Kansas City Star. September 13, 2023.
Editorial: Can’t disagree with Gov. Parson: Missouri Supreme Court must be free of political bias
When Missouri Gov. Mike Parson introduced Kelly C. Broniec as his latest appointee to the state Supreme Court, he spoke of the fair and impartial nature of the selection process.
Here, it’s called the Missouri Plan, a nonpartisan, merit-based judicial selection system dating back to the 1940s. We can all thank Tom Pendergast and his corrupt political machine for prompting its creation.
Political leanings have no place on the state’s highest court, Parson told reporters on Tuesday after appointing Broniec to the bench. We don’t disagree. Missouri must keep the state Supreme Court free from political bias.
Missouri’s system works, proponents say. Any further attempts — and there have been many over the years — to do away with a layered selection process that is a model for the rest of the country would not be wise.
Broniec, a Republican from Montgomery County, is chief judge of the Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals in St. Louis. In the coming days, weeks and months, we’ll learn more about some of Broniec’s rulings.
From our viewpoint, she is hardly the extremist some of Parson’s appointments have been. For reference, see Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s crusade to delay a petition initiative that would ask voters to restore a woman’s right to an abortion in state.
Thankfully, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Bailey had no right to inflate costs of the initiative artificially.
On Tuesday, Parson’s pick for the high court was chosen because she was most qualified for the job, he said. That may well be true. We support any process that limits the political influence of a judicial nominee to the bench.
Broniec is not a legislator and will not use the bench to make laws, she told reporters.
Her role will be to interpret laws “and apply them to the facts.” she said.
Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Rhodes Russell chaired the seven-member commission that nominated two other finalists to fill the vacancy left by the recent retirement of state Supreme Court Judge George Draper III. Three attorneys elected by members of the Missouri Bar and three state residents appointed by the governor also screened candidates.
Ultimately, Parson has the final say. But the vetting process ensures political ideologies on the Missouri Supreme Court will be limited.
In Missouri, political influence shouldn’t determine who is appointed to the bench. Judge Broniec, we’ll all be watching to see if you keep your promise of using facts to interpret the law, and not politics.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch. September 17, 2023.
Editorial: As COVID cases rise again, Schmitt’s viral demagoguery is back as well
Memo to Eric Schmitt: You have already won your Senate seat. You can stop with the COVID demagoguery now.
That memo has, unfortunately, been missed.
With new cases of the disease on the rise in St. Louis and around the country, Schmitt has lately taken to his X (formerly Twitter) account — not to responsibly encourage people to take the new round of vaccines coming out soon, but to irresponsibly gin up the phony fears that new lockdowns and vaccine mandates are on the way.
No one who isn’t cynically trying to revive a politically useful controversy is talking about new lockdowns or mandates. But the recent rise in COVID cases, led by the new omicron subvariant EG.5, is real, and a new vaccine will be widely available to Missourians soon.
In keeping with mainstream medical advice, we would encourage readers to get the vaccine.
If that doesn’t sound like the more urgent statements that this page and so many other sources were issuing during the pandemic, there are two reasons for that:
One, even the elevated COVID numbers today are nowhere near pandemic levels. At the height of the pandemic, with hospitals filled beyond capacity and the virus lurking everywhere, those who refused to vaccinate and take other precautions were putting other people’s lives at risk. Which is why those lockdowns and mask mandates — which undoubtedly saved many lives — were necessary.
Today, anti-vaxxers are generally endangering only themselves and those who choose to congregate with them. (Their children have less choice in the matter, but luckily, kids remain less at risk than adults.)
Secondly, Schmitt and those like him on the political right have so poisoned public discourse on this issue that trying to convince anti-vaxxers to abandon their discredited and self-destructive belief system is a lost cause anyway and could even be counterproductive.
We share the apparent sentiment of the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services, which tweeted last week: “COVID vaccines will be available in Missouri soon, if you’re in to that sort of thing. If not, just keep scrolling! ”
One, even the elevated COVID numbers today are nowhere near pandemic levels. At the height of the pandemic, with hospitals filled beyond capacity and the virus lurking everywhere, those who refused to vaccinate and take other precautions were putting other people’s lives at risk. Which is why those lockdowns and mask mandates — which undoubtedly saved many lives — were necessary.
Today, anti-vaxxers are generally endangering only themselves and those who choose to congregate with them. (Their children have less choice in the matter, but luckily, kids remain less at risk than adults.)
Secondly, Schmitt and those like him on the political right have so poisoned public discourse on this issue that trying to convince anti-vaxxers to abandon their discredited and self-destructive belief system is a lost cause anyway and could even be counterproductive.
