Delbert Scott

This is not good news:

Senate Majority Leader Kevin Engler [R-Farmington] also is bracing for trouble. Eight of the 10 senators term-limited in 2010 are Republicans. Of the 10 additional senators term-limited in 2012, seven of them also are Republicans.

"Over half my majority is term-limited, and most of them aren't running for higher office, so they have no responsibility to the voters," said Engler, R-Farmington. "Some things that would be tempered before will not be tempered now, because their objective is, 'So what? You sure don't care what the public thinks. I can kill everything if I want, because I'm not up for election."

The idea of Republican Senators being even less "tempered" in their obstructionism and extremism gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Last week, the Thomas Schweich campaign announced endorsements from five state senators, including Sen. Delbert Scott (R-Lowry City).

There appears to be a small problem with that announcement: Scott says he never actually agreed to endorse Schweich, and he supports Rep. Allen Icet in the GOP primary for State Auditor.

That listing was unauthorized by me," concluding with, "I continue my strong support for Allen Icet for State Auditor."

State Sen. Delbert Scott (R-Lowry City) explains why he wrote a law (SB2) to outlaw Tuppwerware coolers on Missouri's rivers instead of polystyrene coolers.

Lawmakers intended to reduce floating debris and pollution from abandoned foam coolers in the state's waterways. But they confused their plastics, and instead of banning Styrofoam, they criminalized the plastic containers found in many kitchens but seldom used to ferry beer and soda down a river...

"When you depend on the federal government to write the stuff, that's what happens. It gets screwed up."

Stupid federal government. Always surreptitiously writing legislation in Scott's name, coercing him to sponsor their bills and convincing him not to read his own bills before passage --- just to embarrass him in front of his friends.

A spot-on editorial from the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal:

Rep. Denny Hoskins should have shouted "no" at Sen. Delbert Scott and the ill-conceived bill to reduce public information about elected officials; instead, Hoskins erred on the side of government secrecy by agreeing to handle Scott's bill in the House.

The bill would hide information from the public about elected officials in 61 cities, including Knob Noster. Public officials now fill out a form naming their potential conflicts of interest. Voters should know if a real estate dealer on a city council might have land of interest to the city, whether a banker is involved with city deposits, whether a developer might seek friendlier zoning laws and so forth. A simple form helps do this, but Hoskins and Scott want to end disclosures in some cities under the premise that the forms are a bother and might discourage people from public service.

The premise is hogwash....

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For the past few weeks, we've been hearing all sorts of warnings about welfare and slavery and socialist devastation that will inevitably come from providing health care to parents who make up to half of the federal poverty level.  Those lazy, "able-bodied" welfare beneficiaries just need to get out and work, we're told.

But now that the plan to provide health care for those up making up to 50% of the federal poverty level has failed, the Republicans may be coalescing on a new plan: providing health insurance to high-risk individuals, "no matter what their income is."

I don't understand why it's unreasonable to help the working poor, but completely reasonable to help out the rich -- but then again, I don't understand a lot of why the GOP majorities in the Capitol do a lot of things.

Of course, the resistance to government programs targeting the working poor and middle class -- and remarkable openness to programs benefiting the wealthy -- isn't a new phenomenon. In 1998, for example, Gov. Mel Carnahan sought state funding to take advantage of federal dollars that would help 90,000 uninsured Missouri children get health care. The proposal was to provide health care for children of parents making up to 300% of the poverty line; GOP opponents called it "Medicaid for Millionaires."

Consistent with the GOP leadership's disdain for anything resembling reasonable ethic reform, Rep. Denny Hoskins (R-Warrensburg) and Sen. Delbert Scott (R-Lowry City) are expected to continue their work this week to actually reduce basic disclosure requirements for 61 municipalities across the state.

Current law requires elected officials, candidates for elective office and certain other officials in political subdivisions with operating budgets of over $1 million to file financial interest statements.  However, if Scott and Hoskins are successful passing their legislation (SB66), the budget floor will be increased to $2 million, effectively exempting 61 new towns from this basic open government requirement.

