Recent Missouri editorials

The Kansas City Star, March 30

While Missouri lawmakers cut higher education funding, they gave themselves free tuition

Oh, the perks of being a politician.

In Missouri, relatively few rules govern the legislature, where checks on campaign contributions and the gifts that lobbyists can bestow are lacking.

This week, one more questionable freebie came to light: college tuition for senators and representatives, paid for by Missouri taxpayers.

This one seems to have slipped into the legislative goodie bag without too many people noticing.

A report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that even the former legislator who chaired the committee that added the benefits for legislators in 2014 didn’t recall doing it.

So far, five representatives and a senator have cashed in, collecting reimbursements for their studies.

Earning an A in a course results in a 100 percent reimbursement. Scoring a B is worth 75 percent payback and a C yields 50 percent.

So far, $256,715 has been spent on either legislators or staffers who have availed themselves of the perk.

Given that many of those same legislators have been all too eager in recent years to cut funding for higher education statewide, it’s irresponsible and downright greedy for them to be carving out ways to ensure that they can afford tuition, all while making it more difficult for Missourians to pay for a degree.

Missouri colleges and universities faced deep funding cuts last year. Thankfully, the House rejected the nearly $70 million in cuts that Gov. Eric Greitens had proposed for the state’s colleges and universities in the budget passed this week.

That would have added insult to injury while legislators retained this tuition reimbursement plan for themselves.

The only Kansas City-area legislator known to have used the reimbursement program is House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, a Democrat. She’s received $1,642 toward her MBA at Rockhurst University.

In her case, the money didn’t even go back to a state school.

Up to 15 credit hours are allowed every fiscal year. And the subject studied has to relate to their legislative duties. But given the wide range of topics handled in Jefferson City, many classes could fulfill that requirement.

Certainly, it’s a good thing when legislators engage in lifelong learning.

All too often, we wish that senators and representatives had done more homework and given more thought to issues before they proposed legislation or voted on a bill.

But burnishing their resumes with a new college degree should not be done on the public’s dime.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 28

Lawmakers consider reversing post-Ferguson court reforms passed just three years ago

The most significant change enacted after the Ferguson protests in 2014 was reform of the state’s municipal court system. Now state lawmakers may scuttle many of those reforms.

Senate Bill 553 is a profound insult to tens of thousands of low-income Missourians who were victimized by a corrupt and predatory system. Financially stressed municipalities, particularly those in north St. Louis County, used traffic and court fines to pad their city treasuries.

Case in point: A 2010 memo from Ferguson’s finance director to its police chief noted that sales-tax collections had dropped and warned that “unless ticket writing ramps up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly raise collections next year.”

In 2015 the Legislature passed SB 5, imposing new restrictions on court operations and lowering to 20 percent the amount that court revenue could contribute to city budgets. The bill’s sponsor, then-Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, wanted a 12.5 percent cap in St. Louis County. The state Supreme Court ruled that the percentage had to be uniform across the state.

The Supreme Court later issued rules for court operations that include bigger courtrooms, more personnel and fewer conflicts among judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. The court said people who could not pay fines had to be offered alternative sentences instead of being jailed.

Schmitt, now the state treasurer, defended his 2015 bill in a tweet Tuesday: “Speed traps, bloated & inefficient local gov’t, debtor prisons, people being treated like ATMs. These were all too familiar realities before our reforms. MO’s been a nat’l leader on what we can do together to fix these problems. SB553 & others like it would be a step back.”

He’s right, but municipalities that have lost their cash cow don’t want to hear it. They are supporting SB 553, by Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, which would gut many of the reforms Schmitt fought to put in place.

It would change how cities calculate revenue from court operations, allowing them to keep more of it. Individuals would be allowed to serve as judges across jurisdictions in more than five municipalities. Limits would be removed on how much violators could be fined. Judges could once again suspend drivers’ licenses to compel payment of fines - never mind that someone who can’t drive to work can’t earn money to pay the fine. The state Department of Revenue would be allowed to deduct traffic fines from income tax refunds. Cities’ annual obligation to file reports on court operations with the state auditor would be modified.

Many cities have revenue problems, often because their tax base and populations are no longer big enough to cover legacy expenses. The solution is to get smarter, smaller or to consolidate - not to squeeze more money out of poor people.

The Joplin Globe, March 29

Missouri should replace a statue of Francis Preston Blair Jr. in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol with a statue of President Harry S. Truman.

A plan to do so has been in the works since 2002.

Each state is permitted two statues in Statuary Hall. In 1899, Missouri donated its two statues to the collection. Both marble statues were carved by Alexander Doyle; one was of Blair and the other of Thomas Hart Benton, one of Missouri’s two first senators. The two political figures represented were contemporaries, men of their times, though Benton died before the Civil War.

Both Blair and Benton opposed slavery. Blair was a unionist and a key figure in that fight, but Benton has more to commend him. Benton had been a slave owner but came to see the institution as repugnant and harmful. Benton served five terms as senator from Missouri. He was one of the first to serve in that capacity. His opposition to slavery cost him his sixth term. He also served one term as a U.S. representative and is the great-great-uncle of his famous mural painter namesake.

Back in 2002, the Legislature approved replacing Blair with Truman. Last year, after long delays, Missouri’s U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt said they want the state to proceed with the approved plan to replace Blair. Truman is the only Missourian to serve as president and a key figure of the 20th century. The plan to install his statue should move forward quickly.

But there is opposition to replacing Blair. In June 2017, seven members of the U.S. House, including U.S. Rep. Billy Long, representing the 7th District, wrote to Gov. Eric Greitens to ask that he reconsider the removal of the Blair statue.

Now the state Senate is considering a resolution that “requests the U.S. Congress to replace the statue of Thomas Hart Benton in the Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol with a statue of Harry S Truman.”

According to a story in the March 27 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, the sponsor of the resolution, said he favors Blair over Benton because of Blair’s role in keeping Missouri from becoming a Confederate state during the Civil War.

Blair was, despite his opposition to slavery, a blatant and virulent racist. His opposition to slavery was based in his fears of the effect of unpaid black labor on the economy and wages for white workers. He wanted to send freed slaves out of the United States after the Civil War. Blair made speeches calling African-Americans “a semi-barbarous race of blacks who are worshipers of fetishes and poligamists.”

The plan already approved should go forward. The move to keep Blair versus Benton should die in the Missouri Senate rules committee, where it is scheduled for a hearing. Blair’s statue should be returned to Missouri.

After so long a delay, Truman’s statue should be installed as soon as possible.