Update: To see what your ballot looks like (in any state) go to the updated article here.

It’s that time of the year again. The days get longer, the weather a bit less cold, and one’s mind turns to thoughts about politics. How can one resist the siren song of the election season? Everywhere you look there’s coverage on debates, primaries, Super PACs, political ads, nonsensical sound bites, and more. Which is great if you’re a political junkie like me. But for everyone else there seems to be a bit of confusion. Who won in Iowa? What’s a caucus? What are we voting on again?

Fear not gentle reader! The Occasional Planet is here to help you (at least if you live in Missouri) by giving you a glance at some of what you might be voting on this November. (Any citizen of Missouri can create a ballot initiative, but it needs to be approved by the Secretary of State and then receive signatures equal to around 5% of the total votes cast in 6 out of 9 congressional districts from 2008.) Let’s start by looking at the two constitutional amendments put forth by Missouri lawmakers.

The first one is an amendment that voters have heard about before. (In fact this has the honor of not only being vetoed by the governor in 2011, but it was brought before the Missouri Supreme Court where it was ruled as unconstitutional in 2006.) Regardless, the Missouri Voter ID Amendment refuses to die. In essence, passing this would require anyone who votes to show a current government issued photo ID. The main criticism (other than it being unconstitutional) is that requiring a photo ID disenfranchises the elderly, college students, poor people, and those bad at keeping track of paperwork. Plus it will cost the state around $7-10 million to implement in the first year.  Some people claim that requiring a photo ID that it will stop voter fraud, but the Secretary of State for Missouri claims that fraud isn’t a problem here. The second amendment that will be voted upon is called the Public Prayer Amendment. It will add text to the state constitution that says that “That school children have the right to pray and acknowledge God voluntarily in their schools.” and it ensures, “the right of Missouri citizens to express their religious beliefs shall not be infringed.” Other than sounding very nice to a Conservative base, this is a rather redundant amendment because it’s already in the U.S. Constitution. (It’s nice to see what our lawmakers were up to last session. One supposes it looks better on paper to make amendments to the Missouri Constitution than reading the actual U.S. Constitution.)

Those two amendments are already on the ballot in Missouri. But there are a slew of petitions that have been approved by the Secretary of State that might also get voted on. A few of them include:

• Personal property tax amendment that would abolish personal property taxes on vehicles, farm equipment, and manufactured homes.
• Income tax replacement initiative that would phase out state income taxes and would levy a sales tax on more items.
• There is a petition to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25 an hour.
• Campaign finance limit initiative which would create a $5,000 limit on contributions from an individual to a campaign.
• A $1 increase on taxes per pack of cigarettes.
• Payday loan initiative that would limit the annual rate of interest, fees, and finance charges for payday loans. (Missouri has some of the highest payday loan rates in the country with a whopping 1,950%)
• Stem cell research amendment that would outlaw some forms of stem cell research that is currently allowed in the state.
• “Right to work” amendment that would outlaw any contract that would require an employee to pay union fees.
• Marjiuana legalization and regulation initiative that would decriminalize marijuana use, possession, and tax the sales of for those over the age of 21.
• Lastly there is an initiative reform measure that would change the way ballot initiatives work.

While none of these initiatives are guaranteed to be on the ballot, it’s pretty likely that some of them will make it. This isn’t even a full list. There are more dealing with eminent domain, early voting, racial profiling, and a slew of tax related ones. This season, pay attention to people with clipboards asking you to sign something (the deadline is May 6) and more importantly don’t forget to vote!

The post November 2012: What’s on your ballot? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It’s political canvassing time in Missouri’s 83^rd State Representative District, and I’m out on the not-very-mean streets of an affluent, inner-ring suburb in St. Louis, ringing doorbells and trying to get people to care about a special election on November 8. I’m volunteering for Tracy McCreery, a Democrat, who has all the right experience and progressive values to make her a very effective state lawmaker who will hit the ground running when elected.

Under normal circumstances, Tracy should be an easy sell. She’s worked as district aide to one of Missouri’s staunchest progressive state legislators [Missouri readers will recognize her name: Joan Bray.] As a result, Tracy knows her way around the state capitol and its arcane rules. She’s earned street cred in her district as an engaged and visible community volunteer and leader. And she’s got endorsements from respected progressive groups, like NARAL, PROMO and Missouri Women’s Political Caucus. It also helps that the district she’s running in almost always elects a Democrat to the State Legislature.

I’m totally comfortable talking her up to voters, not just because of her official credentials, but also because I’ve worked alongside her, observed her competence and intelligence, and experienced the positive vibe and high energy level that she exudes.

