Post-Dispatch editorial rips GOP bills

The two supposed reform bills passed by the Republican-dominated Missouri legislature last week, the voter identification bill and the so-called campaign finance reform bill, are ripped to shreds in an editorial in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"Perhaps the two worst bills the legislators passed this year had to do with keeping themselves and their cronies in power. The first is the Voter ID Bill. Beginning in November, it will require all voters to present a government-issued photo ID before they can receive a ballot. This will effectively disenfranchise some 190,000 Missourians of voting age who don't have drivers' licenses. Not coincidentally, most of them are poor, elderly or handicapped, groups most likely to be upset with Republican policies, particularly cuts to Medicaid and other social programs.
"The second self-dealing bill came packaged as campaign 'reform.' It is reform in the sense that burning down your house is a way to reform a leaky roof. A loophole in state law allows donors to bypass limits on how much can be contributed to state candidates by giving money to party committees. Instead of closing the loophole, the Legislature abolished the limits.

"The fig leaf over this money-grab is the claim of 'transparency.' The bill's backers say it will be easier to link each candidate to the appropriate fat cats through campaign finance reports. This isn't a good trade-off; few Missourians read campaign finance reports. But everyone with a TV set sees the campaign ads that donations buy. They might as well have hung a For Sale sign on the state Capitol."

While I am not as gung ho against the voter identification bill as the Post-Dispatch (though I do believe it is unnecessary), the campaign finance bill, as the editorial pointed out, is a joke. If the money laundering both parties have been doing through legislative committees was obscuring who was donating money to whom, then would it not have been simpler to close the loopholes. Missourians made it clear 12 years ago that we wanted campaign finance limits. Fortunately for us, we have legislators who understand that their constituents don't know what they're talking about and can't be trusted to make any decisions.