In an op-ed piece in the Sunday Post-Dispatch, state rep. Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) used a bit of our history to impress readers with what we can do to put Missourians back to work despite these tough economic times:
In 1982, then-Gov. Christopher "Kit" Bond, working in a bipartisan manner with Democratic legislative leaders, passed and sent to the people a proposed $700 million building bond issue to construct and repair needed major buildings at our colleges and universities and at other state buildings.
The people of Missouri agreed and voted to use some of their taxes to pay off this bond issue. Thousands of Missourians went to work in dozens of trades, constructing needed classrooms, laboratories and hospitals. Those facilities still serve Missouri 27 years later. Now, Gov. Jay Nixon and the Legislature should follow the example of Gov. Bond and send a fifth state building bond to the voters for approval.
Why?
Because large scale construction is an excellent way to put numbers of people to work.
Because interest rates are at rock bottom.
Because the construction industry, hungry for work, will offer favorable bids.
Because:
A large construction bond issue is, by order of magnitude, the biggest jobs bill the governor and Legislature could enact. Construction of the buildings would employ thousands of workers in every craft all over the state. The facilities, once built, would require the employment of more people, and the students educated at the facilities would bolster our economy with their technical and scientific skills.
...[T]he work that will be done is vital to the future of Missouri. Our colleges and universities have massive backlogs of needed new facilities, mostly to teach the hard sciences.
At Governor Holden's monthly Pizza and Politics forum Wednesday evening, Ed Martin, the Republican challenging Russ Carnahan next year, and Chris Kelly, a Democratic representative who was elected in Columbia just last year, faced off on the question of term limits.
Kelly spoke first. Because he had previously served in the legislature for twelve years in the eighties and early nineties, he had the historical knowledge to appreciate how the House differs from what it used to be. His main argument was that term limits destroy necessary institutional memory and depth of knowledge. Bitter partisanship fills the gap left by departing long term legislators.
Kelly pointed out that currently, each party caucuses with its members twice a week, and they use those occasions to "throw each other partisan red meat" and "inflame sectarian passion." In the past, he says, representatives had served with each other sometimes for decades. It was harder to characterize someone as a mindless Republican shill if you had been to his daughter's wedding.
And people voted their own conscience instead of lock stepping with their party.
"In the bad ole days before we had term limits, we caucused twice a session because no one in their right mind would go to the caucus and listen to their political party tell them how to vote." Kelly maintained that if the party had tried to tell them how to vote, legislative giants like John Schneider and Wayne Goode would have said something like "'Go to hell. I know what I'm supposed to do. I've been on this issue for many, many years. I understand the issue very well. I've spent my entire adult life studying it, and I'm gonna decide how I'm going to vote based on that store of knowledge.'"
The video clip begins with Kelly describing how much less today's legislators know:
Kelly said that members used to figure that about one fourth of the House were the hard working representatives who got the bulk of the work accomplished. That's still true, he said. Only now that hard working one fourth doesn't have as many tools, as much knowledge, to start with.
Ed Martin, the founder of Term Limits for Missouri, defended term limits. He averred that the current climate is well served by them. For every John Schneider that the legislature loses, it gets other good replacements, and he would rather have fresh faces arriving. Sure, Schneider is gone, but Tim Green and Barbara Fraser served well. Barbara Fraser, in turn, was term limited out, but she served on the St. Louis County Council and will probably run next year for Joan Bray's senate seat.
Rep. Chris Kelly, D-Columbia, is sending this letter to press outlets all over the state. He argues convincingly for a bond issue to fund new construction on state university and junior college campuses:
The Fifth State Bond Issue:
Let's Not Play Politics With Our State's Future
by State Representative Chris Kelly
Since last December I have been nagging anyone who would listen--and some who would not--to consider a Fifth State Building Bond. I believe we should allow the voters to decide if Missouri should dedicate some of the tax revenue that taxpayers are already paying to a large-scale capital program. We could construct needed buildings at every university and community college in the state. We could also replace some of our mental health and other facilities that are literally falling down around our ears. We could undertake these projects at record low costs because every contractor in the state is hungry and, if we act quickly, we could borrow the money at record low interest rates. At the same time, we could create jobs to help alleviate an unemployment rate approaching 10%.
I now see that several key legislative Republicans have recently reversed their positions on the issuance of State General Obligation Bonds--the bonds that would be used to construct important state and higher education buildings and to put thousands of our fellow citizens to work at high-paying construction jobs. Their reversal comes directly on the heels of a change in the position of our Democratic Governor who now has decided to support the sale of the bonds.
