That bizarre alternative life ends 6 p.m. on a May evening each year. Abruptly.  Done.  Suddenly, this consuming existence is finished..  

Legislators, legislative staff, lobbyists, reporters—all of us suddenly know that our world will be completely different on Monday.  Life might seem a little strange for the first few days when it is not scheduled according to committee meetings, caucuses, floor debate, compromise negotiations, maneuvering, strategizing, conniving—all the things that force a person to live by someone else’s clock and purposes. 

We suppose some of those folks have ways to transition back to civilian life, as it were. Some kind of healing ritual helps.

In our case we get in a car as soon as we can after adjournment and the post-session self-congratulatory news conferences by the Majority and the usual low ratings given out by the Minority and head east about 400 miles.  And the next morning, we park our car in the infield of The World’s Greatest Race Course.

 We are miles away from Jefferson City in distance and experience.  The first step onto the grass is the first step into spring after being cooped up in the Capitol through the early warm spells, the little cold jabs of dying winter, the arrival of daylight savings time (when the yearning for an end to the session increases markedly), and being drawn deeper into the legislative process as it enters its most critical days.  

In the background in the photograph is what they call the pagoda at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and to the left is the scoring tower that will tell main stretch fans what car is running in what position during the race a week away. The “pagoda” is the home of the timing and scoring operation, the place where race broadcasts originate, and other official functions go on. When the Speedway was new more than a century ago, the timing and scoring booth was in a wooden building that really looked like a pagoda.  A second, larger, structure replaced it and in 1957 a new, modern structure went up that had none of the charm or appearance of the pagoda.  The current modern pagoda-reminiscent building went up in the 1990s. 

If we’ve timed our arrival correctly we are greeted as we get out of the car by the whine of tightly-wound engines driving thigh-high cars around a 2.5 miles squared oval in about 38 seconds.   The sound alone is a cleansing experience. 

 Something about sitting along the main straightaway while someone flies by on  the ground at 240 or more miles an hour and turns left without touching a brake erases a lot of the late night voices  that have been our lives for months as they struggle to find some middle ground or fight to keep an ideology from over-reaching. Sunshine, the excitement of people competing on the edge for a chance at a phrase that will stay with them for the rest of their lives (“Indianapolis 500 winner….’), doing something that requires such extraordinary precision and ability, puts four and a half months in an incredibly different world far from the mind.   

And when the little guy beats all the big guys, that’s a great cap to the day.

 Saturday the little guy was Ed Carpenter, who owns his own team, who beat five drivers from one of the sport’s mega-teams and three drivers from one of the other mega-teams, and won $100,000 for having the fastest qualifying run that included the fastest official lap seen at the old racetrack in a decade.

After four months watching one party often portrayed as more likley to side with the big guys battle the other party that is often portrayed as the defender of the middle class, I watched the same drama played out in a much different way in a much different setting. 

On the long drive home Saturday night, the thoughts began to filter in that all I had done was change locations to watch the same kind of drama. Maybe that was true.  But the change in place and the way the drama was played out overcame the similarities—until the mind began to find ways to entertain itself as the tar lines on I-70 to Terre Haute thumped beneath the car.  

Both the race driver and the legislator must find ways to beat time whether it is being the fastest around a race track or finishing work before the adjournment deadline.  Each faces the challenge of precision whether it is making sure that a wheel is put eactly where it must be put to get through a corner in the fastest way possible or whether it is the precision of words that  clearly establish public policy.  Each faces increasing pressure to perform as the stages of the event unfold.  Each must risk something to achieve the highest result.  Each has obligations to others on their teams.  One must prove to others every two or four years that they deserve to continue. One must prove the same thing to others each week.

Journalists who cover politics or auto racing are faced with a complicated world populated by highly-competitive and complicated people.  And explaining the technical nature of today’s racing and the complicated nature of its participants is as much a challenge as explaining the nuances of writing and passing laws and the tendencies of those who create them. 

But let’s not dwell on groping for similarities because that’s not why the trip to Indianapolis is essential each year.  It’s essential because it’s ritual. It’s essential because it’s family tradition.  It’s essential because we can take racing at Indianapolis for the physical pleasure the participants provide. And after four and a half months inside, living in the dark walls of the Capitol, watching ideas clash, the opportunity to be in a much different place even for a few hours is a healing experience.  

