TWMP Column: Preseason game Monday in the Senate

The Super Bowl was Sunday and the very next day the Missouri Senate went into preseason mode with a six-hour session where the starters barely played and the outcome was never in doubt.

Senator Coleman’s SJR on IP reform was brought before the senate where everyone knew they would go to it until approximately 10:00 then lay it over in what looks likely to be a wasted week in the senate.

When urban Republicans who voted against things like the MASBDA credits and are every day in every way perpetrating a war on rural Missourah say they are trying to “protect rural voices” its candidly hard not so spew your Bud Light at the absurdity.

After the Republicans made their initial comments about the bill not being about abortion and protecting the constitution and so on Senators McCreery and Beck took to the floor to point out the obvious fact that this is all about abortion and that the voters are likely to overturn the current law if given the chance.

They brought up a very solid point first made this session by Senator Eigel that these senate subs should have to sit on the calendar a few days before being brought to the floor. Now I don’t know if he was being serious and would require this SJR sub to wait to be voted on or if he was just being St. Charlesish about it, but he has a very valid point.

One reality is that IP reform isn’t conservative vs. liberal it’s majority vs. minority. It’s amazing how California liberals and Missouri conservatives align when it’s about majority vs. minority.

There was an interesting feeling in the in air in the Senate tonight. For decades in Missouri’s social issue wars republicans have forced Democrats to take bad votes on things from guns, to gays, to abortion, to now trans. Stuff that no one in Afton or Indpendence supports, but the democrats kinda had to vote for.

However, on the abortion issue Democrats are putting republicans in tough spots forcing them into taking votes on things that no one in Lee’s Summit or Chesterfield supports, but the republicans kinda have to vote for.

Then Senators Washington and Roberts took to the floor to review the Super Bowl, Chiefs history, and last night’s Super Bowl commercials.

Then the star of the night Senator Roberts took to the floor and inquired of the bill handler Senator Coleman to review her bill line by line.

Earlier in session Senator Hoskins encouraged senators to review each piece of legislation line by line with the bill sponsor, and it appears Senator Roberts took him up on his really outstanding suggestion. To this simple hillbilly if you aren’t willing to review every line of your legislation with all 33 of your colleagues then go serve on a school board.

She didn’t seem incredibly excited about the inquiry, but was very professional as Senator Roberts reviewed her SJR line by line.

As he reviewed the SJR he brought up a very innovative and in my hillbilly opinion ingenious idea that while banning all foreigners defined as non-Americans from messing with Missouri’s IP process is a fine idea, if they really wanna ban east cost billionaires from interfering they should ban all foreigners defined by non-Missourians from messing with Missouri’s IP process.

The stated goal of the Republicans is to ban out-of-state billionaires from interfering with Missouri’s IP process, well Senator Roberts gave them a gold-plated way to accomplish just that.

Senator Coleman seemed to favor the foreigners continued involvement.

There was only one quorum call at approximately 9:15, and that is probably because everyone knew when the end was coming and I’m not sure they could have made 18 Republicans after 10:00 anyway.

Tomorrow they will go in around 10:00 and I assume continue this spring training game as they have told everyone they will be out for senators to attend the Chiefs parade Wednesday morning.

It will be interesting to see how long in the day they can keep a quorum especially when everyone knows this SJR isn’t coming to a vote this week.

The Chief’s win is a win for the opposition to the Republicans as they can attack leadership for leaving the IP vote to go to a parade. They will have a point, but I’m not sure they could pull a quorum.

What will be interesting will be to see if any of the opposition Republicans show up at the parade.

It’s a really tough spot. The logical move is to move on to other legislation and come back to this SJR at different intervals, but with 7 members of the opposition attempting to dictate the floor activity and the 17 not willing to make them hold the floor it’s just a tough spot.

I’ve already seen some city folks advocating using the PQ in February to move the SJR forward.

If you’ve ever once read this column you’ll know I generally understand and have at least some appreciation for every opinion right, left, center, hell even St. Charles, but the PQ is simply the worst idea in any situation every time.

I honestly cannot understand why anyone would commit the time to run for the Senate if they really just wanted to be House members.

If senators like Senator Moon thought he was irrelevant in the House, just vote for a few PQs in the Senate and you’ll be right back there.

It’s literally cursed. Think about the Right to Work PQ, the SJR39 PQ about something homophobic, the jurisdiction PQ from a couple of years ago. The #CurseOfThePQ assures that they always end up in flames.

One that held was on something about the minimum wage, but inflation has already made that irrelevant.

For what its worth my white trash hillbilly #SteinOfKnowledge prediction on how this ends up if they PQ this bill.

• Senator Rizzo abandons senate leadership with only 17 votes and leaves them completely at Senator Eigel’s mercy only now with the #CurseOfThePQ on them.
• Shit is smeared on the chamber and every senator is degraded closer to a house member.
• Several republican, pro-life lawyers two who have litigated pro-life cases and more than one judge have told me that concurrent jurisdiction won’t pass a court challenge either federally or in a state court. Add in the #CurseOfThePQ and I’d bet more than one Bud Light on it.
• If it does make it to the ballot then I assume the Governor puts it on in August and the Realtors empowered by the #CurseOfThePQ kill it. If the Governor also puts the abortion IP on with it in August then it almost certainly goes down empowered by the #CurseOfThePQ.
• If he separates the two and puts the abortion IP on in November the #CurseOfThePQ will almost certainly cost republicans seats in the suburbs. It will literally be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving.

Or it could all work out just fine…

Personally I do think it should be harder to amend the constitution and harder for the legislature to overturn statutes passed by the voters. I’ve just become skeptical that there is a path to actually make that happen.

On a serious note any senator who votes for a PQ should at minimum be:

– Referred to hereafter as Representative.

– Have to park in the house garage.

– Have their office moved to the house mezzanine.

– Be forced to address the dais as Mr. Speaker.

I heard about the new Plocher story in of all place The Independent, I know shocking, where some were reps were whining about not getting their bills referred.

Well that’s not true. He did refer some of the members who said he should resign’s legislation and that is really the problem here. Dean is just too nice.

Contemplate what Speaker Hannaway or Speaker Griffin would have done with the legislation of members who called for them to resign.

At some point someone is going to ask how this can possibly take six months, and how much this is costing. Further when it passes the couple thousand dollars the speaker already repaid the state is this really worth it?