Hey Digby...

...Jonah Goldberg's theory that the voters simply don't know what they're doing? Missouri is run by a whole lot of pantloads.

The ballot language referred to the cost-of-living increase.

It read: “Shall Missouri Statutes be amended to increase the state minimum wage rate to $6.50 per hour, or to the level of the federal minimum wage if that is higher, and thereafter adjust the state minimum wage annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index?”

However, Cooper and other Republicans have concluded that voters didn’t understand what they were considering.

Silly voters, you obviously don't understand what's going on, so we're going to go ahead and fix your mistakes for you.

And while we're picking on my home state...I posted that a couple of weeks ago. In the last week or so, there's definitely been something of a whiff of panic coming from Missouri Republicans. Governor Blunt is sinking further as corruption becomes more of a conversation topic, and it's starting to look like some major losses could be on the docket next year (then again, I could be underestimating the people who voted for these folks), so they're cranking through absolutely everything on their ideological agenda. And they're geting more and more transparent by the moment...

First there's the MoHELA initiative...from the KC Star...

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt’s “Lewis & Clark Initiative” started out with a laudable goal but a nefarious means of getting there.

After a thorough mangling in the General Assembly, the plan has gone from half-bad to all bad.

To raise funds for a major expansion of the state’s life sciences industry, Blunt proposed plundering the assets of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MoHELA), the nonprofit agency that helps families afford college.

Lawmakers are on the verge of grabbing those assets. Making things even worse, the life sciences building program has degraded into a hodge-podge of campus construction that excludes Kansas City and Columbia.

Legislative leaders already had purged medical research buildings from the list because of hysteria over stem-cell research.

So much for the state’s commitment to life sciences.

This week Senate Republicans, in an act of petty retribution, yanked $15 million that had been intended for an expanded pharmacy and nursing building at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A $31 million new cancer center at the University of Missouri-Columbia was also scratched.

Republicans threw the temper tantrum because Democrats Jolie Justus of Kansas City and Chuck Graham of Columbia delayed a vote on the bill with a filibuster.

And from Fired Up! Missouri...

[T]he MOHELA appropriation legislation reveals that fifteen million of the dollars generated by the sale would go into a small, loosely overseen non-profit corporation controlled by Blunt's GOP crony Rob Monsees --the same man who brought the MOHELA sale to the Governor to begin with while employed as a deputy chief of staff in his office.

Those $15 million are being directed into sixteen "projects" controlled by the Missouri Technology Corporation --of which Rob Monsees serves as executive director--most or all of which are reportedly unknown to at least some members of the Missouri Technology Corporation's board of directors. Given that the legislation also provides for "100% flexibility" between projects for the appropriated funds, Monsees would have broad latitude to reapportion the funds into projects he favors.

And while we're at it, here's the desperate abortion legislation...

The House passed legislation yesterday that would subject abortion clinics to more stringent regulations, a move critics claim would make it harder for women to get abortions in Missouri.

...

Missouri has a strong anti-abortion majority in the General Assembly, which is pushing a bill that increases state oversight of abortion providers and bans them from teaching or distributing materials for school sex education courses.

Bans them from teaching or distributing materials for school sex education courses, i.e. information about contraception. This is going to end well.

And speaking of ending...I can't tell if I'm smelling Republican defeat in the air, or if it's getting so surreal living here that I just really want to smell defeat in the air. I don't want to get too optimistic, so I'll just stop thinking about it for now...

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Attention Missouri Voters

The current Missouri legislature thinks that you, Missouri Voters, don't know what the hell you're doing.

First, there was the stem-cell initiative that you approved back in November. You know, the one where you approved of funding stem-cell research? Well, the Republican legislature is working to repeal that initiative.

With one lawmaker absent, opponents of research on early stem cells on Tuesday rammed a proposal through a Missouri House committee that would override voters’ approval of Amendment 2.

...

The proposal would override much of Amendment 2, the initiative approved by 51 percent of Missouri voters in November. Amendment 2 prohibits political interference with any stem-cell research that is allowed by federal law.

The new proposal, House Joint Resolution 11, would allow the legislature to regulate or prohibit such research and would ban the cloning of human cells to search for medical treatments. If passed by the legislature, the resolution would go before voters in November 2008 as a proposed constitutional amendment. Amendment 2 already bans efforts to clone human cells that would initiate a pregnancy or produce an infant.

Don't think this is atrocious enough for you? Well...you know how you approved of a minimum wage hike back in November? Well, the Republican legislature decided you really don't know what you're doing.

Just months after Missourians overwhelmingly approved raising the minimum wage, House Republicans are pushing a measure to eliminate a yearly cost-of-living increase built into the new wage.

The effort by House Republicans also would strip away a pay hike just given to waiters and other tipped employees in Missouri after Gov. Matt Blunt’s office last month reversed a state Department of Labor ruling that tipped employees would not get the increase.

...

Voters in November approved boosting the state’s minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.50 an hour. The measure, which passed by 76 percent, also included a yearly cost-of-living increase in the minimum wage tied to the Consumer Price Index.

The ballot language referred to the cost-of-living increase.

It read: “Shall Missouri Statutes be amended to increase the state minimum wage rate to $6.50 per hour, or to the level of the federal minimum wage if that is higher, and thereafter adjust the state minimum wage annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index?”

However, Cooper and other Republicans have concluded that voters didn’t understand what they were considering.

Yes, that must be why they didn't vote how you wanted. So you're doing them a favor by telling them their vote doesn't matter. Just leave the voting to you, right?


From Fired Up! Missouri...



Anyway, Missouri voters, I just thought I'd point this out. You might want to remember this the next time you find yourself in a voting booth. I don't know why they think they can get away with this, but they do. Don't let them.

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