Dwight Scharnhorst

In 2006, 76 percent of Missouri voters supported a plan to increase the minimum wage to $6.50 and tie any future annual increases in the minimum wage to changes in the Consumer Price index. 

However, Rep. Jerry Nolte (R-Gladstone) and some of his fellow Republican colleagues think  that (as Roy Blunt would put it) "the Federal Gubmint" is a better authority for setting Missouri workers' wages than voters in the state.

According to the Associated Press, Nolte filed legislation prohibiting the Missouri minimum wage from rising above the federal one. The bill has the backing of several other Republicans, as well as a coalition of business groups.

I guess competitive wages might have been the only thing Nolte and his fellow Republicans weren't thinking about when they pushed legislation last year to enforce Missouri's "constitutional sovereignty and the sovereignty of its citizens under the Tenth Amendment." 

Speaker Ron Richard has been making a lot of promises in recent months about making the autism legislation he killed last year the "top priority" this year. 

Today, the House took up its first actual bill on the floor -- and it was legislation from birther Rep. Tim Jones (R-Eureka) bill to end the uncertainty over local sales taxes and shut down former Rep. Tom Burcham's predatory lawsuits.

Apart from the meaningless gesture of assigning autism legislation to committee early in the year, there's no way Richard can say he's kept his many promises to make autism insurance his #1 priority. 

A partial list:

• Senator Jason Crowell
• Senator Luann Ridgeway
• Majority Floor Leader Steve Tilley
• Senator Rob Mayer
• Majority Whip Brian Nieves
• Rep. Sue Allen
• Rep. Tim Jones
• Rep. Shelley Keeney
• Rep. Rob Schaaf
• Rep. Shane Schoeller
• Rep. Rick Stream
• Rep. Dwight Scharnhors
• Rep. Don Ruzicka
• Mattie Ransom for Liberty School Board
• Jeff Moore for Liberty City Council

Yesterday, hoping to get the jump on an already-scheduled series of announcements by Gov. Jay Nixon, Sen. Scott Rupp and Sen. Eric Schmitt, Speaker Ron Richard held a "hastily announced" conference call to express his support for autism insurance legislation, and specifically, for a bill sponsored by Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst.

Richard's about-face was surprising, given his role in killing similar legislation last year because it wasn't supported by insurance companies.  What makes his supposed support for Scharnhorst's bill even more interesting is that (1) it's already publicly opposed by the insurance lobby and (2) identical to the legislation supported by Nixon, Rupp, Schmitt and bipartisan majorities in both chambers.

But today, the Post-Dispatch's Virginia Young reports that Richard "stopped short of endorsing" Nixon's four-part proposal on autism, even though Nixon's is proposing that the General Assembly pass... the bill Richard said he supported yesterday.

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.