Unfortunately, I’m not canvassing for Tracy under normal circumstances. It’s complicated. Tracy is running in a special election for a seat vacated when her predecessor moved into a newly created elected position. Missouri’s governor—a Democrat—took his  sweet time calling for a special election, so there was a lot of suspense, much wasted time, and zero public awareness of what was going on. The special election will be on November 8—but there’s nothing else on the ballot in the 83^rd district, so it’s going to be mighty hard to get folks out to vote.

But compared to the next thing I’m going to tell you, those unusual circumstances are mere annoyances. Here’s the biggie: Under Missouri statutes, in a special election like this one, the local township political committee determines who the candidate will be. Tracy thought she had a pretty solid chance of being picked.  But, no:  When it was time for the committee to vote, Tracy got caught in an internecine, micro-geo-political rivalry between committee members from the municipalities in the 83^rd district. Tracy lives in one of them, but committee members from another wanted a native son—even though Tracy clearly had better credentials, more experience and a strong base. So, using a back-room system of weighted voting that I can’t explain because it makes no sense to me, the committee anointed someone other than Tracy. Did I mention that the eventual candidate had a heavily weighted vote and got to cast it for his own nomination?

So, you might ask, how is it that, having not been selected as the candidate by her Democratic committee, Tracy’s got me out here with a clipboard and campaign literature this afternoon?

Tracy is running as an independent.

And that’s even more complicated. Just to get on the ballot, she had to gather signatures totaling 2% of the votes cast in the 83^rd District for the Democratic candidate for governor in the 2008 election. [Try figuring that out without a calculator.]  Okay, it’s not a huge number, but it’s a hurdle many states—and let’s be honest: political parties—put in the way of upstarts who want to run outside of our jealously guarded, roped-off, two-party system.

Tracy got the signatures, no problem. But now, as volunteers like me talk to voters, we have to explain that, while Tracy has strong democratic values, she’s going to appear on the ballot as an independent. And as anyone who has canvassed knows, you often get less than a minute to make your case. So, let’s see, I’ve got about 60 seconds to say that I’m volunteering for Tracy McCreery, there’s a special election they’ve never heard of in six weeks, she’s running for state rep in their district [and sometimes you have to explain what that is, and why it’s important], she’s got great qualifications, AND, when you vote for her, you need to vote for the candidate, not the party. And I have to do all of that while also trying to get the campaign flyer into the person’s hand before they shut the door on me and go back to watching the football game.

Don’t get me wrong: It can be done, I’m going to do my best to do it, and Tracy can win, despite the unreasonable obstacles that unreasonable people and circumstances have plopped in her path.  She’s an articulate, smart, rational candidate who exemplifies the kind of person that people on the left—and not just here in Missouri—should be actively backing, rather than wasting energy bashing right-wing extremists.  We certainly shouldn’t have to settle for less qualified candidates when there are people like Tracy who are willing to do the hard work of getting elected and governing. So, it makes me crazy when I see how petty politics and insider power struggles get in the way of the much bigger, much more important goal that we all should share:  getting real progressives like Tracy McCreery elected, up and down the line, all across the country.

The post Canvassing for a real progressive, not letting back-room politics get in the way appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Joan Bray, of University City, was a Missouri House representative from 1993-2002, and a State Senator from 2003-2010, earning a reputation as one of the most progressive Democrats in Jefferson City. In an interview with Occasional Planet [OP], she reflected on her years in the legislature and shared her candid view of Missouri’s current political landscape.

OP: What sparked your interest in running for political office?

JB: I never intended to run for office, but in 1992, as I was leaving my job as district director for [then-Congresswoman] Joan Kelly Horn, I got a call from a political insider who basically said, “You HAVE TO run in the 84^th district.” I was pretty stupid, frankly. I didn’t know party politics. I filed to run against another Democrat—he was anti-choice and not popular with a lot of Democrats in his newly redistricted district—and that meant there had to be a primary. You’re not supposed to do that. When I won, a lot of people were pissed off.”

OP: How long after you got to Jefferson City did you lose your political innocence?

JB: My innocence was pretty hard core. It took me a while to catch on. Right after I arrived for my first night in Jeff City, a veteran politician greeted me and several other freshman women legislators, saying, “We sure are happy to have you girls!” That’s when I started to realize that Jefferson City was a very different environment than the one I came from.

OP: What was the political landscape in the State Legislature when you started in 1993?

JB: It was a very rural, old-boys’ atmosphere. The Democrats had been in charge for a long time: We had about 100 Democratic legislators, about 55 of whom were progressives. Back then, [former-Governor] Mel Carnahan proposed money for family planning for the very first time in Missouri history, and we got it passed.

OP: How has the atmosphere changed in Jefferson City?