It looks awfully like my Republican colleagues thought the bonds were a good idea when Jay did not support them. Now that Jay supports the bonds, they are, all of a sudden, a bad idea. These Republicans say the Governor ought to use federal stimulus money to complete the building work. However, these same legislators voted to use much of the stimulus money to operate the government's day-to-day operations. Further, the immutable fact is that we finished FY 2009 with revenue about 6.9% less than the previous year. That is a lot of money. Everyone in this discussion knows that if we don't protect some of the stimulus money for FY 2011 and 2012 we will be in much worse shape in those years than we are today.
Bipartisanship Is Our Best Policy
I was encouraged during the 2009 legislative session that we had a good chance to be successful with the bond Issue. Many thoughtful Republicans looked at the idea--including my co-sponsor Rep. Steve Tilley (R-Perryville)--decided that it had merit, that it was good for Missouri, and got on board regardless of party labels. A bipartisan group of hardworking legislators came within a whisker of sending the bond issue to the voters. As the session wore on, we were joined by university and community college advocates and by business and labor groups around the state. More and more people considered the actual merits of the proposal and decided--without any political gamesmanship--that the bonds were a good idea. I was particularly grateful to my supportive GOP colleagues because they had no political reason to help me. They simply made a decision in the best interests of Missouri, even if it meant working across the aisle.
Chris Kelly, D-Columbia, talked to me Tuesday about the legislative session just ending.
He said there is still the tiniest glimmer of hope for restoring 35,000 people to Medicaid. But, as in the case of Tinkerbell at death's door, he said, "we'll have to do a lot of clapping."
Usually, we measure a legislative session by what gets passed, but Kelly maintains that this time, we'll measure it by what didn't make it. And, as of Tuesday, at least, he was glad to see the following ideas looking pretty dead:
campus conceal/carry
a constitutional amendment about prayer (At best, he says its akin to telling people that Missouri is called Missouri. The federal and state constitutions have protected the right to prayer for a couple of hundred years now, so why restate the obvious? And at worst, this two page law runs the risk of unintended consequences. What those might be, he couldn't say, since "unintended" indicates that we don't know yet.)
coerced abortion
court "deform" ("No," he tells me, "I didn't say court reform; I said court deform.)"
I'd have added substituting a larger sales tax for the state income tax, but Kelly doesn't follow the progressive orthodoxy on that one. He likes that sales tax idea. (I didn't have time to get into the details of his opinion. Must ask sometime.)
He did see a few minor victories, like:
$12 million for Metro
Retaining the Caring for Missouri program, which trains health care workers for rural Missouri
the possibility that still exists that HJR 32, his own proposal, will get past Crowell's filibuster in the Senate. The constitutional amendment would allow entities to propose up to $800 million in general obligation bond issues for buildings in higher educational institutions and other places like mental health institutions. The votes are there if Crowell were to fold.
"We're the people you hire to protect you from the people you elect."
From Rep. Chris Kelly, D-Columbia:
"Oh, I'm sure we and all Missourians will be better off when we pass that "Freedom to pray" constitutional amendment. After all, it is just a much simpler alternative to health care."
From Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford, commenting on the House Republicans' refusal to accept $100 million in free Medicaid funds a year because that would be offering "welfare" to "able bodied adults":
"It's funny what we call welfare and what we don't. When we help millionaires and billionaires build a baseball stadium, we don't call it welfare."
HD 24 in Columbia (the southern third of Boone County) is going to be a brawl--an expensive brawl between incumbent Republican Ed Robb and Democratic challenger Chris Kelly (pictured at left).
In 2006, Jim Ritter challenged Robb, and they fought the most expensive House campaign in Missouri history. Between them, they spent over $300,000, with Robb having a spending edge of $42,000. With that advantage, he managed to eke out a 211 vote victory. When Ronny Richardson talked to me about that race early last month, he praised Jim Ritter's fine qualifications, but he thought the outcome might have been different if Ritter had been willing to throw a few punches. Some streetfighting smarts were called for because Robb's got nothing against getting down and dirty. Ronny figures that holding back in a brawl isn't part of Chris Kelly's nature.
I'm not saying you don't do economic development - sometimes you should. But you shouldn't take the money from Missouri's medically indigent and transfer it to ticket scalpers.
-Chris Kelly, in a speech announcing his candidacy for the 24th District of the Missouri House.
Photo courtesy of the Columbia Tribune's Jason Rosenbaum
HD 24 in Columbia (the southern third of Boone County) is going to be a brawl--an expensive brawl between incumbent Republican Ed Robb and Democratic challenger Chris Kelly (pictured at left).
