Republican legislators’ armlock strangling Missouri progress, and it’s getting tighter

The 2020 Missouri legislative session produced several alarming results. Its most onerous action put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ignore the will of almost two-thirds of voters by overturning the Clean Missouri reforms that passed in every state Senate district in November 2018. More than 62% of Missourians approved that plan to have a professional, nonpartisan demographer use 2020 U.S. Census data to redraw the state’s Senate and House districts. Republicans fear that professional redistricting could weaken their armlock on our state’s neck and want us to vote to give them back their old scam system with districts that ensure their choke hold.

The consequence of allowing the Missouri Republican Party to dominate with the supermajority it holds now is that its ultra-conservative, anti-tax dogma is strangling our ability to keep up with the other 49 states in the nation. Missouri has been moving to the back of the line compared with other states for more than a decade. Two failures in the most recent legislative session illustrate my point. The legislature failed to support even its own Republican governor, who wisely asked them to address two essential issues that are keeping Missouri at the bottom of the barrel: internet sales tax and infrastructure funding.

Gov. Mike Parson urged the legislature to pass the Wayfair internet tax bill that would let Missouri join 48 other states in collecting sales tax from online sales. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, equitable sales tax was a very important issue to Missouri retailers and government agencies, as online sales were climbing and retail sales were in decline. Brick-and-mortar stores compete on an uneven playing field, since they collect local sales taxes while internet vendors do not. Online shopping during the pandemic has inadvertently magnified this exponentially, and uneven taxation makes it more difficult for consumers to support local merchants.

There could be cataclysmic consequences to not taxing internet sales. If our retail establishments cannot reopen and compete, we will live in ghost towns of shuttered shops, making our existence monotonous, austere and impersonal — just like in quarantine. Our cities, counties and state were already challenged on tax revenues, and the pandemic has exposed and deepened this wound. There will not be nearly enough money for even our basic needs of police, infrastructure maintenance and parks services. Missourians deserve police protection and maintenance of our roads and bridges, but by sidestepping sales tax on internet sales, we will be unable to pay for those services.

Our responsible governor also asked legislators in his party to join Democratic leaders in supporting an initiative to address state infrastructure, especially our bridges and highways. Although Missouri has the seventh-most highway miles in the nation to maintain, we continue to collect less fuel tax than 46 other states. As a former mayor and city councilman of Florissant, Missouri, I took the responsibility for infrastructure very seriously, so I am amazed at the indifference of Republican legislators to the state’s needs.

Prior to the last decade, Missouri benefited from a balanced mix of representation from both the Republican and Democratic parties in our state legislature. That resulted in a bipartisan approach to good governance putting people above party most of the time. OK, I know that Democrats still fight tooth and nail with their rival Republicans, as they have since 1821. But the end result of having a nearly equal number of officials from both parties was commonsense, middle-of-the-road government by the people and for the people.

We now have a highly imbalanced mix, dominated by a very right-wing Republican supermajority that wants to tighten its grip. Missourians should be insulted by having to vote again to keep Clean Missouri’s professionally-drawn districts. They might also want to get a handle on their state government by replacing enough Republicans next November to get back balanced government for the people, rather than government for the Republican Party.

This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Republican legislators’ armlock strangling Missouri progress, and it’s getting tighter."