Blunt's 65% Illusion

It has been a big couple of weeks for Missouri Democratic Party spokesman Jac "Ace" Cardetti.

First and foremost, Jac and his wife Ann celebrated the arrival of their second child, Emma, born last Thursday.

But it didn't stop there.  Jac was also recognized this week on the Columbia "Thirty Under Thirty" list.

The pride of St. James keeps on rolling.  Story Continued »

Via PrimeBuzz, we get a sneak peek at Chep Hurth, the Missouri Republican who's in the midst of a national plan to skew the 2008 presidential election by rejiggering the assignment of California's electoral votes.  Behold, the prototype of the 21st Century GOP superlawyer and operative:

Hurth, then a third-year law student at St. Louis University, was taken to court by a young woman who said he grabbed her in a bar and bit her on the buttocks so hard she required medical attention - then laughed and high-fived his friends.

Hurth testified that he had told her she should take it as a compliment.

Sexual degradation and assault: high five!  Had he just mixed in an illicit homosexual rendezvous in the public toilet he would have hit the GOP Trifecta.

As Matt Blunt assembles his legislative agenda for the 2007 session, the question on many people's minds is... will Blunt take another run at passing his marquee 65% Illusion plan for education.

It seems likely that the Governor who is never wrong will be back again with his plan to take local control away from Missouri schools.

Clearly a good topic for questioning by members of the media as they develop their session preview packages.

Dear Spaz:

I am so impressed by your consistency.  No, I’m not referring to your continued hold out as a member of Matt’s guber team.  Rather, I find it amazing that after all these months the Blunt administration continues to find ways to promote its contorted views on education.  Your August 21, 2006 editorial “Blunt Recognizes Missouri Teacher of the Year” could have been written as long ago as January.  In this release, you quote young Matt declaring that “The education of young Missourians is now the top priority of state government and my administration has been intently focused on getting dollars to classrooms like Mr. Thornton’s where they clearly do the most good.” 

It is a time honored tradition for Missouri Governors to highlight their most important legislative initiatives with a statewide "fly-around".

A "fly-around" involves loading key legislators on a plane and flying to multiple cities in a single day for press conferences.  These events usually help lay the groundwork for passage of the initiative during the legislative session. 

Matt Blunt's partner on the 65% Illusion will be in St. Louis on Tuesday.

Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne will be in St. Louis on April 4th speaking to the Business Journal Conference for Women.   Byrne is scheduled to speak 3:45-4:45 PM.  The event is being held at the Renaissance Grand Hotel, 800 Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis.

An initiative petition that would strip state government of the power to properly fund education and health care is making a run for the ballot.

Last week, a proposal commonly called TABOR was cleared for circulation by the Secretary of State's Office.

Word on the street is that supporters have hired National Voter Outreach (NVO) to gather signatures for the measure.  NVO has circulated similar measure in other states.  It is unclear what out-of-state special interests are funding the signature gathering.

Calling it a "new fad" and "largely political", Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book Tough Love for Schools, lambasted Patrick Byrne's "65% Solution" in an op/ed in the Washington Times.

Criticizing the plan as "one-size-fits-all", Hess says:

In fact, the 65 percent solution focuses attention on dubious input measures and is an invitation to creative accounting. Most troubling, though, is the manner in which it embraces heavy-handed, autocratic management -- under the guise of "decentralization" ...

 Story Continued »

Matt Blunt's partner on the 65% Illusion is on his way to Missouri.

Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne will be in St. Louis on April 4th speaking to the Business Journal Conference for Women. 

Today's Rolla Daily News includes a lengthy question and answer piece with the four candidates vying for two seats on Rolla's school board.

The school board candidates may have their differences, but one thing they agree on is that the governor's 65% Education Illusion is a bad idea. The Rolla Daily News asks:

Gov. Matt Blunt is proposing a plan to force school districts to spend at least 65 percent of their budget on classroom learning. How do you feel about that plan?

 Story Continued »

Matt Blunt's legislative agenda gets less ambitious everyday.  He has seen his 65% illusion plan morph from a mandate to a goal, his MoHELA sell-off plan has hit legal barriers and he just plain abandoned his attempt to move the Securities Division from the Secretary of State's Office.

Now Blunt's proposal to require ethanol use in Missouri gasoline has been watered down by the GOP legislature.

From the beginning, the 65% Illusion (RIP) was a joint venture between Matt Blunt and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall of the Governor's Office as Blunt called the unpredictable and quotable Byrne to report the death of their common scheme.

I've been waiting to see which Republican is suicidal enough to actually introduce Blunt's 65% illusion, which takes local control away from school districts and requires them to fund football equipment before school counselors.  I check the bill list every day.

What did I find today?  Sen. Rob Mayer has introduced a bill to REJECT Blunt's proposal and replace it with a goal, to be voted on by the people.  So much for the Governor's requirement.  Now, might you ask, is Rob Mayer a Democrat looking to pre-empt and embarass the Governor?  Nope, he's a Republican who realizes what a terrible idea Blunt had.  At least one prominent right website has already declared the Governor's proposal "gutted' by Mayer, a "force of mediocrity."  You guys work it out among yourselves and then let us know what you want to do, o.k.?  Here's Post-Dispatch coverage of the issue

It's been a tough month for Matt Blunt and his 2006 flagship initiatives.

First, his 65% education mandate was declared dead by legislative leaders.   

Then, his plan to sell-off MoHELA was stopped cold by the GOP Speaker of the House.