Rob Schaaf

Yes. 

These politicians hope that by being obstinate, they can derail the health care reform law they so despise. But they are denying their states the opportunity to design affordable, consumer-friendly insurance marketplaces.

Opponents of reform need to tell the public what they intend to do about the problem of uninsured Americans. “Let them die” isn’t an acceptable fallback position.

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. 

As the Star reported Sunday, Senator Rob Schaaf was a vocal opponent of a medical malpractice regulation bill. There is only one problem. Schaaf owns a medical malpractice insurance firm that would be regulated by the bill, and he was  a key voice in an effort to ensure the bill didn't pass. 

Schaaf even serves as Vice Chairman of the committee that did not pass the bill on to the entire State Senate for debate, and his conflict of interest was never disclosed to the public. Read an excerpt from the Star's editorial: 

An unsavory picture of Missouri government is presented by the Senate’s handling of a bill meant to protect the state from a meltdown in the medical malpractice insurance market.

Sen. Rob Schaaf, a St. Joseph Republican, rushed into the office of Senate leader Rob Mayer as soon as he learned of the bill’s existence, The Star reported Sunday.

Schaaf had good reason to be concerned. He owns a medical malpractice insurance firm that would be regulated under the bill’s provisions.

A good-government optimist could hope Schaaf was hurrying to inform his Senate leader of his direct financial interest in the bill and to make sure he wasn’t assigned to play a role in its progress.

But that’s not what happened. Mayer assigned the bill to a committee where the outspoken Schaaf is vice chairman. The malpractice insurance reforms never even got discussed.

"If you love watching elected officials make fools of themselves, Rob Schaaf performed brilliantly with his appearance in a Kansas City Star story Sunday."

~ The Star's Yael T. Abouhalkah

"Missouri is turning those things down in order to prove…what?"

One-term Senator Jim Lembke (R-Lemay), Brian Nieves (R-Freedom Bunker), Will Kraus (R-Lee's Summit) and Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph) filibustered HB18 for almost 14 hours overnight to remind everyone just how much they hate the federal government sometimes when they can really make a show of such hatred.

In the end, a compromise version of the bill cut $14.4M in federal money for weatherization projects.

There are a lot of things about this filibuster I don't understand. 
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For great twitter coverage of the whole thing, check out the feeds from @Missourinet, @DrebesD, @RoseannMoring, @VirginiaYoung, @EYokley, @AllisonBlood and @ScottCharton.

Carl Bearden -- currently of United for Missouri, a Rex Sinquefield-funded organization -- thinks that the ongoing filibuster by one-term Senator Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Will Kraus and Rob Schaaf is just peachy. Posted this evening to Nieves' incomparable Facebook page:

You guys are doing a great job! I'm interested as to how other Senators believe that they can trust any "deal" they make in the future seeing that the "deal" you and the others are honoring has not been honored in return!

"I'm very hesitant to derail anything that's a potential economic development or job-creation opportunity."

Senate Approps Chairman Kurt Schaefer on the GOP Callous Caucus' insistence on rejecting already-allocated federal dollars that would help Missouri communities

This happened: "Sen. Rob Schaaf threatens to filibuster St. Louis local control bill unless he sees a Post-Dispatch story about alleged corruption."

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. 

Missourinet's Bob Priddy has strong feelings about the filibuster of unemployment benefit money by Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Rob Schaaf and Will Kraus, but goes out of his way to not be specific about attaching names to offending actions.   In fact, Lembke is the only one of these clowns who gets his full name printed in Priddy's most recent blog post, titled "The Four." Here's a passage where attaching names to behavior would clarify things:

One of the other participants thought that stereotyping the unemployed as people who needed to get off the couch and get a job was helpful to the discussion.(We are reminded of a former colleague at the Missourinet who once remarked, “Stereotyping saves time, doesn’t it?”) Another of Lembke’s allies seemed to feel that arm waving, shouting, and partisan demands that the governor get into the middle of the issue was somehow clever, amusing, and useful. (As Queen Victoria once remarked in an example of British understatement, “We are not amused.”) We’re not sure what the last participant’s contribution was. He seemed to be the little brother who wanted to play with the older kids.

So it was that Senators Lembke, Schaaf, Nieves, and Kraus set forth.

"I’m not going to be held hostage by a few people." 

Speaker Steve Tilley on the misguided filibusters and threatened filibusters of Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Rob Schaaf and Will Kraus

"Here’s the Missouri Senate’s idea of a compromise: Kill projects that create jobs, and penalize people who will lose jobs in the future, all in order to accept federal money to help the long-term unemployed."

Abolitionist Senator Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph) is okay supporting a dumb, mean-spirited filibuster of extended unemployment benefits that will help struggling families and help the economy because unemployed people are lazy slavemasters, but he's decided not to support a dumb, mean-spirited filibuster of federal education money:

A filibuster that Dr. Schaaf said he won’t be a part of concerns stimulus money for public education. About $189 million in funds for schools could be at risk, just as the unemployment benefits were. The St. Joseph School District’s portion of that is about $2.5 million.