Others no doubt have their ways, but it’s the Indianapolis 500 that tells me everything is okay again.

     —–Governor Nixon  May, 2013

 We all know about bureaucrats, don’t we?  They’re those worthless loafers that feed at the public trough, take a lot of coffee breaks, stand outside the entrances to state buildings laying down a cloud of tobacco smoke that taxpayers have to walk through, and shuffle papers until 4:30 sharp when they walk away from whatever they’re doing until the next morning.  

 And now, to listen to Governor Nixon tell it, the legislature wants to spend $38 million dollars for ANOTHER office building where bureaucrats can disappear into their cubicle farms each morning.  And why do these legislators want to build another state office building?   Because THEY want more space.  These people who visit Jefferson City for three-and-a-half days a week four and-a-a-half months of the year want more room.

 They have coveted the Highway and Transportation Department building half a block from the Capitol for years. The new building would open MODOT’s current headquarters for uses the legislature would determine. Plus the are rooting for the state to lease the top two floors of the Federal Building (most of us know it as the post office building across the street from the Capitol) now that the federal government has erected a big new federal courts building next to the old, vacant state pen.  These lawmakers want to fill up those two floors too, renting space at a time when they propose building a big new building that will curtail rent payments to other landlords.     

 No, Governor Nixon didn’t ask for a new building to house bureaucrats. But the state has bureaucrats scattered all over the place in Jefferson City.  And those who dream of that new building that would house the main office of MODOT and maybe some other agencies say the state will save enough in rents to make the new building cost-neutral in seven to ten years while providing the legislature with more office space that will be needed when the double-decker offices for state representatives can be eliminated—and it’s well past time they were eliminated. They’re not accessible for disabled people. And they put a structural strain on the building. 

 Framed copies of the original blueprints of the Capitol are on walls in the building’s basement, nearing hearing rooms, offices, and the cafeteria.  A look at them tells us much about government before World War I and say something about the growth of Missouri government.

 The blueprints for the ground floor show a lot of unassigned office space buyt they also show space for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a dining room, the Insurance Department , the State Banking Department, The state mining office and the Fish and Game Department.  The Public Utilities Commission and the Library Commission also were on that floor.  The space where the Missourinet has its Capitol office and studio was designed as a storage room for the Department of Insurance.  The second floor was offices for state elected officials.  The third floor was for athe legislature.  The Adjutant General was on the fourth floor along with the Board of Health, the Board of Pharmacy, the Hotel Inspector, and the state Building and Loan regulators.  Office space was not really assigned, though, until the building could be occupied in 1917.  

 The same architect who designed the Capitol designed the Highway Department building in the 1920s—cars and highways had become such a big deal by then that the department needed more space.  Several years later an addition was put on the building.

 Other parts of  state government grew and in the 1930s, the Broadway Office Building was opened.  But government grew some more and in the 1950s, the Jefferson Office Building was constgructed.  But government grew and in the 1970s, the Truman Office Building went up.  

 But government grew and the number of state office buildings increased throughout Jefferson City. And the bureaucrats multiplied to fill the new spaces as they were created.  In the last few years of economic downturn, thousands cubicles have gone dark; bureaucrats have been fired or have retired before the axe could fall.   But despite all of that, the legislature wants to “build an office building for bureaucrats.”  And the legislature isn’t just messing with one building. It’s eyeing three.  

 Before we continue, however, let’s set the record a little straight about that faceless mass of people we disparagingly call “bureaucrats.”  Some truth in advertising first, though.  This reporter is married to a retired bureaucrat.  He lives in a neighborhood of retired, or still active, bureaucrats.  Cigarette smoking, coffee sucking, time-killing freeloaders?   Not on your life. 

 The people who are disparagingly called “bureaucrats” work as hard as the people in the office of any profit-making company.  They share the same commitments to service–and, yes, some share the same lack of commitment for anything other than the next paycheck that workers in for-profit companies have.  The scorned bureaucrat is the person who answers the child hotline call, who tests the water in your city’s well to see if it’s full of contaminants, who designs the new bridge your school buses will cross, who chase down non-supportive spouses, who check on the conditions in dog kennels and nursing homes—all of the things we expect state government to do for us  or to keep from behing done to us. And they deserve working conditions as good as those us us in the private sector have.  Like it or not, we need them because they’re the real people who perform the duties of government that somebody wants government to do.   

