Doug Funderburk

To ensure his point of view on the debt ceiling debate was known, State Rep. Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peters) took to Facebook to express his thoughts on the “TREASON” of raising the debt ceiling and the “SLAVERY” brought on by raising taxes.

Notice that Funderburk left the door open for raising taxes on non-producers (a.k.a. poor people).

You may know Funderburk as the sponsor of significant legislation that will ensure the day after Thanksgiving Day until midnight December 26 of each year is known as the "Christmas Season” in Missouri. 

The Post-Dispatch has a good story today the General Assembly's attempt to overhaul Proposition B, which now sits on Gov. Jay Nixon's desk. I was particularly interested in this breakdown of St. Louis area-legislators who voted against the will of their constituents. 

Across the state, there were at least four Senators and thirteen Representatives who voted contrary to his or her district's position. 

• In the Senate, Victor Callahan, Bob Dixon and Rob Schaaf voted to overhaul Prop B -- and for the the emergency clause that would prevent a future referendum.  (The proposal to add an emergency  clause failed in the Senate, and is not part of the final bill approved by the House and Senate.)  Scott Rupp also voted for the overhaul, but opposed the emergency clause. 
• In the House, Jamilah Nasheed, Jerry Nolte, Noel Torpey, John McCaherty, Kurt Bahr, Paul Wieland, John Diehl, Doug Funderburk, T.J. Berry, Terry Swinger, Paul Curtman, Bill White and Melissa Leach voted against their constituents' wishes.

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In related celebrity endorsement news, Ellen DeGeneres is calling on Gov. Nixon to veto SB 113 -- on her website and on her syndicated talk show. 

The Columbia Daily Tribune's story on yesterday's committee vote to replace the state's income tax with a much higher and more expansive sales tax has more bad news for Rex Sinquefield's ballot initiatives.  While the committee voted along party lines to pass legislation (HJR8) sponsored by Rep. Andrew Koenig's(R-Winchester) -- despite open concerns about how it will wreak havoc on the state budget -- committee chairman Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peters) said that Sinquefield's ballot initiatives would be the wrong way to overhaul Missouri's tax code. 

Funderburk...said he wants the General Assembly, rather than an initiative campaign, to ask voters to implement the tax overhaul.

“I want to do my job,” he said. If Rex Sinquefield “thinks he needs to do my job, it makes me feel like I didn’t do it.”

House Tax Reform Committee Chairman Doug Funderburk (R-St. Charles) says "he and some other Republicans still have concerns about the financial impact" of Rex Sinquefield's mega sales tax hike proposal, but he and his fellow Republicans voted a legislative version (HJR8) of Rex's plan with an 8-4 vote today. 

It's almost like Funderburk and his colleagues didn't really have the option of not passing the bill, even though they know it will cause enormous budget shortfalls. 

The Post-Dispatch editorial page has an impressive snapshot this weekend of the things our legislators are focusing on that do little or nothing to improve the lives of working Missourians.  The Editorial Board calls them "mean" pieces of legislation -- "[A] truly mean bill creates hardship for classes of people without sound public purpose. A truly mean bill is based on prejudice, not fact. A truly mean bill is gratuitously nasty." 

BOTTOM LINE: The Mean Girls & Boys Club is after the working poor, immigrants (legal and illegal), non-English speakers, children, more children, the poor, the disabled, the elderly, non-Christians, workers rights, their own colleagues and maybe cancer patients.

And Missouri wonders why it has trouble attracting jobs.

Bills that made the cut include the push to gut the state's voter-approved minimum wage law, provide drivers' tests in English only, deregulate child labor, drug test TANF recipients in a poorly-conceived manner and disenfranchise tens of thousands of Missourians to help GOP electoral efforts.  

The best part of the editorial, though, may be the R.J. Matson cartoon embedded here.  Some of the likenesses are fantastic, and others are a little harder to figure out.  But based on the article and art, here is the cast in the cartoon above, from left to right: Kevin Elmer (R-Nixa), Brad Lager (R-Savannah), Bill Stouffer (R-Napton), Jane Cunnigham (R-Chesterfield), Jack Goodman (?) (R-Mt. Vernon), Jerry Nolte (R-Gladstone), Steve Cookson (R-Fairdealing), Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peters), Kevin Engler (R-Farmington), Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia), Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-University City).  

Rep. Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peter's) continues to impress friends and foes alike with his devotion to tackling the issues facing Missouri's families.  Today, for instance, he introduced HB424 to help us answer that eternal question, Just which religious holiday shall the State of Missouri favor in November and December, and what shall the government call those days of mystery?

Behold:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

Section A. Chapter 9, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 9.025, to read as follows:

9.025. The day after Thanksgiving Day until midnight December twenty-sixth of each year shall be known and is designated as the "Christmas Season" in Missouri.

