St. Louis rightly is concerned with one set of appointments that the Missouri governor is empowered to make, namely the four citizen colonel positions on the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners. At the moment Gov. Jay Nixon has his hands full with the need to fill two open seats on this controversial governing body. Julius K. Hunter’s term expired on January 21, and on Monday Vincent J. Bommarito resigned after a public scandal involving his direct interference with a police sergeant after a Bommarito nephew had been taken into custody under suspicion of drunken driving.
There are bills pending before the Missouri Legislature that would take from the governor the authority to appoint police commissioners in St. Louis, and give governance of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to the City Department of Public Safety, as per the City Charter. It is only right that these bills have received a large amount of public discussion. And, whatever the flaws in the City Charter and our lack of confidence in the current city administration, we endorse local control – we endorse withdrawing from the governor the authority to make this set of four appointments.
At the moment, however, we would like to draw attention to a different bill before the Legislature that also targets a set of the governor’s authorized appointments. House Bill 1497, filed by state Rep. Jason Smith, would take away from the governor the authority to make appointments to vacated statewide seats. If passed, it would require special elections to fill vacancies in the offices of Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor, State Treasurer and United States Senator. Smith is a Republican from Salem, and as such probably doesn’t consider African Americans a core constituency. However, Democratic legislators must bear in mind that black voters are a crucial base for their party. African-American elected officials are part of that base and a primary instrument for moving the base to act (and vote). Black politicians in Missouri see their ambitions limited much more than their mainstream counterparts for many reasons relating to being in the minority when elections are, of course, decided by a majority vote. For this reason, appointments always loom as a major factor in the ambitions of African-American officials – and the success of their ambitions often leads to better representation for the black base from which these officials emerge.
Especially at a time when Robin Carnahan may be leaving vacant the statewide office of Missouri Secretary State, Missouri Democrats should organize an effort to preserve the governor’s authority to fill these key statewide seats if they are left vacant in mid-term. Republicans can score some points across the aisle, and among well-informed black voters, by opposing this bill. And working in a Legislature that is nowhere near finished slashing budgets, no legislator should back a bill that wold force the State to incur unneeded new expenses in running statewide special elections. Though well intentioned, House Bill 1497 should be defeated.