Progress!

UDPATE: 

False alarm. Sen. Jim Lembke and his three feckless followers had no intention of standing down and allowing the Missouri legislature to accept federal benefits to help the people who have had the hardest time in the job market.

Word was earlier today that the gang of four was ready to make a deal. Turns out it was just more grandstanding. Their “deal” was that Gov. Jay Nixon would have to find $3 worth of cuts for every $1 the benefits would cost.

Sure. Nixon should cut state services more deeply than he’s already had to, hurt more Missourians, probably lay off state employees and add to the unemployment rate — all of that so Lembke and company can back out of the jam they’ve gotten themselves into and declare victory. Don’t think so...

Breaking news from the Associated Press: "Sen. Jim Lembke told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he will end his filibuster against the reauthorization of the benefits that expired for about 10,000 Missouri residents on Saturday. But he says he will instead try to block the state from spending as much as much as $400 million of federal stimulus act money on such things as home energy efficiency programs for low-income residents and a study about high-speed rail service."

Image credit: Associated Press

This weekend in the Joplin Globe:

While the state, with its 9.4 percent unemployment rate (for almost two years), struggles with how to create more jobs, about 34,000 unemployed Missourians will see benefits shrink and feel the pinch of joblessness much more sharply.

And that $105 million, part of a 2009 federal stimulus act, won’t go to other states. According to an Associated Press report, it will just sit there, locked away in a safe, instead of helping Missourians make ends meet.

Our frustration isn’t political, because this isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. The measure passed the Republican-led House with a 123-14 vote, and had the support of Gov. Jay Nixon...

These people know crazy

...It's time to take a good hard look in the mirror.

“I know that we have, a certain, you would probably have to call them fringe, I would probably call them lunatic fringe, in the Senate that is holding up $189 million of education money that’s coming down from the federal government,” [Minority Leader Mike] Talboy stated.

It’s a delicate issue for [House Budget Chairman Ryan] Silvey, who hesitated to criticize fellow Republicans in the Senate, as Talboy worried about the impact on Missouri school districts.

“So catastrophic events for our students, either way,” Talboy suggested.

“Obviously, it’s not something I want to see happen. I think the House took a pretty strong position that we would like to see that money applied the way we asked it to be applied,” Silvey responded. “Use whatever adjective you’re comfortable with. It’s not going to be a good situation.”

The state Senate adjourned early today to make time for baseball -- without passing legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support to accept extended unemployment money from the federal government.   Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer promises that he's meeting today with Sen. Jim Lembke today "to make some suggestions to him...so we could free this money up today to get it to those who are unemployed," but I have a hard time believing that much will come from that conversation.  

Here's what the Star's Barb Shelly wrote about the continued insanity:

Shortly before 11:30 a.m., the Missouri Senate adjourned so that lawmakers can attend the Cardinals and Royals opening games, if they so choose. “Drive safely and have a great weekend,” the leader told members as the august body called it a day.

It won’t be a great weekend for the thousands of Missourians described below. They will now lose their unemployment benefits because four senators filibustered a bill accepting federal money, and senate leaders chose not to stop them. Shameful...

Rep. Barney Fisher (R-Richards), a man rarely acused of being a hippie librul, adds his name to the list of Republican leaders in the General Assembly who are unimpressed with the Jim Lembke-led filibuster that jeopardizes extended unemployment money for struggling families.

Lembke and three other Republican senators have stymied the bill by threatening to filibuster it. But most Republicans in the GOP-dominated Legislature support it. The House passed the bill easily, on a vote of 123-14 on Feb. 1.

Its sponsor, Rep. Barney Fisher, R-Nevada, said that while he understands Lembke's point, he also understands the needs of those who are out of work.

"Political philosophical standpoints make great discussions but they don't put food on the table," he said.

He noted that the state accepts millions in federal dollars for education, health care, highways and other projects, but senators aren't suggesting those funds be returned.

"I would admire them if they had the courage of their convictions and filed bills to send back every federal dollar, but to just do this is inappropriate," Fisher said.

KMOX hack Mark Reardon was all a-twitter this morning about the Post-Dispatch's editorial (excerpted below) criticizing Sens. Jim Lembke, Brian Nieves, Will Kraus and Rob Schaaf for their dumb and mean-spirited filibuster to block Missouri from accepting already-allocated extended unemployment money.  Reardon was specifically upset about the line in the editorial, "Money spent on unemployment benefits is one of the best economic stimulus projects that exists."

In chronological order:

The Post-Dispatch can defend their own work -- the ensuing conversation between Tony Messenger and Reardon can be read here -- but I think it's worth emphasizing that the only place where the stimulative effects of unemployment spending is controversial is in the right-wing media universe. 

Ask a Nobel laureate,  former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office or person actually trained as an economist, and they'll tell you that unemployment insurance does more than keep struggling families afloat -- it helps the economy because almost all of that money goes right out the door into the economy.