My mind is blown.  How is yours?  

No word yet on what sorts of criminal penalties will be imposed on the jerks who leave their lights up after midnight of December 26th. 

Thanks are also in order for Andrew Koenig (R-Winchester), Brent Lasater (R-Independence), Paul Wieland (R-Imperial), Eric Burlison, Bill Lant (R-Joplin) Ed Schieffer (D-Troy) and Rochelle Walton Gray (D-Black Jack) for co-sponsoring this crucial piece of legislation to balance the state budget, create jobs and improve the lives of everyday Missourians. 

Two reports released this week have "reaffirmed the integrity of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the scientists involved in the so-called 'Climategate' affair."

But I haven't seen a peep out of Blaine Luetkemeyer, Ed Martin, Peter Kinder, silly Star columnist E. Thomas McClanahan, Ed Emery, Doug Funderburk, Vicky Hartzler or any other climate change deniers apologizing their uniformed hysteria, or even explaining how they're still smarter than people who actually study climate science.

Tuesday, the Missouri House debated a resolution from Rep. Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peters) expressing disapproval with the proposed federal clean energy bill. Predictably, the debate devolved into a conversation about the reality of global warming and climate change. The most frustrating exchange was one between Funderburk and Birther Rep. Ed Emery (R-Lamar).  It's a long and mind-numbing dialogue, but preserved for posterity here.

The crazy for-profit birthermercial we mentioned last week did indeed air on KSPR last week. The general manager for KY3, Inc. (which runs KSPR) said "the opinions of this particular program may be a minority of our viewers, but certainly I think this group has the right to express themselves. I don't think it's libelous in any fashion."

In his story, Catanese said the conspiracy theorists "may be a fringe movement," and the post on the story at The Turner Report described the birthers as the "lunatic fringe." While I certainly agree that the birthers' accusations are pure lunacy, it's important to remember that the alleged "fringe" includes a disturbing number of high-ranking leaders in the Missouri Republican Party.  

Rep. Robert Cooper has withdrawn his constitutional amendment calling for the state to inspect Barack Obama's birth certificate.  As far as I know, he hasn't actually acknowledged that Obama is a legitimate President yet, but at least he's give up on writing the conspiracy theory into our constitution.

For now, anyway.

Hat tip to ShowMeProgress.com for noticing the change.

It appears that Rep. Cynthia Davis wants to join Rep. Timothy Jones as a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's citizenship.

Davis and Jones subscribe to a right-wing conspiracy theory alleging that Obama is actually an Indonesian man named Barry Soetoro (no joke). Right-wing Republicans have been obsessed with Obama's birth certificate and citizenship for a long time, but their half-baked ideas have been shot down again and again. (A great summary of the Birther movement and the embarrassment they're causing the Republican Party can be found here on Politico.com.)

A new constitutional amendment from House Republicans, ostensibly written to protect voters from fraud, is actually a vehicle for the Capitol Crazies to peddle fraudulent conspiracy theories about President Obama.

Rep. Robert Cooper's Voter ID proposal includes language that would require the Missouri Secretary of State to request the official birth certificate of presidential candidates to independently verify their authenticity.  And not just future candidates -- Cooper wants the Secretary of State to independently verify the citizenship status of every previous presidential candidate.

Of course, Cooper and his 15 co-sponsors only really care about the birth certificate of one presidential candidate: Barack Obama.  Right-wing Republicans have been obsessed with Obama's birth certificate and citizenship for months, but their half-baked ideas keep geting shot down again and again and again. The facts haven't slowed them down yet, though, and Cooper is hoping to make Missouri the first state to actually write the insanity into our constitution.

Here are the key parts of Cooper's proposed bill:

The secretary of state shall determine that each person is qualified for the office he or she seeks, according to the law, before placing his or her name on the ballot.

For candidates who are required by the Constitution of the United States to be natural born citizens, the secretary of state shall request an official copy of the candidate’s birth certificate.

Other certifications, such as a certificate of live birth, shall not be accepted.

Should any candidate fail to provide an official birth certificate within thirty days of the request by the secretary of state, his or her name shall not be placed on the ballot.

The secretary of state shall verify the qualifications of any elected officeholder who was previously placed on a Missouri ballot. Should any elected officeholder fail to provide the required documentation or birth certificate within thirty days of the request by the secretary of state, the secretary of state shall turn the matter over to the attorney general who shall within twenty days file suit to obtain the required documentation.

This is obviously targeted at the Presidency -- it's the only office to require natural born citizenship. And while Barack Obama has provided an official, certified copy of his birth certificate, it's been tough to satisfy these fringe groups with the facts.