This legislative session was a disgrace. Time to get rid of the whole Missouri Senate?

Does Missouri really need a state Senate?

Thousands of residents may be asking themselves that very question today, following the adjournment of a session generally understood as an unproductive disaster, particularly on the Senate side of the state Capitol.

Kansas Citians should be especially appalled. The General Assembly’s decision to usurp local spending decisions for police is an outrageous, anti-democratic approach that must be challenged in court, and at the ballot box.

“It’s no secret that this place was ugly at times,” said state Sen. Caleb Rowden, leader of the Senate’s Republicans. “It was difficult to watch sometimes. There were days when I frankly went home embarrassed.”

Those are the words of the leader of the majority party. If he’s embarrassed, imagine how the rest of the state feels.

To be sure, at least part of the session was rescued in the 11th hour by the passage of a new congressional map. It took strong-armed legislative chicanery to pull it off, but in the end Missouri joined the other 49 states in at least passing a map.

The new map appears to favor six Republican House members and two Democrats, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in the 5th District. For most of the session, the nihilists in the so-called Conservative Caucus did their best to derail a 6-2 map, preferring an unconstitutional 7-1 split that might have cost Cleaver the seat.

While they were at it, the conservatives halted progress on virtually everything else, too.

The state Senate became a riot of dysfunction. Conservative state Sen. Mike Moon wore a pair of bib overalls onto the floor, provoking Senate leadership to demand an apology or face punishment. Moon refused, and began a filibuster.

“I am not calling Sen. Moon a child in this situation,” said fellow Republican state Sen. Dave Schatz, “but I am going to characterize it as what a child would do.” OK, then.

Stalemate and angry disagreements between the relatively moderate GOP leadership and the seven wackos in the Conservative Caucus did have an upside. The frustration and anger stalled progress on odious legislation involving transgender kids and needless prohibitions on so-called “critical race theory.”

Attempts to defund Medicaid expansion, or seek changes in how initiative petitions are used in the state failed. So did a move to repeal the state’s gas tax increase. Sports gambling collapsed.

There were accomplishments. Led by the adults in the Missouri House, the legislature did pass a budget and funded schools. Teachers should get needed raises.

But lawmakers also passed a disastrous voting reform bill that will undoubtedly face a court challenge. And then there’s the congressional map, which could have passed easily in the first weeks of the session but instead became the defining roadblock in the Senate.

Why put up with this? There is no compelling defense of a two-house state legislature in this environment. Missouri already has 163 House members, more seats than Texas, or California, or New York. And because Gov. Mike Parson is too lazy to call special elections, at least half a dozen House seats remained vacant this session.

Remember: House members are chosen by district, and senators are picked in bigger districts. Senators are not inherently wiser, or more patient, or more knowledgeable than their House counterparts.

In a tweet Friday, state Sen. Lauren Arthur of Kansas City, a Democrat, defended the institution. “The Senate was designed to make it difficult to pass legislation,” she said. Yet Arthur and her colleagues were unable to prevent the grotesque violation of Kansas Citians’ rights when the General Assembly imposed a 25% floor on police spending in its final day.

If your only goal is to prevent bad stuff, rather than pursue good stuff, failure can resemble success. But it’s still failure.

Nebraska has a one-house state legislature. Perhaps the people skilled at gathering petition signatures can pursue a smaller Missouri General Assembly in 2023.

This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 9:46 AM.