I’m a Missouri Baptist minister. Jay Ashcroft is serving only the God of GOP politics

Missouri faces a significant problem: Jay Ashcroft, the secretary of state overseeing our elections, doesn’t believe in democracy. Instead, he apparently believes he’s on a (partisan) mission from God.

“The idea of a hyperdirect democracy concerns me,” Ashcroft told a Rotary meeting in the state’s capital last month. “And it’s not because I don’t believe that the people should be involved. It’s because I believe that our rights come from God.”

By “hyperdirect,” he means those pesky ballot initiatives where we the people actually vote on changes to the Missouri Constitution or other important matters. He hopes state lawmakers will weaken our right to exercise such power. Apparently, by doing things such as rejecting an anti-union law and expanding Medicaid, the voters keep getting in the way of Ashcroft’s “God.”

From Ashcroft’s perspective, God’s will is determined by the elites. Instead of trusting the voice of the people as spoken through democratic processes, we need a few politicians to serve as mediators or priests to determine and enforce the divine plan. Miraculously, what Ashcroft sees as God’s agenda just happens to match the Republican platform. Would Ashcroft be singing from the same hymnal if the Democratic Party dominated Missouri political life?

As our state’s self-anointed bishop, anyone questioning Ashcroft’s wisdom or priorities now commits a spiritual sin rather than expressing a basic democratic right. I guess I’ll have to go to confession for writing this piece. His attitude explains the righteous zeal with which he’s tried to thwart the constitutional rights of Missourians to engage in the ballot initiative process and his push to make it harder for people to vote.

Ashcroft’s remarks about serving God’s agenda as a public servant come amid a larger anti-democratic effort to gerrymander Missouri’s congressional map following the 2020 census. The state’s U.S. congressional delegation currently includes six Republicans and two Democrats, but Ashcroft’s on a crusade for more GOP power.

“Just looking at my own position, I won statewide by 25 percentage points, which makes me say that it seems to me Missouri is a pretty Republican state,” Ashcroft said at that same Rotary breakfast. “So, in that regard, if we were 7-1, I think that would probably do a better job of actually representing who the people of Missouri are in Washington, D.C.”

Ashcroft’s apparently as bad at math as theology. While he did win his 2020 face by 25 percentage points, his actual share of the vote was 61%. Thus, a 7-1 map violates Ashcroft’s own standard by giving 88% of the congressional seats to Republicans. Even the current 6-2 map fails his test, as it leaves 75% of the state in GOP hands. Ashcroft’s own logic would suggest a 5-3 map with a 63% Republican majority.

I doubt pointing out these numbers will stop the secretary of state’s evangelism for a 7-1 map. His ultimate faith lies in partisan power. We saw this on display in the cultish support he gave to stealing the presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump. As rioters overran police officers at barricades outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Ashcroft stood in the Missouri House chamber and falsely claimed we can’t “demonstrably verify the results” in four states that Joe Biden won.

Unfortunately for Ashcroft, nobody elected him to play God. Rather than a religious seer, his job remains that of a public servant. When he took the oath of office, he swore to uphold the state constitution, not his church, scriptures or personal religious feelings. He’s certainly free to pursue a call to ministry, but that vocational quest shouldn’t be paid for with the public’s dime.

As a Baptist minister, I find Ashcroft’s ideas and rhetoric dangerous. His words profane both God and democracy. A deity defined by one political party is the definition of idolatry. It pretends a flawed human agenda reflects the pure desires of God. But God can’t be gerrymandered like that.

So, if the Right Reverend Ashcroft no longer believes in democracy, he should resign and stop cashing his taxpayer-provided paychecks. If he persists, we the people should reject this demagogue and his demigod.