 And most of them deserve to be thought of better than “bureaucrats” who will populate a building that Governor Nixon didn’t ask for.  

 All of this is a long way around to a couple of points—with a diversion to defend state employees (a more respectul description than “bureaucrat”–that this entry wants to make.

 1.  A Republican-dominated legislature that spends huge amounts of time and words bemoaning big government and proclaiming how it wants to shrink state government wants to expand government in Jefferson City by three buildings. The fact that it wants to do so–to a large degree–to improve its own working conditions is noted.

 2.    The first Governor this reporter interviewed was John Dalton  An Official State Manual shows Dalton had fifteen people on his staff.  The 2009-2010 state manual showed Governor Nixon with 34.  The most recent one showed 27.  The budget that Governor Nixon proposed in January listed 38.28 full-time equivalent employees in Fiscal Year 2012.  For this fiscal year, and for the one that starts July first, he asked for an even thirty, double the gubernatorial bureaucracy that John Dalton had. 

 The people in his office are staff.  The people who would work in the new state office building would be bureaucrats.    I’m sure I saw some of each uptown during a recent weekday noon hour stroll.  I tried to identify which was which.  I failed.  They all looked the same to me.  I was unable to determine which ones might move into a $38 million dollar new building and which ones might move into an 85-year old former (someday) highways building and which ones would stay right where they are in the governor’s office complex.  

 Bureaucrats is bureaucrats.  And all of us should respect the person in the cubicle deep in the heart of the Truman Building as much as we respect the sharply-dressed people who go in and out of the door marked “Governor.”  Come to think of it, he’s just a bureaucrat too, isn’t he?

 Pots and kettles are the same color at my house.

You get your resume together. You make yourself sound indispensable to the new employer.  You file an application and several days later the company HR director calls you in for a talk.  You  are not surprised to learn you’re not the only applicant. The competition is going to be pretty stiff. But you go in and meet the HR person who thinks you’re worth a talk with one of the office managers of this big company.  The HR person warns you this person is kind of tough so you ask some friends to speak up on your behalf. They and you are persuasive enough that the office manager sets up a meeting with the Division Director.  But the office manager tells you to lose the sport coat, get a suit and a new tie, and shine your shoes.  The competition gets tougher the higher you go and you want to make sure you stand out enough to be memorable to the Division Director.   

The Division Director takes a good look at you, listens to you state your case, and confers with assistants who have watched the interview. The group likes you but suggests a few tweaks you can make in your presentation and your personal appearance.  Maybe they suggest a few additional details would help your resume in your next step. 

By now the company’s date for filling this job is getting closer and you are one of a few surviving candidates.  The Vice-President of the company is going to meet with all of the finalists and will recommend one to the company President and CEO.  To increase the pressure on the finalists, each of them is interviewed as the others watch. The VP has to catch a plane so every extra minute the other candidates take making themselves more impressive means you have less time before the VP leaves to catch the plane.  Five minutes before she has to grab her briefcase and bolt out the door, she turns to you.  You have only five minutes to sum up everything that justifies your application and your abilities.  Five minutes to prove you deserve to be the one who walks into the office of the President and stands at his desk as the newest important employee of the company.      

Today is that five minutes for the Missouri legislature.

Today is the last chance for hundreds of bills to make a good enough impression to be sent to the the Governor’s desk, potentially as the newest important laws for Missouri.  It’s the last five minutes of the long process and all of the company VPs go out the door at 6 p.m.

A COMPENDIUM OF LEGISLATIVE CLICHES

Or

Throwing out a box of slippery apples that ain’t broke

After sliding down a slippery slope in Pandora’s box with a can of worms, having thrown the baby out with the bath water while comparing apples to oranges, we arrived at a train wreck on a level playing field, our nose under the tent flap and our foot in the door, and told the emergency medical technician examining our leg, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Bob Priddy

Missouri Senate

April 29, 1997

We dug out that compendium the other day because we decided to compare the legislative clichés of 16 years ago with those that we have heard again and again this year.   We were struck by how different the clichés of the late 1990s were. In fact, we haven’t heard some of these used this year, certainly not often enough to reach the point of irritation that they did then.  We are older now.  Perhaps they were spoken while we were dozing.

