St. Louis Post-Dispatch. January 30, 2024.
Editorial: Dueling (literally?) in the Missouri Senate
Given the level of vitriol in the Missouri Legislature’s right flank, it was probably only a matter of time before someone started throwing around the word “ duel.”
The someone (it should come as a little surprise to regular observers of Missouri politics) is a member of the state Senate’s so-called Freedom Caucus, the misnamed klatch of hard-right extremists who have been tying up legislative business this month in a bitter dispute with their fellow Republicans who control the chamber.
“If a senator’s honor is impugned by another senator to the point that it is beyond repair and in order for the offended senator to gain satisfaction, such senator may rectify the perceived insult by challenging the offending senator to a duel,” reads a draft resolution by state Sen. Nick Schroer, R-Defiance.
The measure goes on to specify that the dueling senators shall agree to a “choice of weapons” and carry out the showdown on the Senate floor “at high noon.”
If it all sounds like something conjured up by sugar-addled boys in a treehouse — well, that’s the Freedom Caucus for you.
But the episode is also more broadly instructive regarding the populist-right political movement that has seized a portion of one of America’s two major political parties not only in Missouri but in Washington and around the country.
Missouri’s Freedom Caucus is a group of six Republican senators, out of the 24 Republicans who comprise the Senate’s supermajority. There are 10 Democrats in the chamber, making the Freedom Caucus even smaller than the minority party.
You would think those numbers might prompt some restraint on the part of Freedom Caucus members. You would be wrong.
Following the lead of their congressional counterparts in the U.S. House Freedom Caucus, the Missourians have decided that any disruptive tactics are justified in pursuing their ideological agenda — which, again, doesn’t even necessarily represent the views of their own party, let alone the whole state.
A key goal of the caucus is to rewrite state law regarding ballot initiatives, to make them more difficult to pass. The clear intent is to prevent a majority of Missouri voters from reversing the state’s draconian new abortion ban via referendum.
Trying to raise the referendum bar, however cynical and anti-democratic that goal might be, is fair game for conservatives. But Freedom Caucus members decided, all by themselves, that their cause is so singularly important that the regular rules of order must be tossed out in deference to them.
When Republican Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden refused their demand that he advance the debate to the full chamber with a little-used parliamentary maneuver, they responded by filibustering gubernatorial appointments and grinding Senate business to a halt.
In response, Rowden declared the Freedom Caucus to be “a small group of swamp creatures,” stripped four members of their committee chairmanships and even moved their parking spots farther from the Capitol.
Schroer wasn’t among those four, but his proposed resolution to enable dueling arose after that confrontation. His office says it’s primarily meant to make a point.
It does — though probably not the point Schroer and his fellow caucus members have in mind.
In keeping with their caucus’ misnomer, they like to prattle on about principles like freedom, liberty and constitutional rights. But like the MAGA movement that anchors their edge of the political spectrum, their only real principle is power.
Consider their goals and methods in the current debate: In their zeal to deny Missouri’s voters their voice on abortion rights, a handful of legislators demanded special rules for themselves and then sabotaged their own institution with a childish fit when their party leaders instead enforced the established process.
Call that what you will, but it has nothing to do with principles like freedom and constitutional rights. Their real motivation for this performative mayhem is obvious in the fact that several Freedom Caucus members are seeking higher office this year.
This kind of self-serving chaos mimics the norm-busting nihilism of a certain ex-president and is the same extremist arrogance behind the current meltdown in Washington over border policy.
As always, this edge of the Republican Party is good at leveraging its minority status into power — but only the disruptive kind. As long as the voters continue sending these kinds of rhetorical gunslingers to Jefferson City and Washington, they should expect serious governance to be among the first victims to fall.
END