JB: When I started, you could count the goofball Republicans on one hand. Most of the Republicans were rational, real Republicans—limited government, fiscal conservatives. By the time I left, there wasn’t even a handful of reasonable Republicans. Over the years, the reasonable Republicans have been co-opted into voting stupid. During the last two decades, Missouri has become so much more backward. Our legislature has lost sight of what’s good for Missourians and has fallen prey to a lot of conservative hocus pocus. Today, I see some perfectly reasonable people who consider themselves Republicans, and I ask myself, “Do they even know what today’s Republican Party is? They accuse Democrats of “tax-and-spend” policies, at the same time that they’re promoting “borrow-and-spend” policies. It’s just hard to believe.

OP: What’s your definition of a “progressive legislator?”

JB: In Missouri, you don’t have to be very progressive to be called progressive. But, for me, a progressive legislator is someone who comes at issues and how they impact people from a humanistic point of view. It’s a focus on individuals and the impact actions and laws have on their lives. It’s a system of values focused on caring about people’s lives. No one asks to be born. We’re all products of circumstances we don’t control. We need to have empathy for people who didn’t get great parents and great life situations. I am mystified by so-called religious conservatives’ ability to ignore the humane teaching of their religion and come down against people. Don’t these people have mothers?

OP: What accomplishments are you most proud of during your time as a state legislator?

JB: I didn’t let go of my values. I showed up, and I spoke up. I didn’t shirk from speaking up for what I thought were important policies for the people of Missouri. There’s a weird idea out there that, because my politics were different, I was abhorred by colleagues and got nothing done. That’s just not true.

OP: What were your greatest disappointments as a legislator?

JB: Just recently, I looked at the last three years of my own bill filings, and it’s pretty disappointing. I was persistent, but a lot of great ideas got nowhere. In a lot of places, those ideas would be seen as reasonable. For example, a couple of months ago, I attended a meeting in Texas on environmental issues. It turns out that the university we were at was totally on wind power. I’m thinking, “This is Texas! It’s backward in so many ways, and yet I can’t imagine sitting at a meeting in Missouri with so much accord on progressive environmentalism.”

OP: What effects have term limits had on the way the Missouri legislature works?

JB: The first general election under term limits came in 1994. That’s when the Gingrich revolution came into play, and that’s when we started seeing people elected who had that Gingrich arrogance and belligerence. The big term-limits turnover came in 2002. During my years in the House, a lot of people had been in office for 8 to 10 years, and that’s the last time there was some level of decorum and civility. Under term limits, the most experience anyone in a position of leadership can have is six years. So there’s less understanding of the rules, and, as a result, there’s much less decorum.

OP: What’s your view of the progressive movement in Missouri?

JB: There are still some true progressives in the Missouri legislature, but they have a tough time in the partisan atmosphere and a tough time with a conservative Democratic governor. And yet, they still go to Jefferson City every week and say what needs to be said, against some overwhelming odds. Unfortunately, their impact has been diminished, because there’s so little respect for progressive values in Missouri. And, you know, that befuddles me. When national polls show that 72 percent of voters believe that taxes should be raised on the rich, is Missouri an island on that subject? Our legislature and governor tend to operate on the idea that taxes are a forbidden topic.

OP: Is there a disconnect between political posturing and what people really want in their personal lives?

JB: Yes. The bombardment of sound bites has made it hard for people to do any critical thinking. Add to that 140-character messaging and our 30-second attention span, and people just repeat what they’ve heard. I think that, if you can pin people down and talk to them about what really matters—if people stop and think, and translate policies into their lives and their families’ lives, they are not mean and selfish. At the gut level, people actually favor progressive stuff.

OP: What advice would you give someone contemplating running for a Missouri legislative office?

JB: Go in with your eyes wide open. Talk to lots of people. I wouldn’t want anyone to go into this all dewy-eyed. Get your feet wet by serving on a school board, or as a citizen activist lobbying in Jefferson City. You need to know what you’re getting into, because it’s not for everyone.

The post Joan Bray: Still progressive after all these years in Missouri appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Sean Soendker Nicholson has run the widely read Fired Up! Missouri blog since March 2009. With a national following in the thousands, Fired Up! Missouri is an authoritative, progressive forum for all things political around the state. In late January 2011, Fired Up Missouri was named Best Political Blog by the Riverfront Times.  In a recent interview with Occasional Planet [OP], Nicholson [SN] shared a bit of his own genesis as an activist, and his views on the state of politics and progressive activism in Missouri and the country at-large.

OP: How did you become the editor of Fired Up Missouri?

SN: After college [University of Missouri, 2002], I went to Georgetown University in Washington DC for a master’s degree, and after that, I was looking for work. I heard that Fired Up! Missouri, which was owned by former Senator Jean Carnahan and Roy Temple, was looking for someone to do research and writing, help develop the site, and do the day-to-day managing. I was already a reader of the blog and an infrequent contributor. It was a good fit.