After we first published this list late last night or early this morning (we thank the Majority Night Owl for the Missouri Senate) a friend suggested some additions that will make the collection more complete.  We have chosen the best ones and added them for the sake of history and for those who will be sixteen years from now students of legislative clichés.

A COMPENDIUM OF LEGISLATIVE CLICHES, 2013

Or

The Reality is I have heartburn

At the end of the day, this is a simple bill, a solution looking for a problem, with a belt and suspenders amendment to the physical note that avoids picking winners and losers while we kick the can down the road. That said, the truth is, it is an effort to incent more discussions offline in which I can entertain your questions about another tool in the toobox. It might cause some heartburn; I get that. I sincerely believe we can get it to the finish line, or perhaps, across the goal line but I don’t want to belabor your bill.

Wonder what phrases will be fingernails on a blackboard in 2029.

Some people who can do something about it are finally paying attention to the Capitol.   The Governor is suggesting $50 million dollars be spent in the next fiscal year to fix up the basement which is in terrible shape–not the part where he and legislators of certain status park, but hidden areas where there are distressing leaks.   The money also would go for new windows.  The place has a lot of them.  And many of them leak.  It’s been about four decades since the original windows were replaced.  It’s time to seal the building again against the elements. 

The building, its facilities, and its priceless art will need millions of dollars more in renovation, restoration, and repairs.  Perhaps events held from time to time to observe centennials in the progress of its construction–such as an event last week remembering the groundbreaking in May of 1913– will lead to continued commitments to return this building to the glories its designers and builders dreamed for it to be.

                                             ——————-

Incidentally, this reporter is one of the few people remaining who has touched both ceilings of the House and of the Senate. It’s not exactly something to be carved into a tombstone.  But it does mean that I have been higher in the House and Senate than almost every Representative and Senator who have served in this building—even during some night sessions after long dinners with lobbyists. 

                                               ———————

We were in the elevator with Senator Will Kraus the other day.  He had me where he wanted me.  One of the blogs about seersucker Wednesdays had maligned his saddle shoes.   ”They’re blue, ” he said, “not black.”   

 Which, of course, makes him even more stylish, with shoes that match the colors of his milk and sugar suit.   Our apologies to Senator Kraus’ shoes.  We did not knowingly or with malice aforethought in any way intend to indicate the shoes did not match the coat. 

                                             —————–

Speaking of Senator Kraus.  When we started to write these notes, it was 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday night, May 7, and the Democrats were trying to talk down Sen. Kraus’ tax cut bill.  About 45 minutes earlier we walked over to him as he was sitting on a bench at the side of the chamber while Senator Jamilla Nasheed prattled on, and told him, “If this keeps going for another two and a half hours, you’ll be out of uniform.”     Two and a half hours would mean it would be Wednesday and we know what that means in the senate.

 But the advice was erroneous.  The clock and the calendar might think it is Wednesday, but if the Senate is still doing Tuesday’s business, Tuesday can last far more than 24 hours.   I remember one day that lasted about 32.  Senator Richard has been pretty good this year in setting the schedule for the senate. He maxes out at about 14.  

                                             ——————–

Speaking of what happens on Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder was in the chair that Tuesday when a Senator demanded to know his position on the clothing some of the fashion trend-setters of the Senate wear on Wednesday.  Kinder opined that in his part of state–Cape Girardeau–wearing of that kind of clothing was commonplace–BUT NEVER BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY!

The legislature will be gone by then and what’s the sense of wearing seersucker if you miss a chance to flaunt it?

                                             ———————–

In the days when Missouri was an agrarian state, the legislature met from November into early March.  Every other year.  sessions began after the fall harvest and quit in time for planting season.  A check of old journals shows lawmakers sometimes met on Christmas.   We stepped outside the building early one evening last week.  The sun was gently setting in the west.  The grass was the lush dark green of Spring.  A light breeze was blowing.  It was quiet. It was delicious. 

