The Kansas City Star, April 1
Missouri officials ’almost have to go to jail to be impeached’ under half-baked bill
Officials in Missouri want to make it a lot harder to impeach officials in Missouri.
Under a measure that the state Senate just passed, you’d pretty much have to be sent to jail during your term in office to even be subject to impeachment. In which case, it would be kind of a moot point, wouldn’t it? And maybe even the least of your worries.
How convenient for officials in Missouri, who might as well have passed a constitutional amendment outlawing such an ouster altogether.
Now this half-baked amendment goes on to the Missouri House. If it passes there, too, it would be subject to a statewide vote. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.
When the current standard for impeachment was written in 1924, corruption was rampant. Ever since, impeachment in the state could involve not just crimes, but also “misconduct, habitual drunkenness, willful neglect of duty, corruption in office, incompetency, or any offense involving moral turpitude or oppression in office.”
The proposal that just passed, by a vote of 25-8, would make the only criteria for impeachment “corruption and crime in office.”
But if “turpitude” was a little broad, the new standard is absurdly narrow.
Had it been in effect last year, Gov. Eric Greitens might very well still be in office since he was accused of sexual misconduct and potential campaign finance violations that allegedly occurred before he took office.
If this amendment passed, aspiring pols would just have to get any and all law-breaking wrapped up before their swearing-in.
“Not accounting for things that we learned about prior to that person’s tenure in office doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Democratic state Sen. Jill Schupp. “Greitens is a perfect example.”
The idea predates the Greitens debacle, but that experience does show what a poor one it is.
Republican sponsor Sen. Ed Emery has long wanted to transfer responsibility for impeachment trials from the Missouri Supreme Court to the Senate.
But even he seems to feel he has overshot his mark, saying that under his current proposal, “you almost have to go to jail to be impeached, which I’m not completely satisfied with.”
Emery worked on the measure with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tony Luetkemeyer, whose wife was a lawyer in Greitens’ office. He has argued that the current grounds for impeachment can too easily be used to try to remove a judge from the bench for an unpopular ruling.
But that wouldn’t seem to be much of a danger, given that a judge was last impeached 1968.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 30
Expanding charter schools to metro counties could hurt suburban school districts
Charter schools could be coming soon to a suburb near you, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Before the Missouri Legislature expands the charter school experiment beyond urban districts in St. Louis and Kansas City, lawmakers must consider the risk it would pose to some of the strongest public school districts in the state.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, would allow charter schools to expand into St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County and cities like Columbia, Jefferson City, Springfield and Joplin.
Proponents have long insisted that the greater choice offered by publicly funded but privately run charter schools improves students’ education options. But charter school performance data over the past 20 years hasn’t yielded consistently positive results.
Like it or not, the flight of middle-class families to the suburbs has contributed to higher performance rates for suburban public schools. It’s far from clear whether the demand exists for new education alternatives outside urban areas.
Roeber’s bill wouldn’t add additional funding to public education nor adequately address the lack of accountability that has been among the biggest complaints about urban charter schools. Charter schools that fail to meet the same educational standards as the local public school district can still be renewed for three years under her proposal.
Some high-profile disasters have resulted from lack of oversight and accountability for charter schools. In 2012, Missouri shut down six Imagine charter schools in St. Louis. Students consistently performed worse on state tests than those attending St. Louis Public Schools while Virginia-based Imagine reaped huge profits from a real estate business.
Last month, an investigation by Kansas City’s WDAF-TV found that then-Attorney General Josh Hawley secretly settled a lawsuit with a charter school the state accused of stealing nearly $4 million in taxpayer money.
About half of the 30-plus charter schools that have opened in St. Louis since 2000 have been shut down for academic or financial failure. That’s hardly a success model worth emulating.
Nationally, the picture looks even worse. The federal government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or opened and then closed because of mismanagement or other reasons, according to the Network for Public Education advocacy group.
Parents in the districts targeted by Roeber’s proposal owe it to their children to scrutinize charter schools’ performance record and the ways they can weaken their traditional public school systems.
For decades, lawmakers touted charter schools as a way to help students trapped in chronically low-performing districts. But a conservative political movement is afoot to weaken public school education and divert resources to alternative institutions, including private ones.
The performance record of charter schools is far too spotty to merit expansion beyond urban settings. Roeber’s bill proposes a potentially bad fix for something that might not even be broken.
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The Jefferson City News-Tribune, March 29
We’re hyped about hyperloop, but at what cost?
We love the idea of a hyperloop - a next-gen propulsion system that could whisk you from Kansas City to St. Louis in a giant vacuum tube - all in less than the time it would take you watch an episode of “Star Trek” on Netflix.
The idea is fascinating, and it’s not a futuristic dream; the technology is available now.
What we don’t like is the $7 billion to $10 billion price tag, particularly if we’re talking about publicly funding a portion of it.
The inaugural meeting of the “Blue Ribbon Panel on Hyperloop” took place Monday. Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe chairs the 29-member group that will tell House Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, this fall whether it’s a feasible idea to get involved.
The fact that the Missouri Department of Transportation, University of Missouri and a government panel are involved in discussions suggests the government would be involved, meaning your tax money.
Just a few of the questions that would have to be answered include:
What would the financial arrangement be? Would it be a public-private project? How would the cost be split, and how would control of the system be determined?
What would the per-trip cost be to travelers, and what would the true cost be once taxpayer funds are added?
Who would be the primary users of such transportation? Would it be business travelers and businesses transporting products/raw materials? Would the practical for the average person/family to use such a system, considering Mid-Missourians can drive to either Kansas City or St. Louis for $30 or so on gas.
The project is fascinating, but it has the potential to be a huge public commitment like Amtrak. This, at a time when our state is struggling to maintain the roads it has already created.
Kehoe said the state should be doing better with the current highway system and looking to the future. We, too, believe this needs to be a priority.
We ask government entities involved in studying the hyperloop to proceed with caution on anything that would commit our state to another form of public transportation, especially one with a magnitude as large as this.
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