We share the apparent sentiment of the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services, which tweeted last week: “COVID vaccines will be available in Missouri soon, if you’re in to that sort of thing. If not, just keep scrolling! ”
Having learned how effective this toxic strategy is, Schmitt has continued it in office. In the past few weeks, as COVID cases have risen in his home state, he has ramped up his attacks on science.
This has included showily vowing to resist any return to shutdowns and masking mandates. Ever though, again, no one outside the right-wing echo chamber is suggesting that’s even on the table.
It has included asking of his followers in an online poll, “Do you trust the CDC?” Which, predictably — given the audience — found more than 90% didn’t.
It has included acting like a garden-variety troll with faux-clever stunts like putting a trademark sign () after the word “experts,” thus inviting readers to scoff along with him at the very notion of scientific expertise.
It has included tapping out the two-word declaration “Fauci lied,” presented with no context and apropos of nothing. In his zeal to whip up his base with that debunked allegation about former federal disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, Missouri’s junior senator sounds like some disturbed conspiracy theorist standing on a street corner, randomly barking out angry phrases.
But conspicuously absent from Schmitt’s lively feed lately has been any suggestion to his constituents that the rising number of COVID cases is a genuine danger they should be aware of and take precautions against.
“COVID tyranny must never be allowed to take hold again,” Schmitt tweeted, with characteristic histrionics, regarding pandemic policies. He’s clearly less concerned about whether COVID itself takes hold again.
We have long since given up suggesting that Schmitt should be ashamed of himself for spreading misinformation to his constituents, vilifying dedicated doctors and scientists and generally demeaning the office he holds with this circus-barker stuff. Shame clearly doesn’t factor into his ruthless political calculus as he stokes fear over a non-existent threat while downplaying a real one.
That threat is, thankfully, manageable today. As the (yes) experts have long predicted, COVID is here to stay but has receded in its reach and severity, taking its place alongside annual flu bugs. As such, it will still be deadly to some unlucky Americans every year. But most people can mitigate that risk (and the more common risk of an unpleasant if non-lethal infection) with a simple shot.
To readers who are still unsure about it, we’d say, don’t take our word for it — but for heaven’s sake, don’t listen to Schmitt and the other snake-oil salesmen of the right, either. Just ask your doctor.
And if you routinely take your doctor’s advice on health matters generally, as most people do, then ask yourself why this issue should be any different.
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Jefferson City News Tribune. September 17, 2023.
Editorial: Veto session over before it started
“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” -- Socrates
The Missouri House and Senate convened Wednesday to consider overriding vetoes Gov. Mike Parson issued after the most recent legislative session, which concluded in May and featured passage of a $50 billion budget, the largest in state history.
After the legislative session ended, Parson vetoed one bill and 201 budget items totaling more than $555 million.
Legislators returned to the Capital City on Wednesday for their annual veto session to consider overriding the governor’s vetoes.
Rather than being contented with the gains made in the last session, some lawmakers wanted more.
The veto session began around noon, and both chambers adjourned within three hours.
Frankly, the recent veto session was over before it started.
Lawmakers in the House, with a healthy dose of political posturing, offered nearly two dozen motions to override budget vetoes and sent 14 to the Senate for consideration. But the Senate adjourned before taking them up.
The Senate budget chairman had no intention of considering veto overrides, calling it an “exercise in futility.”
“For me, it’s a question of math,” said Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield. “When I looked at the necessary votes to override the governor being 23 in this chamber, I’m not sure that we get there, and I don’t really like to come out here and do things when I don’t know what the outcome is going to be.”
Parson signaled Tuesday he was satisfied with the budget, which he said contained more items than usual.
While legislators may be focused on needs within their individual districts, the Republican governor said he’s concerned about what’s best for the state.
“Everything can’t be a priority,” he said.
The overrides sought by the House did have merit, but they can be reconsidered in the next legislative session. Chief among the overrides were: $28 million to improve a five-mile stretch of Interstate 44, $11.4 million worth of pay raises and benefits for the Missouri Highway Patrol, $2 million for the Missouri National Guard to offer re-enlistment incentives and $1.9 million for Missouri Task Force One equipment and training.
House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, said he was proud of the House Republican caucus because it “stood up for Missourians” during the veto session. He said he would have liked to at least see some discussion of the budget in the Senate.
What Missourians need is for the House and the Senate to stand up for Missourians during the regular session with less political posturing on social issues of which they have little control and focus more on the business of the state in which they can truly shape the future of the Show-Me State.
END