OP: What’s the focus of Fired Up Missouri?

SN: If it pertains to Missouri politics or activists, it’s fair game. Missouri’s Congressional delegation and the happenings in Jeff City are at the top of the list, but we also offer coverage of the rest of the state.

OP: How have the issues you cover changed since Fired Up Missouri started in 2005?

SN: Our focus has changed because there’s a different person in the Missouri Governor’s mansion. It’s such a huge difference now that Matt Blunt is out and Jay Nixon is in. The tenor and character of how the two conduct business is quite different.

OP: Does that mean that everything is better in Jefferson City now?

SN: No. There are still plenty of things to be mad about. It’s really frustrating to see how things operate in the State Capitol. It makes me mad to see the behavior of people who make decisions that affect people’s lives.

OP: How did you get started as a progressive activist?

SN: Before I went to college, I thought I wanted to be an architect. But then I took Intro to Sociology. I realized that I was less interested in building things and more interested in helping people. At that point, I didn’t have the language to know what to call myself. I think I had the core values of equality and justice and of wanting to be sure that people don’t get taken advantage of by government or corporations. I think those values were already there, and gradually, I saw that these were things I could work on full-time.

OP: How conservative is Missouri?

SN: Maybe not as conservative as some might think. The positions individual people hold on specific issues don’t really line up with those stated in party platforms. If you ask people about particular issues, the needle moves more to the left. The ideas people have are generally more progressive than those touted by conservative politicians. I think that people are more accepting of others who are different than them than the party lines would suggest.

One good example is LGBT issues and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The only place DADT is controversial is in Washington DC. The rest of the country has moved on and sees that we have other things to deal with. It’s the same for healthcare. Even though a lot of people call healthcare reform “the end of civilization” and a “takeover by the government,” if you ask them about individual provisions of the law, they support them.

OP: What are the big political issues facing Missouri in 2011?

SN: The state budget debate will drive everything else. It’s hard to overstate how bad the budget situation is, and we’re running out of fraud, waste and mismanagement to cut as a way of balancing the budget.

There’s a lot of work for progressives to tackle: We need to support good things, like laws against predatory lending, and beat back bad things, like the so-called “Fair Tax” ballot initiative backed by Rex Sinquefield.  One issue that could bring people together across party lines is Safe Schools legislation against bullying.

We’ll have to watch the legislature in Jefferson City carefully. This year, we have a lot of first-time legislators. The budget is very complicated, and most of those decisions will be made by the leadership. So, some new legislators are going to be bored and will go looking for something to get behind.

OP: How would you rate President Obama’s performance so far?

SN: I’m a big fan, honestly. He was dealt a pretty raw hand, and the economy has dominated everything. I agree with some people who say he could have moved more quickly on some things. The temptation is to get so frustrated with the pace of policy change that we forget how bad things were before. I saw an interview with W recently, and I said to myself, “Oh my god, this guy was in charge of things? Wait, he was in charge of everything?” Just having adults in charge with the Obama administration is such a positive change.

OP: President Obama has taken a lot of criticism from the Left. How do you feel about that?

SN: My frustration comes when people confuse what they think should happen with what is possible politically. I know, of course, that the repeal of DADT wouldn’t have happened without the relentless effort of the left.  But to call President Obama “a stooge of Wall Street” is to ignore how hard Wall Street has fought against financial regulation. I’m saying that there’s a real world that you have to deal with, and that the optics and the politics can be very different from the actual policy.

OP: What frustrates you most about Missouri conservatives?

SN: I think you have to make a distinction between conservative activists who sincerely think that their policy ideas are good for the state and conservative political leaders who just want to capitalize on the energy on the right. What’s so frustrating is the constant stream of misinformation. That drives me nuts. I would welcome a real conversation on the merits of various proposals and on the mechanisms of how to pay for them. I’m far more troubled by the BS than by the differences in philosophies.

OP: What’s your advice to young people who have progressive ideas in a conservative state?

SN: I sympathize with people who are closet liberals. It can be tough, for example, at family events. I would urge everyone to ask people to explain what they mean when they spout right-wing ideas, and to ask people, “How does that jibe with these facts?” And I would remind you that there are, in fact, other liberals out there. Even in a red state, it’s a 45-55 split, at most.

OP: So, you’re an optimist?

SN: Yes. I have to be to survive. To keep going, you have to be. I look around and see that good things are, in fact, happening and have happened before. So I know that there can be good things in the future, too. We just have to keep trying and moving forward.

[Photo credit: Riverfront Times]

The post Turning up the heat on Missouri politicians: Sean Soendker Nicholson appeared first on Occasional Planet.