Jane Cunningham

Missouri Jobs with Justice held their two "Scrooge of the Year" Elections in St. Louis and Kansas City recently.

In St. Louis, Hall-of-Famed Chessmaster Billionaire Lobbyist Rex Sinquefield got the most votes and was elected Scrooge of the year. This seems fitting that the guy who regularly buys politicians and laws wins an election where 1$ = 1 vote.

Temporary frontrunner "I am not a lobbyist" Newt Gingrich told a group at Harvard today that our child labor laws are archaic. He proposes firing union school janitors and hiring students to do those chores. Not sure if he starts in elementary school, middle school, or junior high. And no, Miss Liberty doesn't know if he has Jane Cunningham on speed dial, or if he has offered her the Number Two spot.

State Senator Jane Cunningham is bringing lies circa 2009 to the Missouri State Senate. In fact, she is worried by language that seeks to specifically prevent any kind of “death panels.”  

Still, when reading House Bill 609 that would set up a health insurance exchange in Missouri, she came across language that reminded her of the "death panels" critics of federal health care reform have warned people about since 2009.

"It's right in there in the legislation," says Cunningham, who specifically mentioned death panels when discussing HB 609 during a recent public health care forum she participated in in St. Louis. "The bill states that the exchange cannot exclude a health plan that would prevent a death by means deemed  'inappropriate' or 'too costly' by the exchange."

One thing is certain with the Missouri GOP, when they are wrong they own it. It turns out all the bluster about Governor Jay Nixon establishing a state health care exchange by executive order is dead wrong. Here's the excerpt from a report by Jason Hancock of the Post Dispatch:  

Several Republican senators, who had announced during their meeting that the governor was issuing an executive order creating a state-run health insurance exchange, rushed out to stop it.

But no executive order was actually issued. 

Until today, most Missouri Republicans probably thought a "fiat" was just a fancy, elitist foreign sports car, but that didn't stop them all from incorrectly using the term to describe a decision before a board about accepting a grant. (By the way, in a unanimous vote, the Missouri House of Representatives approved creating an exchange earlier this year). 

Peter Kinder is leading the charge by issuing an inaccurate and highly political statment from his official office. He also praised fellow fabricators State Senators Jim Lembke, Jane Cunningham and Rob Schaaf. A stately group determined to point out the injustice inherent in the system, and that injustice is the possibility of an exchange making it easier to get health insurance. These are the people who rule us. 

State Senator Jane Cunningham's law prohibiting forms of teacher/student communication on Facebook and other social media sites was dealt two very significant blows today.  

Cole County Circuit Court Judge John Beetem issued an order blocking the provision from going into effect. 

In his ruling, Beetem called the breadth of the social-media restrictions in the bill "staggering."

He noted that the law -- as written -- would prohibit communication between family members and their teacher parents on social media. Moreover, evidence produced at a preliminary hearing found that social media is often the primary method for teachers to communicate with students. Beetem found that enforcement of such a restriction would have a "chilling effect on speech."

And the AP reported that Governor Jay Nixon called for the General Assembly to repeal the social media provision during the special legislative session slated for September 6th. 

The St. Louis Post Dispatch Editorial Board points out another example of a Missouri State Senate Republican who prefers obstruction to actual governing.

This time it is State Senator Jane Cunningham and her filibuster of a bill that would set up a health insurance exchange in Missouri. Setting up this exchange would let businesses and individuals find a health insurance plan that best fits their needs and their budget: 

Ms. Cunningham was a sponsor of the initiative voters passed last August that purports to strip Missouri of the power to penalize people who fail to purchase health insurance when required by federal law. Ms. Cunningham now links HB 609 to Proposition C, arguing that state health insurance exchanges run afoul of the "will of the people."

Never mind that HB 609 won near-unanimous, bipartisan approval in the House. Never mind that if Missouri fails to create an exchange, the federal government will step in with its own solutions.

Ms. Cunningham seems to prefer a federal intervention. She shows little interest in the complexities of practical governance. She prefers disruption and sloganeering, leaving it to others to pick up the pieces.

Listen to State Sen. Jane Cunningham's interview taped this morning with GOP radio host Jamie Allman here.

In it, Cunningham announces that she'll be running for re-election to the state Senate in 2012, and will not be joining Ann Wagner and Ed Martin in the GOP primary for the Second Congressional District. 

Try not to barf on your keyboard when Allman gushes, "I think you have a governorship in your future someday, you have a role in Congress someday..." 

In a Time Magazine story about attempts to rollback child labor laws in various states, Missouri's Jane Cunningham holds the distinction of proposing the changes that most resemble a Charles Dickens novel.  

It is a good reminder that on the state and national level, the GOP is doing so little to help stimulate the economy and create jobs. 

But who needs ligitimate job creation proposals when you have a young, energetic and cheap labor force that is untapped! 

Here is the exceprt about Cunningham's proposal from the Time story, which notes that even Jay Leno took time to crack wise about Cunningham's bill:

Earlier this year, Missouri considered a more Dickensian proposal. A bill there would have removed state restrictions on employing children under the age of 14, along with limits on how many hours children could work per day. It would also have ended routine state inspections of companies employing children.

The Beacon's Jo Mannies has the story: "State Sen. Jane Cunningham says there's no doubt what she's doing after the General Assembly ends this session on Friday. She's planning to launch her 2012 campaign for Congress. "I'm in,'' said Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, on Tuesday, referring to the increasingly crowded field for the 2nd Congressional District...But Cunningham -- who has made no secret of her own interest  for weeks -- emphasized she won't formally announce until the district's incumbent congressman -- fellow Republican Todd Akin of Town and Country -- officially declares he's running in 2012  for the U.S. Senate.'I'm very sensitive to being honorable to him,' Cunningham said. 'It's totally up to him.'"

In what can only be interpreted as a latch ditch effort to curry favor with Tiger Blood Tourney voters, Calamity Jane Cunningham has dropped her proposal to junk Missouri's child labor laws.  OzarksFirst.com reports:

A bill that got national attention because of its attempt to get rid of parts of Missouri’s child labor laws is “dead”, according to the sponsoring senator’s chief of staff.

Kit Crancer with Sen. Jane Cunningham’s office, R-Chesterfield, told the blog Monday, “the bill is dead, It is no longer an issue.”

The bill faced a first reading on February 7 in the Missouri Senate and a second reading three days later.

It’s been sitting there for more than a month. The bill has no co-sponsors.

Calamity Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) was named "Republican Legislator of the Year'' by the Missouri Grand Order of the Pachyderms this weekend.

What does it say about the state of things that Cunningham's allegedly won the award for her work to pass a purely symbolic bit of law (Proposition C)?  She hasn't accomplished anything to make health care more affordable and accessible, or change the way the Affordable Care Act works. But congrats anyway, I guess. 

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).  

In this weekend's "Capitol Watch" editorial: "Missouri Sen. Jane Cunningham just keeps digging a deeper hole with her attempts to defend her bizarre legislative attempt to gut the state’s child labor laws...Her bill would remove the age and hour restrictions on child labor, end inspections of workplaces that employ children and no longer require children to obtain permission from school in order to work. In her view, parents, not the state, should be deciding whether their young children should work. We think most parents actually appreciate rules that prevent the shift manager of the fast-food restaurant from insisting that 14-year-old Susie work overtime on a school night. We also think cooler heads in the legislature won’t be keen on making Missouri the first state to deregulate child labor. Or so we hope."

Sen. Kevin Engler (R-Farmington) and Sen. Jane Cunningham's (R-Chesterfield) proposal to gut the state's child labor laws: "I believe the measure is short-sided and makes no sense."

Sen. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) tells the Post-Dispatch that "people will support [her child labor] measure when the dust clears."

I can't find a high-quality version of this clip on MSNBC's website, but here's a bit of commentary by Cenk Uygur on Calamity Jane Cunningham's proposal to gut the state's child labor laws. 

Calamity Jane Cunningham's proposal to junk Missouri's child labor laws received the Jay Leno treatment last night.  Here's the clip (the relevant gag is at the 4:40 mark):

"Hey, fifth grade's not for everybody!"

Sen. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) has a great idea for getting our economy back on track: eliminate the rules regarding child labor in Missouri.   Last week, she sponsored SB222 to drastically weaken Missouri's child labor rules, and the bill has been assigned to her General Laws committee in the Senate.   Mike Hall of the AFL-CIO's NOW blog summarizes Crazy Jane's proposal:

[T]here isn’t much that surprises me anymore, let alone shocks me. Well, today, I’m shocked.  Missouri State Sen. Jane Cunningham (R) has introduced a bill to minimize child labor laws. I could find all kinds of colorful words and descriptions to show just how crazed and outrageous is S.B. 222.

But let’s just use the official summary of the bill from the Missouri state Senate website and if you don’t believe me, click here and read it yourself.

• This act modifies the child labor laws.
• It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen.
• Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed.
• It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed.
• Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished.
• It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ.
• It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

This is absolutely insane.

Sen. Jane Cunningham's (R-Chesterfield) General Laws Committee will take up Sen. Luann Ridgeway's (R-Smithville) 'right to work for less' proposal on Tuesday at 3pm, despite bipartisan opposition and the lack of interest from the state's corporate lobby.