Editorial Roundup: Missouri
Kansas City Star. June 8, 2023.
Editorial: What kind of world is it that trans people have to beg for sanctuary in KC, Lawrence?
Do you smell smoke? Yes, you do, and that’s because the planet is on fire. Yet too many of our GOP Kansas and Missouri electeds have elected to concentrate instead on just-for-fun matters like torturing our tiny minority of transgender people.
(“What did you do for the world, Grandpa?” “Son, I made sure that folks used the bathroom they were born with, or else were chased through the streets like criminals, hehehe.” “Oh, OK.”)
As a result, trans Kansans have to worry about the new state law, effective as of July 1, that requires transgender people to use the bathrooms assigned by their birth certificates.
Will some cavalry we don’t know about be available to enforce this regulation of who poops where, or will our God knows well-armed self-appointed militia be available to make sure nobody goes where they shouldn’t?
Because of all that could go wrong, dozens of people cried out to the Lawrence City Commission this week, begging commissioners to make the blue island of Lawrence a sanctuary city for transgender and nonbinary people.
This comes on the heels of Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and an 11-1 majority of the City Council (Heather Hall was a no) passing a resolution telling city workers not to participate in the state-sanctioned bigotry of the multiple anti-LGBT laws Republicans in Jeff City passed this session.
That these leaders felt compelled to do that is heartbreaking.
To us, “sanctuary” evokes images of Tutsi looking in vain for shelter in the Rwandan churches where they were murdered anyway by their former Hutu neighbors.
Kansans, is this war on trans people really a door-to-door manhunt that the Free State will look back on in pride?
Missourians, is there really no more pressing issue, and no better way to spend the brief time we’re given here?
What is it we should be afraid of?
Those who came to the meeting to speak asked the commissioners in Lawrence to create an ordinance in response to the new Kansas law.
Some told the commission that they had already been chased from public bathrooms, and threatened.
Sylvie Althoff, a local trans business owner, told commissioners that as soon as the law goes into effect, she will in essence be criminalized for leaving her house.
Many speakers urged the Lawrence Police Department to adopt a policy making clear that officers would not arrest trans people for using a bathroom that the state says they can’t use.
We hope they do that.
Whatever Lawrence decides, the city’s designation as a sanctuary would be almost entirely symbolic, especially since the lawmaking supermajority in Kansas is not interested in protecting the weak from the powerful. Oh, on the contrary.
But whenever this fever breaks, and may it be soon, there will be no medals handed out to those who most harrowingly hounded the vulnerable.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 10, 2023.
Editorial: Hawley, Schmitt are playing with fire in reckless comments about Trump indictment
Trained attorneys Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt either need some law school refresher courses, or they are deliberately misrepresenting the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump in ways so irresponsible they might qualify as incitement should violence follow. Missouri’s two sitting senators — who both know better — are telling their constituents the indictment is the personal doing of President Biden, instead of the result of a legitimate legal process that is by definition separate from the White House.
No, Biden hasn’t “indicted his top political opponent,” as Schmitt tweeted. A federal grand jury did that, at the behest of a special counsel who operates independently from the Justice Department, which operates independently from Biden. Ditto regarding Hawley’s claim that Biden believes he “can just jail his political opponents.”
Hawley and Schmitt aren’t alone. Prominent Republicans around the country are spinning misleading accounts of what’s going on. With the echoes of Jan. 6, 2021, not that far in the past, it’s plain reckless.
“It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote in an especially unconscionable tweet. Again, a president can’t “indict” anyone. And is the suggestion here that, by virtue of his candidacy, Trump can’t be criminally charged for alleged violation of federal law, as would any other American? It sure sounds like it.
To be clear: These allegations aren’t just a matter of mistakenly bringing some sensitive documents home from the office and forgetting about them, as Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence both were found to have done. That’s not the best look for national leaders, but in both cases, they immediately cooperated with federal efforts to recoup the documents.
