Karen Cloyd, the co-chair of the West County Democrats welcomed all guests to the meeting and the administrative functions of the club were reviewed. Opportunities for involvement in community projects were discussed, including an MLK Day of Service event hosted by the South County Democratic Club on January 20, 2025, from 10am till noon. If you’re not inclined to watch the inaugural event on that day and would prefer to do something beneficial for your community instead, please join the good folks of the South County Dems at the Affton Community Center.
Presentation
West County Democrats hosted Lucas Caldwell-McMillan, the Chief of Policy Staff for Empower Missouri,
a long-standing advocacy for affordable housing, food security and community justice. He talked through their most recent activities and specifically highlighted their lobbying efforts to advance free school lunch programs throughout the state. As other states have found, something as simple as providing food in schools can have a lasting impact on education outcomes and general community health. Poverty is a huge and unaddressed problem within our state, yet organizations like Empower face great headwinds from legislators who give the fundamental human needs of our citizens a low priority. These are human issues that can and should be a core responsibility of our elected officials.
“…all constitutional government is intended to promote the general welfare of the people” – Missouri Constitution, Article 1, section 2 Purpose of Government
If you would like to be involved in citizen efforts to advance affordable housing, food insecurity, anti-poverty initiatives and criminal justice reform, Empower Missouri is a wonderful place to start. You can find out more here.
Legislative Report – Glenn Koenen
The U. S. Supreme Court was one vote away from ending the power of states to enforce state criminal laws.
Federal Items:
While the Trump Party (once known as the Republican Party) controls Congress and the White House internal conflicts within the party may limit the damage inflicted.
Note that Mike Johnson (R – LA) retained the Speakership with the absolute minimum number of votes only after Donald Trump pressured two members to change their announced votes against Johnson.
Even though the Senate has 53 GOP members there is appreciable concern about the impact of the policies Trump repeatedly promised to turn into law.
As a result, there is serious talk of using the Reconciliation process – supposedly reserved for passing budget/spending measures in fractious times – to bundle together, in a single vote, up to 100 bills worth of items, including…
- Extending the “Trump One” tax cuts (at a cost of $4 trillion);
- Slashing the number of federal government employees;
- Authorizing expenditures for mass deportation efforts, ignoring legal requirements;
- Effectively closing the border with Mexico;
- Eliminating restrictions on oil drilling, air pollution and controls on chemicals;
- Moving many governmental decisions from Congress to the President;
- Ending the debt ceiling; and,
- Giving the president – and their staff – absolute immunity in civil and criminal matters.
After that Trump wants to eliminate the 14th Amendment’s power of birthright citizenship. And, he has promised mass pardons for the January 6, 2021 “patriots.”
To get votes the House Speaker and new Senate Majority Leader (John Thune) may have to give extremists things they desire such as abolishing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Trump is also expected to pressure the Senate to approve around 120 appointees to Cabinet and other top positions in a single vote – sparing the nominees from pesky committee hearings.
Due to his support from tens of millions of Americans and his demonstrated willingness to attack detractors, it is probable that Donald Trump will get the majority of the dangerous and ridiculous things he wants.
As proved by numerous decisions, the Supreme Court will not fence-in Trump’s power grabs and actions.
State Items:
The first topic the Republican supermajorities in Jefferson City want addressed: security in their workplace. Many have opined that the Capitol Police are not up to the task of defending the legislature from a January 6 style attack
The legislative leadership has, as expected, again made it official: voters are too stupid to make decisions.
Among the shared priorities for this session…
- Preparing a new constitutional amendment to overturn the vote on Amendment 3;
- Overturning the voter vote to raise the minimum wage and guarantee paid sick leave;
- Making it next to impossible to get an initiative item on the ballot; and,
- Expanding charter schools (with money earmarked for public schools).
A few good ideas are hidden among the 1,500+ bills already filed. For example, Brenda Shields (R – St. Joe) wants to expand state-paid scholarships, including new Access Missouri grants of up to $3,500 per year! And, more oversight of residential children’s facilities seems to be on a fast track.
Unfortunately, a lot of bad ideas are in the hopper.
My current favorite is House Bill 691. Copying legislation from several other southern Red States, this bill would require that people prove they are of legal age before accessing sites with ‘adult’ material. The website would have to gather all the information from government-issued I.D. each time someone wanted to enter the site. But, the site couldn’t save the info nor use the data to create member profiles, meaning a ton of critical information would be available for hackers.
Ironically, the states which have already passed this proposal have seen tremendous increases in residents using easily accessed technology to avoid the restrictions. Critics also point out that ‘today’s its porn, tomorrow it could be Democratic party sites’ hit with the restrictions.
The sponsor of Missouri’s version, a second term Republican, has an interesting biography…Representative Mazzie Christensen…Prior to being elected, Christensen served in the White House as an executive assistant to the Director of Presidential Personnel John McEntee under the Trump administration, as well as a war room analyst for Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. She also worked as an intern for U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, and a communications assistant for the Congressional Office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene… A 2017 graduate of St. Joseph Christian School, Christensen received her bachelor’s degree in business administration from Missouri Western State University in 2020.
The one thing the legislature must do (supposedly) is pass a budget for the state’s next Fiscal Year. So far Missouri is not meeting the revenue expected for the current budget year. The consensus estimate is that revenue will drop by $70 million next year. (Some estimates place the shortfall at $500 million.)
In this environment, new Governor Mike Kehoe wants to begin an unstoppable proposal to completely eliminate the state income tax – the largest source of General Revenue (which covers most education and state Medicaid costs). Kehoe cites Ronald Reagan’s supply-side guru – Art Laffer – as the brains behind this proposal.