Stanley Cox

From the Missouri News Horizon: "An amendment that would require presidential candidates to present proof of natural born citizenship was trimmed from an omnibus election law reform bill. The amendment was removed, along with several others, by a joint conference committee in hopes that the final bill can pass by the end of the legislative session on Friday."

It's great to see reasonable people prevail on this matter, especially given the many birther and birther-curious legislators in the General Assembly.

Good news: The Democrats in the House of Representatives and two Republicans -- Mike McGhee (Odessa) and Ray Weter (Nixa) -- voted against the GOP effort to amend Missouri's constitution to create new and unnecessary hurdles for voting (SJR2). 

Bad news: Republicans continued to mislead the press and reporters about the intent and effects of their proposal, which is what they've done for years on this issue. Stanley Cox continued to his hackery, even saying that ACORN is "still cheating" in Missouri elections (!).   A few minutes later, Paul Curtman said ACORN and fraud in a sentence about four individuals who submitted bogus voter registrations in 2006, and Missourinet's Brent Martin included Curtman's comments in a story without mentioning that the proposed constitutional amendment would do nothing to change the laws under which those people were indicted.

“Farsi? Is that a language that Farsinians speak?”

Orly Taitz would be proud

The Missouri General Assembly continued its proud tradition today of teasing and supporting the completely insane right-wing conspiracy that President Barack Obama is actually a illegal Kenyan immigrant. 

As summarized by the Star's Jason Noble:

HOUSE BILL 283: RETURN OF THE BIRTHERS!

Questions apparently remain about President Barack Obama‘s citizenship and eligibility for the office he’s held for the last 25 months.

That was the clearest conclusion from this morning’s hearing on House Bill 283, which would require the Missouri Secretary of State to verify the citizenship of all presidential and vice presidential candidates appearing on the state’s ballots.

The News-Leader reports that bill sponsor Lyle Rowland  (R-Cedarcreek) couldn't say "how many times a non-citizen had been on the ballot as a presidential or vice presidential candidate."    A few weeks ago, Rowland told Politico that "we have problems with illegal immigrants. And if something were to happen where one of them became popular with the people, we need documents proving if they are a citizen."

Sadly, there is no space between the fringe and mainstream GOP on this issue in Missouri.  Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones and then-Rep. Cynthia Davis sued a certain president in 2009 with Orly Taitz, alleging that he was an illegal Kenyan immigrant who happened to become popular with the people. Sen. Roy Blunt may be the highest ranking birther-curious official in the country; he declared during his Senate campaign that birthers were asking "legitimate" questions about Obama's birth records, and scolded journalists in Southwest Missouri for lacking the "capacity to talk about that [Obama's citizenship] in a legitimate way."

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).  

Randy Turner speaks the truth in this week's column about Missouri Republicans' inability to move beyond conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's birth certificate: 

At a time when Missourians are suffering due to the continuing harmful effects of a downward-spiraling economy, the last thing we need to see is our legislators pandering to the extreme fringes of their constituency. Put Missourians back to work and put the birthers back under the baseboards where they belong.

This year's birther adventure comes in the form of HB 283, sponsored by Lyle Rowland (R-Cedarcreek) and co-sponsored by Mike Kelley (R-Lamar), Kevin Elmer (R-Nixa), Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash), Darrell Pollack (R-Lebanon), Don Phillips (R-Kimberling City), Shane Schoeller (R-Willard), Barney Fisher (R-Richards), Melissa Leach (R-Springfield), Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia), Tom Loehner (R-Koeltztown), Dave Hinson (R-St. Clair), Lindell Shumake (R-Hannibal), Jason Smith (R-Salem), Andrew Koenig (R-Winchester) and Diane Franklin (R-Camdenton).

I'm getting really confused.  In February, Rep. Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia) told the House Elections Committee that "there are countless examples of voter fraud" in Missouri.

Then longtime voter suppression activist Thor Hearne rejected questions from a conservative Chesterfield crowd about the possibility of widespread voter fraud.  "I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories," he said about conservative voter fraud hysteria (that he worked very hard to gin up).

And then Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) it is "virtually impossible" to know if there's voter impersonation fraud in Missouri (the kind of fraud a photo id would attempt to thwart).  Still, she supports GOP proposals to disenfranchise many thousands of voters as an experiment to find if there is voter impersonation fraud to justify the suppression policies. 

But now I see that Cox is once again trotting out the talking point that fraud is "pervasive" in Missouri, even though he can't provide reasonable examples of the fraud his

Which is it, y'all?  Are there "countless examples" of fraud? Or is it "virtually impossible" to know if there's voter impersonation fraud?  It can't be both.

The Sedalia Democrat:

VOTER PHOTO ID BILL MISGUIDED, UNNEEDED

Rep. Stanley Cox has convinced enough Missouri House members to support his misguided voter photo identification mandate. We must hope he is less successful if this measure goes before the state’s voters....

Rep. Chris Kelly, D-Columbia, was spot-on accurate when, during a Feb. 9 House Elections Committee hearing, he called Cox’s measure a “solution looking for a problem.”

...[T]he proposal now goes before the Missouri Senate and if it is approved, the constitutional amendment will go before voters in November. Our hope is that state senators will see how unnecessary and costly this measure is and strike it down before it ever gets to the ballot box.

With two party-line votes this morning, the House Elections Committee approved Rep. John Diehl's (R-Town and Country) HB1966 to require voters to present government-issued photo identification before voting, and Rep. Stanley Cox' (R-Sedalia) HJR64, a proposed constitutional amendment that would create the framework for Diehl's bill. Both pieces of legislation also include provisions for early voting to distract attention from the true intent of their efforts.

