Missouri

If the article in today's Columbia Daily Tribune regarding Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R- St. Elizabeth) seeking to fast track the investor visa program for Mamtek is any indication, we should assume there will be hell to pay within the Missouri GOP's Twitter feed very soon. 

The scene was unique enough for Sen. Luann Ridgeway to want a picture to commemorate it.

Ridgeway, a Smithville Republican, took out her cell phone in the Senate Lounge on Monday and pointed it toward Sen. Kevin Engler, a Farmington Republican, as he sat next to a lobbyist for the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys.

After all, Ridgeway said, it's not often that the attorneys' group testifies in favor of a Republican bill — especially one that seeks to make changes to the court system.

But that's what happened last week as Engler filed a bill that aims to bring a little consistency to the argument that the Missouri Plan is the best way to keep politics at bay when it comes to selecting judges.

That was the issue raised by a judge in Engler's district at a Missouri Bar gathering last fall in Columbia. The judge, Darrell Missey, asked his fellow lawyers and judges why it was OK to keep partisanship out of judicial races in the big cities and in the appeals and high court — which are covered by the nonpartisan Missouri Plan — but not in rural areas.

"People assume things about me because there's an R after my name," Missey said. "For a judge, that makes things difficult."

Engler wants to change that.

His bill would take the partisanship out of all judicial races in areas of the state not covered by the Missouri Plan. That means that judges who currently run as Republicans and Democrats would instead run with no party identification, as many city council and school board candidates do.

The plan will leave the district operating 33 schools, the fewest in 120 years. The district’s enrollment in 1889 was less than 18,000 — the same as its current enrollment. At its peak in the late 1960s, Kansas City was using more than 100 buildings and serving some 75,000 students. – Kansas City Star

As the school system in Kansas City, Missouri takes the national stage it is unfortunate that the reason is not because of better student achievement or more students graduating and going off to college. Instead it is because after decades of mismanagement and instability the current superintendent had to make some tough decisions. These decisions should have been made years ago as the board sit idly by while every school year more and more students left the district, but the school board chose to continue to kick the can down the road expecting some miracle to increase enrollment despite mounting evidence to the contrary.