It was a reminder that 6 p.m. May 17th can’t come soon enough. And it was a reminder that some of the old-timers had some pretty good ideas.

The most senior reporters in the Missouri Capitol have seen state officials and state lawmakers facing the possibility of imprisonment far more willing to answer reporters’ questions about their actions than Governor Nixon has been willing to talk about what his Revenue Department is up to. 

Nixon issued a statement yesterday blasting lawmakers for only funding the state motor vehicle licensing division for eight months in the next fiscal year.  Legislators say they’ll provide the remaining four months of money if the Revenue Department stops illegally scanning and keeping personal information from people seeking drivers licenses and other forms of state license or ID. 

Nixon called reporters to his office where he read his statement saying he’ll lay off employees because of the legislature’s actions, which he says could harm Missouri’s great bond rating and then hightailed it out of the room  without allowing reporters to ask any questions. 

Shortly afterwards, Senator Kurt Schaefer, who is the architect behind the fund-withholding movement,  met with reporters to react to the Governor’s announcement.  Reporters asked him 14 questions.  He answered every one including the one about the bond rating statement, which he called “absurd.” 

Fourteen questions answered by Schaefer.  Zero questions answered by the Governor.  You can decide whose image was enhanced based on those two events.

Then there is the Missouri House which has kicked up its share of dust about the Revenue Department’s accumulation of information, particularly about owners of concealed weapons permits and distribution of that information.  Somebody using a House computer tried to hack into the Office of Administration computer system to see that list.  OA wants to know who the hacker was.  The House has refused an open records request from OA about who did that or whose computer was used.   Back home that’s called dishing it out but not being able to take it.  

The passage of time and the perspective it brings will evaluate this entire situation someday.  But for now it’s clear that ambitious Republicans have seized on this issue and they’re going to beat this drum as long as they can.  GOP legislators, many with their eyes on their own aspirations for 2016, have found an issue that hits Mr. and Mrs. Joe  Missouri in the card pockets of their wallets and purses. Additionally, they’ve found something they can use to attack Nixon if he aspires to something beyond the governorship that same year.  In fact, the commercials are running already.  

There are far more elements than these in this confrontation.  In a few days when the legislature has ended its imprisonment of our existence, we might be able to sort back through the stories we’ve done for the last couple of months and look at what is substance and what has been bluster.  But after yesterday’s events, we offer this observation:

The senior reporters in the Capitol press corps have through the years noticed some things about stones and politics.   Some people throw stones.  Some people use stones to build bunkers. Sometimes they’re the same people.

Yesterday we talked about the team in the Senate that thinks wearing milk and sugar on Wednesdays is just the swellest thing.   The team needs a name.  Team Urdu (You have to read yesterday’s blog to understand)?  Team Seersucker?    Team Cool (as it, “aren’t we cool because we’re wearing seersucker suits?) or Team Cool (because seersucker suits are supposed to wick away heat)?  The ‘Suckers?

The team captain is Eric Schmitt.  He’s from Kirkwood.  He went to Truman State University, where he was a two-sport athlete—but not in basketball, which you might think the tallest senator in state history (or so he says) might have been.  No, he was a football and baseball player. 

We’ve been familiar with Truman University since it was Northeast Missouri State.  We have never seen the school’s spring sports teams in seersucker uniforms. 

The Cardinals have Fredbird.  The Phillies have the Phanatic. The whole thing started with the San Diego Chicken who is now just The Chicken. The senate has Kool Aid.

That’s Matt “The Explosion”  Michelson in full Dreamsicle mode.  Yesterday one senator interrupted debate to ask if it was proper to be wearing orange prison pants in the senate. We were shocked when that particular senator, who comes from a family catering service background, didn’t know the difference between prison orange pants and sherbet pants.

 We thank the Senate  photographer, Harrison Sweazea, who contributed some of the photographs in our Capitol Art book for the picture of the Captain and the Mascot of the Senate Seersucker Squad.  A group photograph was rumored to be in the works yesterday.   We’ll have to make an editorial decision about whether to post it.  Journalisms ethics hold that one should not gratuitously expose one’s audience to scenes of disaster.

Urdu is the standard language of Hindustan, the national language of Pakistan, and the official language of five states in India.  It is pretty much the same as Hindi and ranks behind Mandarin Chinese, English, and Spanish as the fourth largest language in the world.  