Here's a key portion of Hoskins' attempt to explain why the public deserves less transparency last week:

(A transcript of this debate between Hoskins and Rep. John Burnett is up at Show Me Progress.)

Before he was rescued from himself by Floor Leader Steve Tilley, Hoskins failed to present any compelling arguments for relaxing the disclosure requirements.  His best excuse was that some people in some towns sometimes don't fill out financial interest statements like they should -- but a refusal to comply with existing transparency rules is hardly a good reason to have less transparency.

Delbert Scott finally says what we’ve all known.  The mean GOP knows it might not control the legislature and Governor’s mansion so, before they are ousted, they are going to force through a constitutional amendment to weaken our voting rights, as well as an extremely unpopular accompanying measure that could disenfranchise as many as 240,000 registered, law-abiding Missouri voters – including the elderly, disabled, poor, students, nuns, Lillie Lewis and Kathleen Weinschenk.  From CDT's Rosenbaum:

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Jay Nixon, Rita Days and others want to see some legislation passed that would put a stop to the usurious practices that have become commonplace on the part of payday lenders in our state.  Among other reforms...

They want to cap payday loan interest rates at 36 percent and eliminate
the practice of renewing loans, which they say is prohibited in other
states.

I'm sure payday vultures lenders will find a way to stay in business even if they can charge "only" 36% interest.  But apparently, Matt Blunt and key Republican legislators have little interest in helping protect vulnerable Missourians from predators:

Ok.  So this has nothing to do with the characters from Saturday Night Live, but who could resist a headline like that.

Buried in a new McClatchy story today is this tidbit about Hans Von Spakovsky, Bush's nominee to the FEC, and a former senior official in the "Civil Rights" Division of the DOJ:

In case you missed it, Salon has another comprehensive piece on the politicization of the US Justice Department and its mission under the Bush administration to create issues and push institutional election reforms that will create a legal framework to ensure Republican victories.

Bush's long history of politicizing justice
It's not only the U.S. attorneys who are threatened by partisan politics. Since Day One, the Bush administration has been quietly dismantling the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.

The piece is important because it helps shed more light on what’s been happening behind the curtain at Justice over the past few years. It’s no wonder that folks like Delbert Scott and Bill Deeken feel the need to keep pushing regressive photo ID schemes here in Missouri, when the propaganda and orchestration is coming straight from the top.

Among other things, the piece mentions:

• the calculated shift from professional attorneys to political hacks in the Civil Rights Division under Bush and Ashcroft’s DOJ
• the plan to design redistricting schemes to secure Republican victories
• the reverse of long standing policies to support photo ID legislation in order to suppress voter turnout
• and more

READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE:

Today Delbert Scott announced that if adding additional burdens to
vote is unconstitutional, then, by golly, he’s just going to change the
constitution! This would be his third attempt
to make it harder for eligible Missouri voters to vote.

Last year, Delbert pushed through his highly controversial photo
ID to vote scheme by using a rarely-used procedural maneuver in the middle of
the night of the last day of legislative session to shut down debate. He also took it upon himself to punish his colleagues
in the Senate who didn’t agree with him by stripping away Missourians’ option to
vote a straight party ticket.

Earlier this week, Delbert was called out for filing the
identical photo ID bill language as the one ruled unconstitutional just last
year, wasting time and taxpayer money on this sad cause he just won’t give up.

After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Sen.
Delbert Scott’s marquee Photo ID to Vote bill from last year, Delbert vowed that he’d be back….and even recently
told the Missourinet he’d be back with a good bill that would melt away
opposition…

Well, folks, the wait is over. The “new and improved” Delbert Scott photo ID
bill is here. Except that it’s not
new. Or improved. In
fact, it’s not a sequel, it’s a re-run.

