, 2008—A senior legal adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection campaign is working behind the scenes to help enact a Missouri state constitutional amendment that critics say would suppress the vote in the key battleground state this November by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship.

Mark “Thor” Hearne, Bush-Cheney’s national counsel in 2004 and now a partner in the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of Lathrop & Gage, has been collaborating with Missouri’s Republican state Rep. Stanley Cox, the sponsor of the constitutional amendment, Cox’s office confirmed this week...    READ FULL STORY: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051308b.html

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

From AmericaBlog:

This afternoon, the Missouri House of Representatives Republican leadership continues to try and push through a bill to change the constitution to allow for overly-restrictive election reforms to keep certain eligible voters from voting.

A typically stupid outcome of a stupid policy implemented by Indiana Republicans.  

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

Naturally, Missouri Republicans are chomping at the bit to put in place the same sort of foolish law.  Why does the Missouri GOP hate brides of Christ?

Everyone who has ever failed wants to blame it on someone else.  Now the out-of-state MoCRI-Babies are doing just that after their attempt to change Missouri’s constitution failed.  From the AP:

Asher and Connerly attributed the difficulty in collecting signatures to the court battle. They both called for changes in how initiative petitions are handled in Missouri.
 Story Continued »

Today, the AP busted California millionaire Ward Connerly's so-called "Civil Rights Initiative" clan of circulators for deceiving Missouri voters.

Said Connerly's Missouri puppet Tim Asher:

"The deception thing - it's the same old nonsense that has been put out in other states," he said.

From Rocky Mountain News in Colorado:

A group analyzing thousands of signatures that qualified a November ballot measure backed by Ward Connerly filed a legal challenge claiming more than half are invalid.

[The group]…found about 69,000 signatures that they claim are not valid.

 Story Continued »