Senator Schmitt has encouraged several other senators to attire themselves on Wednesdays with an Urdu fabric known in the Asian subcontinent language as “kheer aur shakkar.”   That translates to “milk and sugar,” we are told.  But if you squint real tight and English-ize “kheer aur shakkar,” you get “seersucker.”  

Senator Schmitt, who professes to being the tallest person ever to serve in the Missouri Senate, has convinced several of his colleagues that it is really neat to wear kheer aur shakkar fabrics on Wednesdays. 

Some people are so easily entertained.

Seersucker looks to me as if it had been pre-slept in, if not right away certainly after a short amount of time.  Senate floor leader Ron Richard has indicated in his usual frank manner that he wouldn’t be caught dead  in the stuff because he takes too much pride in his appearance.

Seersucker Senators accessorize their suits.  Will Kraus, for instance, has black and white shoes that were really neat-o in 1940s and 1950s movies about cool high school and college kids.  Saddle shoes they called them then (Elvis wore them in 1957;s “Jailhouse Rock”). Sometimes senators make it a point to show off their socks or their shoes.  At this rate, the senate might want to change its rules for the center aisle that is normally off limits when the chamber is in session so it can become a runway down which seersucker Senators enter on Wednesdays.  That’s not likely to happen, though, because we have yet to see a state senator who wants to learn to walk the way runway models walk.    

Supposedly the “milk and sugar” description dates back to a time when somebody thought the white part of the fabric was smooth like milk and the crinkly stuff was like grains of sugar. 

Whatever. 

Anyway, this miracle fabric is supposed to cause the clothing to kind of be held away from the skin (wonder how seersucker undershirts work) as a way to dissipate heat and improve air circulation.  One note we’ve seen says the structure of the fabric eliminates the need for ironing.   We suspect it also could eliminate the need for hanging.  Why hang up something that’s already wrinkled? 

When seersucker came to our shores, it was generally thought to be a province of southern gentlemen, especially in the days before air conditioning.  It also was, we have read, popular with poor folk.  Well, of course it was.  Have you ever seen a seersucker suit that looked expensive?  The great American writer, Damon Runyon started wearing the things when a seersucker surge struck the United States in the 1920s and wrote that his attire was causing great consternation among his friends who “cannot decide whether I am broke or just setting a new vogue.”   

Senator Schmitt’s Wednesday style show is not original.  Believe it or not, the United States Senate used to have Seersucker THURSDAYS.  The idea began in 1907 when a clothier in New Orleans designed a seersucker suit that became popular in the nation’s capital, which is notoriously hot and humid in the summer time.  In fact, the Congress often took summers off because of the lack of air conditioning in the Capitol. About 1996, Senator Trent Lott, then a Senator from the hot and sticky state of Mississippi, decided to show that the Senate “isn’t just a bunch of dour folks wearing dark suits and–in the case of men–red or blue ties.”   Thus was born Seersucker Thursdays in the U. S. Senate.  Eight years later Senator Dianne Feinstein got tired of the men “preening” and she started a movement.  In 2005, eleven of the Senate’s 14 women members showed up in seersucker.  For some time the event was considered a tribute to those senators of an earlier day who did not have air conditioning and did not have year-around Senate sessions because their clothes were not made of a fabric that had a way to dissipate heat and improve air circulation 

Think of this, then: If it wasn’t for seersucker  we might not have a full-time Congress!  How ironic that the leader of the seersucker Wednesday movement belongs to a party that harps repeatedly about the need for less government.  

But the Senate in Washington decided the whole Thursday thing was unnecessary and quit doing it last year.   It’s not really surprising, is it?  It is unlikely that anybody will accuse the U. S. Senate  of having a sense of humor anymore.

State Senator Ryan McKenna of Crystal City is such a critic of Seersucker Wednesday that he was driven to offer an amendment to a bill a few days ago banning the wearing of seersucker suits by anybody older than eight.  His feelings about the matter were so severe that he was prompted to WRITE his amendment in longhand and send it to the reading clerk.  Many other times, the Senate would stand “at ease” while a member consulted with a staff that sits at a table  in the front of the chamber and has the expertise to string enough words together to make an amendment—a largely lost talent in today’s senate where members can only serve a maximum of eight years, apparently not long enough to learn how to write an amendment (or to do a lot of other things that are part of the senate’s traditions that encourage proper decorum and respect for one another).  