So, word is now out that GOP Senator and supposed moderate Chris Koster has hired Jeff Roe's Axiom Strategies for "political consulting" and a potential 2008 run for Attorney General.

Smart move, Senator. Now beyond just being a candidate for statewide office, you also get to be one of the elected pawns in the ongoing internal GOP blood-feud between Roe patron Sam Graves and U.S. Senator Kit Bond. Just the sort of extracurricular distraction every politician needs during his attempt to jump to the next level.

But there are perhaps a few reasons Koster would think hiring Roe makes sense...

Despite already wasting an entire pathetic legislative
session on one failed, unconstitutional proposal to make it harder for people to vote, Delbert
Scott seems bound and determined to waste more of Missouri’s taxpayers’ time on
dredging up the photo ID to vote issue again.

Rumor has it that Delbert is doing this because Delbert
really wants to be Secretary of State…Perhaps he doesn’t realize that destroying fair elections in
Missouri by prohibiting eligible voters from voting isn’t the best positioning
for one who would like to be our chief elections official.

The Turner Report, run by Randy Turner of Joplin, does a bang up job of holding public officials accountable for their actions.

Here's a nice recap of some of the Turner Report's work over the last six months.  Those featured in the posts include Governor Blunt, Roy Blunt, Carl
Bearden, Gary Nodler, Rex Rector, Mark Wright, Jodi Stefanick, Samuel
Hais, Marilyn Ruestman, Peter Kinder, Steve Hunter, Jack Goodman, Mike
Sutherland, Delbert Scott, and Rob Schaaf.

According to today's Kansas City Star, Missouri Senate Republicans maneuvered to repeal straight-party ticket voting as "punishment" for Senate Democrats who had the unmitigated gall to --gasp-- spend some time debating the merits of a bill that would keep thousands of elderly and disabled Missourians from voting.

Bespectacled prig Delbert Scott apparently thinks that the Missouri Senate is like a schoolyard game of marbles, susceptible to being stopped at a moment's notice by the childish tactics of a bully who wants to scoop up his cateyes and run home...

Word has it that Senator Delbert Scott is throwing a temper tantrum and has sent the Voter ID bill back to conference to have straight ticket voting added back to the bill.

Just ten days ago, on Jo Mannies blog, here' what Republicans had to say on that topic:

Neal English, chief of state for Senate President Pro Tem Michael
Gibbons, confirmed that his boss and Majority Leader Charlie Shields,
R-St. Joseph, had “given their word'’ not to target straight-ticket
voting in the voter ID bill.

When asked about the House action, English replied only, “Over in the Senate, we keep our word.'"

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Check out this story from KY3 in which Greene County Clerk Richard Struckhoff, strong Republican, expresses his concern over the GOP's proposal require a voter license.

Notice at the end of the story how KY3 reporter David Catanese slanders St. Louis by asserting that there has been "massive fraud" in their elections. Dramatic? Yes. True? No!

He offers no factual support for this outrageous assertion, but merely repeats a GOP talking point that has been refuted by no less an authority than John Ashcroft's Justice Department.

Apparently, many Missourians these days are clamoring for legislative solutions to issues that --while not posing actual problems-- are perceived to be a problem. Luckily, Senator Delbert "Chicken Little" Scott stands at the ready, prepared to legislate away pesky perception with proposals that would solve no real-world problem.

 As we learn from a wire story from David Lieb, "Chicken Little" Scott is courageously protecting Missourians from the rapidly falling sky: 

The legislation by Republican Sen. Delbert Scott, of Lowry City, would require voters to show photo identification as its chief anti-fraud element. It also would require paid voter registrars to sign up with the secretary of state's office and prohibit them from being paid based on how many voter registration cards they submit. ...

Scott, who is chairman of the Senate Financial, Governmental Organizations and Elections Committee that heard testimony on his bill, said he intends to take a committee vote on it Wednesday. He said the actual number of voter fraud cases may not be large, "but the perception of American voters is there is voter fraud."

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