I saw booze, guns and fights on the Missouri House floor. Voters must fix this mess

The Kansas City Star’s Feb. 17 editorial, “Of dogs and dysfunction: Anarchy in Jefferson City,” was so right on the money. As a nine-year veteran of the Missouri House, I can wholeheartedly vouch that dysfunction is the legislature’s middle name.

As do most voters, I expect legislators to be serious when they take their oath of office. I want to trust they will treat their offices with reverence instead of middle school immaturity — I really do.

My first late-night session as a freshman involved debate over a pornography bill. Arguments proceeded way past midnight as I was introduced to #molegafterdark. Coffee cups are allowed on House chamber desks, yet during evening sessions, many of those cups contain alcohol. I was appalled at the drunken debate, remembering how hard I campaigned just to be sitting at one of those desks. Surrounding us were the words carved at the very top of the House chamber: “Liberty, Justice, Law, Progress, Truth, Knowledge, Honor.” Yeah, right.

Hijinks abound every session — particularly as tempers flare between the Republican-controlled state House and Senate. It is routine for both chambers to be at odds as constitutional deadlines loom and members are often campaigning against each other for higher office. Legislators are permitted to carry concealed guns in the Capitol (really) and many pat their pants pockets during high stress debates, reminding everyone who has firepower.

One year, I witnessed a screaming near-fistfight of legislators behind my seat as security rushed to intervene. On another late night, I prepared to hide under my desk as an armed inebriated state senator paced our side gallery in intimidation during a contentious House vote on her bill.

In 2015, House Speaker John Diehl barricaded himself in his office the last week of session after media unveiled his inappropriate sexual relationship with an intern. All work came to a standstill until he eventually resigned. That year, members of the Senate threw up their hands and adjourned sine die early. They had had enough hijinks and went home.

In 2018, the House spent five months investigating then-Gov. Eric Greitens and members were ready to impeach him on several counts before he abruptly resigned. Impeachment drama as he faced potential felonies colored everything that session, with hardly anything getting done for the people.

Yet we keep hoping for serious people to take over and heed the state motto, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.” It doesn’t say anything about hijinks.

There is plenty to do: Fund public schools instead of banning history and attacking teachers; provide access to health care to those who desperately need it and allocate federal relief education dollars, for starters. Accept that masks are not the enemy during a pandemic and that vaccinations, which most elected officials in Jefferson City have received, are lifesaving. Stop with the anti-science hooey left over from the 1692 Salem witch trials. Stop pretending you are aggrieved and, for once, leave your racism and hatred of transgender kids buried at home.

Modern-day dysfunction in the Capitol can’t be helped, which I’m convinced is why the award-winning TV series “Ozark” involves Jefferson City.

Seven hyperconservative state senators are holding the Senate hostage because they apparently learned bullying well as kids. It began with Sen. Mike Moon ignoring dress decorum and defiantly wearing overalls on the chamber floor. He was swiftly admonished and changed into proper attire only after arguing back in defense, like a juvenile. The senate president pro tem retaliated with a rare punishment by stripping Moon of his committee assignments. This was the same Moon who had made national news comparing abortion to the Holocaust, and who beheaded a chicken on camera to prove he was “pro-life.”

Now the ultra-right-wing seven insist they’ll shut down all Senate work with temper tantrums until they get their own way, including an extreme redistricted congressional map and radical agenda that the other 27 senators don’t support. To date, the Missouri Senate has yet to pass one bill this session, which is actually what they’re supposed to be doing.

Senate leadership has one tool to end the bullying: a “previous question” or PQ petition to end the filibuster, amended this year to require ten senators’ signatures instead of five — signatures they easily have. PQs are rarely used in the state Senate, but happen so regularly in the state House that the Democrats have a competitive regular end-of-session PQ pool, which I never was able to win.

Until we voters wise up, the dysfunction and hijinks will increase.

As will our embarrassment to say out loud we even live in Missouri.

This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM.