Lobbiest Against Citizen Constitutional Rights

Missouri, May 17, 2009:
Defenders of Liberty, http://www.mofirst.org

Here's what happened...

BOTTOM LINE SUMMARY
Our primary objective of stopping the bad bill was met, and our secondary objective of passing reforms was advanced but did not come to be. Unless a bill is being pushed by most of the power brokers, it usually takes more than one year to get it passed. Our "respect the will of the voter" theme and common sense, non-partisan reform resonates, and I think we laid a lot of good groundwork for a follow up effort next year.

We faced off against the secretary of state, the Chamber of Commerce, the Missouri Municipal League, the NEA, Farm Bureau and their tag-a-long, the Cattlemen's Association, and the Missouri Restaurant Association -- plus whoever else was behind the scene. The main senate opposition came from Jolie Justus and Joan Bray. When our good language was being debated on the floor, Kevin Engler argued for Bray's amendment to prohibit pay based on signatures. (It was rare for Engler to speak for or against a bill this session. The amendment was soundly defeated in spite of the floor leader's support.)

Our first thought was that the best defense was a good offense. That means killing the residency requirement and the prohibition on "payment based on the number of signatures collected" was the number one priority -- we did and that was a significant victory, especially considering the powerful interests on the other side. More importantly, we now have the majority of the senate understanding that there are ways to reform the petition process while still respecting the people's constitutional right to petition.

Another significant outcome was exposing the secretary of state's attitude about a fair an unbiased initiative and referendum system. Her people fought us all the way and would not even discuss reasonable, non-partisan reforms. She was clearly defending her power as the petition queen (Read 1 Kings 21:7-10) who can make or break initiatives.

Another thing we learned was who truly has the people's interest at heart and who can be "distracted" from that interest by the monied special interests. And, similarly, who actually honors their oath to support and defend the constitutions. Sen. Jim Lembke started out ambivalent about this issue because he doesn't like anything that smacks of direct democracy, but then we showed him Article II, Sec. 49 of the Missouri Constitution. That's where it says the people "reserve" the power to use I&R. Jim then became incensed at the notion that the power brokers wanted to effectively strip the people of that reserved power -- and do so through back-door means. Jim then became a fighting tiger for our issue. It's great to have him in the senate!

Waiting to help us in the house when we got the "repaired" bill back over there was Rep. Ed Emery. Ed is a stand up constitutionalist, like Lembke.

I mention Ed because he will be facing off against Rep. Mike Parson in the primary when Sen. Delbert Scott vacates his seat (2010 election).

The more time I spend at the capitol, the more I realize just how little say the average people actually have. The special interests have a stranglehold and we need guys like Lembke and Emery up there to keep the constitution alive!


THANK YOU
It should be noted at this point that all the calls to Engler really helped!! Scores of calls jammed their phones and really made a point that helped me a lot, since they understood that I had a lot of backing.

Again, I think we achieved, overall, a large victory. Besides killing the bad bills, I don't think we'll see a republican push for the bad stuff again and I think we have clearly drawn some battle lines. It will be interesting to see who wants to side with the SOS, Missouri Municipal League and NEA next time.

Next time we will also start a concurrent effort in the house. In the mean time, I hope people are taking notice of the SOS' disdain of the people's "reserved" right to I&R!

Thank you, all, for your support!

- Ron