The West County Democrats hosted Jennifer Slavik Lohman, cofounder of three local organizations; the St. Louis Area Voter Protection Coalition (stlvpc.org), Indivisible St. Louis, and In Every Generation (ineverygeneration.org.) She serves as chair of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition’s Anti-Disinformation Working Group and represents Missouri in the national Election Protection Anti-Disinformation Working Group. It is in this capacity, she shared her presentation “Voting Rights, Misinformation, and Disinformation”
The presentation shared great information about resisting the corrosive effects on our democracy of politically motivated disinformation funneled through the press and social media. For more information about this topic click here.
Amy Ryan, a recent candidate for the Rockwood District School Board addressed the group and described her experience and the impact of hyper partisan campaigning and active promotion by local conservative media on the recent election. The Republican party is now branding school board candidates in targeted districts and backing them with floods of outside money and resources. Election turnout for these candidates was driven by the disinformation campaigns discussed by our featured presenter. For Rockwood, this resulted in the election of at least one board member who is brand new to the district and completely unqualified for the role.
During our discussion, Ms. Ryan made an impassioned plea to all Democrats to come together NOW and fight back this onslaught on our democracy, even in elections that have traditionally been non-partisan like school boards. Moreover, it is important for Democratic candidates to work together to help each other as we enter the next campaign season.
Glenn Koenen could not join us for the meeting, but the full text of his monthly legislative report is below.
Legislative Report April 11, 2022 Glenn Koenen
Federal Items:
The Kyiv conundrum…
How do you force an end to a major military invasion of an innocent country when the aggressor claims to be willing to start WWIII?
Vladimir Putin gave up on sanity a good while back. Still, a major nuclear power willing to accept staggering casualties among its own people can’t be cornered. While the Ukrainians are giving thew Russians more of a war than anyone could have imagined, this situation in eastern Europe has the potential to being an expensive – and deadly – stalemate for years to come.
On the domestic front, the inevitable vote to put Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson onto the Supreme Court found just three Republican Senators willing to accept the judge’s tremendous accomplishments. I found it interesting that most Fox News reports did not refer to Judge Brown as a judge, just calling her ‘Biden’s nominee.’ And, some senators (led by Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz) insisted on repeating the myth that the judge was ‘easy’ on pedophiles.
While Congress has approved a working budget for the rest of this fiscal year (till 9/30/22), the future for FY23 looks bleak. Sensing blood in the water, it is unlikely that the GOP will sanction efforts to lessen the impact of the coming recession, not wanting to give Democrats a “win” before Election Day. At the4 same time, lo9ng term support of Ukraine – and our NATO allies – will necessitate a heavy increase in defense spending. It is expected that the American military will forward deploy several additional divisions to NATO’s eastern flank in Poland, Hungary and surrounding nations to deter Russian aggression. That costs a lot of money.
(Be sure to ask Republican friends how they now feel about Trump’s talk of America leaving NATO.)
A political reality is that Presidents take credit for victories they didn’t touch and blame for things they can’t control. The economic forces unleashed by the COVID pandemic and made worse by Trump administration’s unraveling of government systems are floating to the top. True, the Ukrainian tragedy caused a great chunk of the increase in gasoline but the improving economy post-COVID was due to increase fuel prices by several domes a gallon anyway.
Likewise, inflation was due to return. Even though the federal minimum wage (due to Republicans) has not been raised for a decade, the majority of Americans work in areas with local minimum wages up to $15.00 an hour. Yes, that impacts 99¢ double cheeseburgers.
The question becomes, how many American voters will blame Joe Biden, and Democrats, for the economy? Many pundits are projecting Republican takeovers of the House (perhaps a 25 vote swing) and the Senate (GOP+4). Stay tuned.
State Items:
Just when Mike Parson starts acting like a governor his own party stops him in his tracks.
Fortunately, the 5.5% raise for state workers killed by the House budget committee chair [Cody Smith (R – Carthage)] was saved in the Senate…That may be their most productive action this session.
The Conservative Caucus has tied the Capitol in knots. Among their evil deeds…
‣ Stalling a sexual assault victims’ bill of rights by adding language banning obscene material’s in
high schools (especially Wentzville’s and Rockwood’s);
‣ Pushing to end the Personal Property Tax – and the revenue it generates – in St. Charles County;
‣ Holding up the Senate’s Congressional District map for weeks, then proclaiming the Senate
would not negotiate with the House – insuring a court-drawn map.
While listening to the reading of the book about Jim The Wonderdog was a delightful break in the action, the Conservative Caucus contends that they alone are the true Republicans, the only group standing against Nancy Pelosi and Biden’s godless agenda from hell. The caucus and a few friends in the House insure that Parson can achieve nothing major this session.
Of course, this is the first session in almost two decades where Missouri’s income is adequate to cover all the state’s basic needs. Thanks to pandemic relief and a surge in General Revenue the state could – if it dared – make substantial improvements in funding critical programs.
While the legislature seems on track to put extra money in college building programs and long-needed special projects (such as a new, modern state crime lab), the House budget chair and the Conservative Caucus have used their influence to kill major, needed increases in spending, including…
Additional transportation funding to schools;
Major technology improvements for state agencies (including DOR and DSS which still use
1970’s tech);
Hiring critical workers for the children’s’ division and other state office; and,
Lessening the funding shortfall in the state’s main pension plan.
Actually, some Republicans have a plan to save pensions: putting all new teachers in the state plan (at current state rates) instead of in the teacher’s plan.
Killing public education seems to be a major part of some Republicans agenda this session. Plans to give more state money to charter schools; to allow schools to employ non-certified staff as teachers; to grant parents a veto over instructional materials; and, to move school board elections to the November ballot are all still active.
By tradition, the House gives the Senate the budget around Spring Break week in March. This year the Senate gets it this week. Members of the Senate have already declared a desire to substantially rework the House plan. It is very possible that the Senate and House will fail to complete a unified budget by the Constitutional deadline of May 6.
That will force the Governor to call a special/extraordinary session to enact a budget by 6/30/22.
Faced with a tight deadline, the Republican infighting could make the process very interesting.