We will give McKenna credit for having legible printing.  His amendment read, “Any person living in this state aged 8 and under may wear seersucker suits at their leisure. Any person over the age of 8 living in this state may not wear seersucker suits because adults look ridiculous in seersucker suits with the exception of Koolaid.” 

People not familiar with the Senate are puzzled by the reference to Koolaid.  That’s Matt Michelson, the aide to Senator David Pearce of Warrensburg, who was a regular sartorial explosion last Wednesday in his orange sherbet seersucker outfit.  Orange and white stripes, full orange sherbet vest, and even orange shoes.  Staffers can get away with that. Senators must be more dignified, or as dignified as seersucker can make someone.  One seersucker Senator does have a suit with dark purple stripes and was seen wearing purple socks.  But we haven’t had sartorial explosions like Matt’s on the Senate floor since the days when St. Louis Senator J. B. (Jet) Banks brought several colorful suits to the Capitol for the last day of session and changed them about every hour.  He even had shoes and pipes to match the colors on his suits.

So today is seersucker Wednesday in the Missouri Senate.  There will be only two more this year and then the senators can throw the suits into the corner of their office until Spring of 2014 when they can pick them up and put them on and they’ll look as snazzy as they do today.  

 State Senator Schmitt’s Seersucker Suit Special Spree  Wednesday is today.  Except for people like Ron Richard who take pride in their appearance.

Every now and then we catch the British Parliament’s “Question Time” on C-Span.  It’s that time when the Prime Minister  goes before the Lords and the MPs and answers policy questions, often defending positions he and his government have taken.  Sure, it’s political. 

There are some things that are impressive about these events.  Although the questions are often pointed and highly partisan, they are asked with respect for the system.  The responses often are greeted with dignified derision that seems completelly foreign to those of us who watch political debate here in the colonies. 

Another thing that is interesting to watch is the way the Prime Minister responds.  We have never seen a PM flustered.  We have never seen one stammer and stumble and let an answer just dribble away.   

Jay Nixon would never make it in Question Time.  He’s great at reading speeches and he has a really good speech writer.  But off the cuff?   Let’s just say it’s an adventure for those of us who deal in soundbites to get a clean 20 or 30 seconds that constitutes a complete answer.  

Of course, that can be to his advantage when he doesn’t want to answer a direct question with a direct answer.  It can be to his disadvantage when somebody tries to figure out exactly what he says.  Unscripted moments are not his strong suit, and that’s not good for someone who (the Capitol rumor mill is whispering) might have national aspirations when his time as governor ends.  

We have run across highly-intelligent people, some of whom are accomplished politicians, as Governor Nixon is, who have minds that race far ahead of their vocal cords, where ideas collide before words form, resulting in garbled expressions. 

We got a phone call  Friday (the 26th) from Nixon spokesman Scott Holste.  We’ve worked with Scott for many years and we’ve had a good relationship.  So when Scott questioned one of our stories, we paid attention.  We had reported on the air and on our website that House Speaker Tim Jones said Nixon was not going to comply with a subpoena issued in a southeast Missouri lawsuit challenging the Revenue Department’s data accumulation.  “That’s not true,” Scott told us.  Scott said Nixon told reporters in St. Charles that he was letting “the lawyers” handle the issue.  Scott had recorded the Q&A. I asked him to email it to us. He did.

Scott also called our friend Jim Butler at KMOX to question the story posted on the KMOX website. Some thing.   Jim called us.  We discussed it.  He said KMOX was standing by its story.  

Understand that people like the Missourinet and KMOX don’t go around misquoting people.  Recorders are a great protective tools. 

So we listened to the recording.  John had listened to a recording  in which one of his reporters, Brett Blume, asked Nixon if he was going to appear at the May 3rd hearing the subpoena was for.  A lot of crowd noise makes it difficult to pick up every hem and haw and uh and eh in the Governor’s response.  The Missourinet and KMOX have some electronic editing tools that help us clean up audio so it’s easier to understand—–not as sophisticated as some of the stuff we see on the cop shows on the teevee or in spy movies, but it’s adequate. 

