Flip-Flops

KOLR/KSFX has a fascinating story out of the 7th District about the Billy Long's willingness to debate debating -- but unwillingness to actually engaging in actual debates.  Long apparently isn't even allowed to discuss the idea of debates with Scott Eckersley on camera -- consultant James Harris has kept those reponsibilities to himself.

Remember as you watch this clip that Billy Long's campaign agreed to the debates Harris now says are "some type of media gimmick." 

I'm not sure Long's handlers could make it any more obvious that they're afraid to turn Long loose.

Fired Up! Missouri has obtained the exclusive results of heretofore unreleased analysis about House Majority Leader Steve Tilley's incredible about-face regarding the use of discharge petitions in the Missouri General Assembly. 

As you probably know by now, the House Rules Committee rejected an ethics reform proposal that was previously approved unanimously by the Speaker's special ethics committee, largely because it would reinstate campaign contribution limits.  In response, a bipartisan group of representatives signed a discharge petition to bypass the Rules Committee's decision and directly place the the ethics reform bill on the House calendar. 

Tilley has since described this discharge petition "an unfair way around the House rules" that "bypasses the process" through which he and Speaker Ron Richard can kill legislation in a less flashy fashion. Discharge petitions are rare, but they aren't unfair or against the rules. They do annoy House Speakers and Floor Leaders.  

Tilley knows this because he himself signed a discharge petition earlier in his career. 

Kit Bond and Senate Republicans dropped their filibuster yesterday to allow Wall Street reform debate to continue. Bond now says that "it's time we got the details laid out for the public" -- even though he voted on Tuesday and Wednesday to block debate on the Senate floor (he skipped Monday's cloture vote).

Still, Bond remains adamantly opposed to the legislation, referring to unspecified concerns about 'Main Street.'  "This bill absolutely cripples Main Street," he says -- but it's not at all clear what that means.

KUDLOW: The Republicans caucus has changed its position, and has agreed to unanimous consent to bring the bill to the floor. Why?  May I ask why, Mr. Bond? 

BOND: It's time we got the details laid out for the public...because this bill absolutely cripples Main Street. We're hearing from back home, and I want people back home to know what this bill will to the business, to the credit lenders in our state...

I'm hoping that we can get a majority to change the bad parts. If we continue to have the bad parts in, I'll do everything I can to kill it.

No, not his 2010 promise to "support any recommendation that comes out of" his new bipartisan ethics committee. Don't be silly.  The House leadership is planning to "strip from the ethics bill all measures relating to campaign finance" this session.

It's to his April 2009 declaration that he remains true:

House Speaker Ron Richard, a Joplin Republican, said Thursday he wasn’t interested in additional ethics reform. A bill passed last year removing campaign contribution limits achieved all the goals he had set.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post's WhoRunsGov.com:

Rep. Roy Blunt, in a video being circulated by the DSCC, appears to come out against insuring adults with pre-existing conditions, on the grounds that it would give people “every incentive” not to get insurance until they absolutely have to.

Dems point out that this is, as it happens, a pretty good argument in favor of the individual mandate.

Last June, Roy Blunt said it was very important to provide affordable coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.  In fact, it was his number one priority in a list of goals for his poorly-named "Health Care Solutions Group." He wrote:

The House Republican Health Care Solutions Group has been working for months on a plan... This process has resulted in the broad outline of a health care reform plan that the solutions group hopes will receive bipartisan support. The health care reforms outlined are designed to:

1. Make quality health care coverage affordable and accessible for every American, regardless of pre-existing health conditions.

Sen. Bill Stouffer (R-Napton), one of six conservative Republicans to vote against the Senate's autism insurance bill (SB618), has words of comfort for the families he voted against.  Fear not, struggling families, because "the free market system works."  Via The Turner Report:

I cannot vote to let state government dictate what coverage insurance companies can offer. The free market system works. Letting government in, so they can tell insurance providers who they can and cannot cover, is not a good fix to a situation.

SB618 passed 26-6 on March 18. Last year, however, when the Senate passed Rupp's SB167 by a 29-2 vote, Stouffer has happy to support a similar assault on freedom bipartisan solution.

Roy Blunt is promising to fight for a wholesale repeal of the Democratic health care reform package.  He could have chosen to fight for smaller or partial changes, but wants the whole thing junked.

Why does he want insurance companies to continue to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, or let them kick people off their roles when they get too sick? 

You may recall that last year, the top priority on Blunt's (short) outline for changing the federal health system was to "make quality health care coverage affordable and accessible for every American, regardless of pre-existing health conditions."  No more. 

Friday afternoon, House Speaker Ron Richard (R-Joplin) told the Post-Dispatch's Tony Messenger that he wanted to be on "the short list" of GOP candidates for governor in 2016.  And then at some point in the next 24 hours, Richard decided -- or was persuaded -- that we shouldn't believe what he'd stated the day before. 

It's not hard to see why some of his colleagues at the MOGOP's Lincoln Days celebration were freaked out by Richard's statements.  Implicit in his 2016 dreams, of course, is the assumption that Peter Kinder will not survive his 2012 campaign for governor. 

Missourinet and the AP report that Senate President Charlie Shields (R-St. Joseph) and Speaker Ron Richard (R-Joplin) are both cool to the replace the state income tax with much higher sales taxes.  Missourinet's Bob Priddy:

Senate leader Charlie Shields does not think the bill will pass but he expects a robust debate. In the event it does clear the Senate, the proposal goes to the House, which passed the bill last year. But this year, Speaker Ron Richard sees problems. “I just want to make sure there’s not any uncertainty about where we’re moving, about schools formula, about libraries, about fire districts...And I can see the amendments on the floors now, everybody getting exempted out to kill the bill...I don’t think St. Louis can take 11 or 12 or 13 percent sales tax on their retail. I don’t think that would work and I don’t think that’s proper,” he says.

The Tribune's Janese Heavin has the scoop on a really interesting development in the story of Gary Forsee's opposition to federal clean energy legislation. For several days, he's sustained criticism for lending support to the Republican efforts to kill the legislation. Then yesterday, things got a whole lot worse for the President of the UM System when it was reveled that the calculations at the core of this opposition were incorrect.

In light of these facts, Forsee began to walk back his opposition at a Mizzou campus town hall earlier today, and reaffirmed his support for reducing carbon emissions.