One week ago today, Rep. Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia) told the House Elections Committee that "there are countless examples of voter fraud" in Missouri.  Cox has long been a proponent of laws to require voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls, and is sponsoring a constitutional amendment this year (HJR64) to make that happen.

Then Saturday, longtime voter suppression activist Thor Hearne rejected questions from a conservative crowd in Chesterfield about the possibility of widespread voter fraud.  "I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories," he said about the conservative hysteria about fraud he helped gin up. (And yes, Hearne's about-face on this subject is still puzzling).

So today, Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) tried out a brand new message at this week's Elections Committee hearing. In her words, it's now "virtually impossible" to know if there's voter impersonation fraud in Missouri (the kind of fraud a photo id would attempt to thwart). 

You bring up that people haven't proven how much fraud there is, but absent this law, it would be virtually impossible -- after this law is passed is when we may find out how much fraud there was. I would recommend that we need to try it as an experiment, and then we'll [inaudible] be able to discover how many people  showed up.

Rep. Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia) was back in front of the House Elections Committee today, asking his colleagues to support his newest Photo ID constitutional amendment (HJR64).*  This year's proposal does not include any enabling language, and would require future General Assemblies to actually draft and pass the legislation to suppress voter turnout for the poor, disabled, elderly, etc. 

To kick off his presentation, Cox said the vote fraud in Missouri is so pervasive, it's impossible to quantify the extent to which it has corrupted our political process.  In his words:

There are unscrupulous individuals that operate within our system and lessen the importance of your vote.  And, in fact, folks all over the state.

There are countless examples of voter fraud in the state, in this state and elsewhere.  It comes in various forms.

One common theme in this, in these vote fraud schemes is that it's underhanded and secret. 

Listen:

A statement like might lead you to conclude Cox has so many examples of fraudulent voting that he's simply unable to count them all.  But when pressed to provide just a few of these "countless" examples that his legislation would help address by centrist Rep. Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) , he fumbled and stumbled to provide a coherent response.

For readers who haven't yet received their daily allowance of homophobia and typos, Rep. Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia) has you covered.

In this morning's Star:

This year’s scheme for altering the way judges are selected is among the worst yet. It sets the stage for prolonged political feuding and threatens to weaken the independence and quality of Missouri’s bench...

The House has proposed a constitutional amendment that would give politicians too much say over how judges are nominated. The commission makeup would be changed so the governor could appoint more members than the lawyers’ bar would elect. Currently, the number is equal.

The Missouri Senate would have to confirm commission members — raising the prospect of prolonged and unnecessary partisan squabbles...

Missouri House members clearly are willing to compromise the quality of the state’s judiciary to score points with groups that want judges to heed their special interests. That’s a distressing realization.

The Senate must stop this bungled attempt to alter judicial selection. If it doesn’t, the state’s voters will form the final defense against a bad idea.

For more on the subject, check out Jason Rosenbaum's coverage (with video!) of GOP efforts to push through the hyperpartisan plan here.

Speaking at a Senate committee hearing this afternoon, Sen. Matt Bartle (R-Lee Summitt) summed up GOP opposition to early voting legislation succinctly: the GOP won't make voting easier (with early voting) unless they can enact Photo ID legislation (to disenfranchise more than 200,000 voters).

Like Rep. Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia), the champion of GOP voter suppression efforts in the House, Bartle isn't really trying to conceal the partisan motivations behind attempts to make voting as inconvenient and burdensome as possible on behalf of the Republican Party.  I guess there's something to be said for honesty.

Wouldn't having more people involved in democracy be a good thing?  And wouldn't it be better for everyone if the GOP worried more about doing what voters want, and less about making voting onerous? 

Watching the hearing on the GOP's vote suppression photo ID proposal this morning, I was both surprised and relieved that sponsor Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia) and his fellow Republicans decided against the usual make-up-the-facts strategy employed by photo ID proponents.  Instead, they seem to have chosen the less persuasive (but more honest) route of offering no compelling reason for their constitutional amendment whatsoever.

When asked to provide an example of the fraud that necessitates a change to the state constitution, Cox couldn't provide a single example of voter fraud in Missouri.  Instead, Cox could only say the he was "sure" that fraud was occurring, maybe "tens" or "hundreds" of times per year. He didn't bother with trying to provide any evidence -- probably because there isn't any -- and also acknowledged that the state already requires voters to provide valid identification before voting.

At 8:00am tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, the House Elections Committee is scheduled to consider HJR9, Rep. Stanley Cox's proposed constitutional amendment requiring voters to provide government-issued photo ID's before casting their ballots. This is one of those ideas that seems reasonable at first blush -- after all, most people have licenses to drive. But a significant portion of the adult population does not -- and as it happens, the women, elderly and poor who are most likely to live without a photo ID are the least likely to vote for Republicans.  Funny how that works, huh?

Never mind that Missouri already has a commonsense voter identification law that works. Overly restrictive government-issued photo ID proposals are often presented as efforts to stop voter fraud.  This would be a lot more plausible if Republicans could find real cases of fraud.  But not even Matt Blunt could find election fraud to stop:

The last two secretaries of state, [Robin] Carnahan and Matt Blunt, reported no instances of election fraud by persons impersonating legitimate voters. The real deception is being perpetrated by legislators, whose claims of fraud are driving what appears to be a political agenda.

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