John and the folks at KMOX determined Nixon’s answer was “No.  I, I, I’ve, people, by golly, guys, I’ve been in public service for 26 years. I’ve been, uh, huh, eh, I’ll leave that to the lawyers to talk about.”   John is sure the governor said “no” at the start.    Here’s the segment of the interview from Scott Holste’s recording:

                                       AUDIO: The Holste recording

We did some noise reduction work and then tried to amplify a little “bump” after Brett’s question before Nixon started stumbling around with “I, I,…”   Was that the “no?”   Here’s the segment after our filtering and our amplification.

                                       AUDIO: cleaned version

So what do you think?  It’s not unusual for someone in his position to say “no…” at the start of an answer before going on with a more complete and sometimes contradictory answer.  It’s an almost automatic response.  Sometimes, though, the first response is the real response.

We don’t know after listening to this recording several times if the governor said “no.”  His final answer to the question, though, was that he’s letting the lawyers handle the situation.  That’s not an unusual answer.,  We’ve covered a lot of political figures who’ve gotten into some difficulty and sooner or later they tell us they’re letting their lawyer handle things.  

The rest of the answer to the question, however, was vintage Nixon.  Figuring out what he meant, let along what he said, is about as much an exercise in trying to figure out if he said “no.”   At the end of the ramble, the final answer was that he was letting the lawyers take care of things.

And we’ll leave it there, I guess.

 Senate President Pro tem Tom Dempsey was rummaging through some of his old files the other day and came  across some new kindling for the fire the Senate is stoking under the Revenue Department.  Back in 2001,when Dempsey was a mere state representative, the legislature passed a bill prohibiting the Department of Revenue from gathering personal information from Missourians or putting unauthorized private information on driver’s licenses.

Dempsey’s news release of August 8, 2001, says “The bill is aimed at preventing the DOR from encoding personal information beyond what is necessary for law enforcement purposes and authorized by the General Assembly.”  It concludes, “The DOR would be prohibited from collecting any information from which a person can be individually identified, unless the department has obtained specific statutory authority to do so.  In addition, the DOR is forbidden to encode in print, digital or electronic format any information that can be used to identify a specific individual.” 

Dempsey strongly supports the actions taken by the Senate Appropriations Committee to gut the motor vehicle licensing division because of its new policy of scanning and digitizing private information into a department data base.

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Senator John Lamping wants to move the August Primary election to June.  He doesn’t think Missourians have enough time to enjoy things like the Akin-McCaskill general election race last year.  

The Missourinet has covered statewide primary and general elections since 1976.  No matter when the primary is held, the best day of the year is the day after the November general election. That’s every other year.  Annually, Capitol reporters consider the day after the legislative session ends as  personal freedom day, too. 

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We’ve been watching and listening to the state senate debate Senator David Pearce’s bill establishing a funding formula for higher education.  We can’t help wondering, as we listen to the discussion, if this formula will be as successful as the formula used to provide state aid to elementary and secondary education.   That formula is such a big success that the state is about $620 million behind what it promised to provide.  

But several legislators think they have the solution to the School Foundation Formula shortfall.  Write another formula.  

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And finally, an apology to Governor Nixon for misquoting him a few entries ago.  It is comforting to know that our blog posting titled “Kerfluffle” has been the topic of extended discussion by lobbyists  who use the Legislative Library as their lounging room when there are no lawmakers to entertain them.  We’ve been told there was even a dispute about whether Governor Nixon referred to the confrontation between some legislators and the Department of Revenue as a “kerfluffle” or a “kerfuffle,” and whether there is even such a word as “kerfluffle” or “kerfuffle.”   We understand Big Noah was consulted and Mr. Webster listed neither word.  But Big Noah is no longer the ultimate arbiter of our national tongue.  One of the lobbyists whipped out an electronic device and discovered a non-Noah source that listed both spellings.  It is not every word that has two accepted spellings, nor is it every vocabulary that includes such a word of such distinction. 

So we congratulate Governor Nixon on the extent of his vocabulary and apologize because we added an “L” to the version he used.   

And that’s about enough kerfluffle about kerfuffle.