Contrast that with what Trump is accused of doing. The indictment alleges he didn’t merely abscond with the hundreds of documents in question, but that he went to extraordinary lengths to prevent the government from getting them back, including activities that sound like textbook definitions of criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
The indictment alleges Trump took classified documents related to U.S. defense strategies and nuclear programs — including documents that could have put U.S. intelligence agents at personal risk — and stored them in unsecured locations like bathrooms and ballrooms at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He’s also accused of improperly sharing sensitive information with people with no security clearance, including visitors to his resort properties.
It might be tempting to dismiss even all of that as the blustery self-indulgence of a clinical narcissist trying to impress people. America has long known who Trump is.
Where it veers into areas that might reasonably be expected to land someone in a federal prison cell were his alleged efforts to resist returning the documents, even after they were subpoenaed, and his alleged obstruction of justice as the investigation unfolded. Among other actions, he allegedly pressed his lawyers and others to hide or destroy documents and to lie to investigators about it. If true, that’s not just Trumpian braggadocio, it’s felonious.
Federally indicting a former president for the first time in history isn’t something to be done lightly. If special counsel Jack Smith ultimately presents a case that looks like legalistic nitpicking instead of substantive criminality, the Hawleys and Schmitts of the world may be politically rewarded for their knee-jerk sycophancy to Trump.
But they’re making a dangerous bet. As Smith said Friday: “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.” Most Americans understand that, even if Missouri’s two sitting senators don’t.
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Jefferson City News Tribune. June 11, 2023.
Editorial: State worker compensation: a good start
The recent legislative session was a productive and encouraging one for state workers, who have seen various attempts to improve their pay and benefits fall short of the finish line for more than a decade.
With the passage of a second consecutive pay increase and a bill that would pay state workers biweekly instead of twice a month, the Legislature and the governor have made substantial strides in improving working conditions for state employees.
But as the governor and some area representatives have noted, this is the starting point, not the ending point, when it comes to investing in the state’s workforce.
At the signing of the biweekly pay bill, state Rep. Dave Griffith, R-Jefferson City, and co-sponsor of the bill, said, “I think this is one more step in the right direction for us to really address the situation with our state employees.
“With the 8.7% (pay) increase that we gave our state employees this year, (coupled) with the 5% we gave last year, we are moving up the scale to giving them the compensation package that I think they really deserve.”
Added state Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Jefferson City, and co-sponsor of the bill, “We need to do more for our state employees, and this is just one more thing that makes it more convenient for our state employees.”
Parson agreed, saying more needs to be done.
“To say the least, we certainly need to do a better job of taking care of state employees,” he said. “Over the years, they’ve kind of been neglected time and time again.”
Parson said bills like the ones he had just signed help make the state competitive in attracting employees. The state’s goal, he suggested, should be to offer the same advantages commonly found in the private sector.
One path to reaching that goal would be to build upon the state’s strong benefits package that outperforms much of the private sector.
Look no farther than a bill that fell short of passage this year that was sponsored by another Jefferson City area legislator, Rep. Rudy Veit.
Veit, R-Wardsville, had proposed the state set retirement eligibility for state employees when their age and years of credited service reach 80, rather than the current standard of 90 years. The legislation would be a good incentive to keep employees who have been in the state workforce five to 10 years and who recognize the importance of a good retirement system.
Across the aisle, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, has said more focus should be directed toward on-site childcare options for state employees. She also said Democrats would like to discuss help with college tuition for in-demand fields that could help fill the gaps in struggling departments.
There are solid ideas out there worthy of discussion and consideration, and Parson has publicly declared an interest in doing so.
Vowing to stay focused on improving working conditions for state employees as he finishes his term in office, Parson said, “I’ve got to do everything I can to make sure that they want to come to work, whatever that might be: whether it’s leadership courses, training that we give them that we’ve never done before, whether it’s the pay increases.”
“My vision for them is we keep making this a good place to work, and we try to retain the employees we have,” Parson added. “We realize we have some very talented people and a lot of people trying to get a hold of those people every day, so it’s just as competitive for us as it is in the private sector. ... We don’t have to be at the top of the ladder, but I don’t want to be at the bottom of the ladder, either.”
You’re off to a good start, governor. For the sake of the state and its workforce, finish the race strong.
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