Friday marked the final day of the Missouri General Assembly’s regular session and the end of a brutal legislative assault on St. Louis and our autonomy. As our readers know, the state legislature has focused most of its (misguided) energy this session on attacking our city through unconstitutional power grabs, following a nationwide Republican strategy.
… the reality is that a state seizure of both the prosecutor’s office and SLMPD would face years of costly litigation with a slim-to-no chance of success.
Initially, a state senator who is too afraid to even come to the city (we see you, State Sen. Nick Schroer) incorrectly asserted that the St. Louis’ perceived increase in crime was due to a “defunding” that never actually happened. Not only has the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) not been de-funded, but violent crime has decreased since local control was returned to the city in 2013. In other words, under state control, violent crime was much higher – but of course, that doesn’t fit the narrative of the extremist Republicans who share a super-majority in the Missouri General Assembly.
When more reasonable people began to realize throughout the legislative session that Schroer’s math didn’t add up, the extremists’ focus then shifted to St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner as the reason for the perceived increase in crime. Enter: statewide embarrassment, unelected Attorney General Andrew Bailey. From the beginning, Bailey lacked a legitimate legal foundation for his “quo warranto” lawsuit against Gardner and may have caught a lucky break only because someone tipped off his office that Gardner was enrolled as a full-time nursing student at Saint Louis University. His foundation was still shaky even after that news, but let’s be honest: Gardner did not resign from her role as Circuit Attorney because of the second-most embarrassing statewide representative’s sly and disingenuous lawsuit (the most embarrassing being now-Senator Josh Hawley).
Bailey’s lawsuit wasn’t even set for trial until late September, and realistically, considering the likely time frame, the losing party’s appeals would have extended through any Gardner 2024 re-election campaign. To be clear, Bailey deserves no credit for Gardner stepping down because he didn’t actually do anything.
The more likely scenario, according to reports last week, in the hours leading up to Gardner’s resignation, and the most likely final straw was that an alleged “deal” was made with the Missouri Senate Minority Leader, State Sen. John Rizzo, to allegedly “kill” legislation to appoint a special prosecutor in lieu of the elected Circuit Attorney. While this may provide a gracious exit for Gardner – serving as a metaphorical sacrificial lamb to save the City’s autonomy – the reality is that a state seizure of both the prosecutor’s office and SLMPD would face years of costly litigation with a slim-to-no chance of success.
The more level-headed Republicans in the General Assembly know this – and they also know that the rest of Missouri has no interest in being financially on the hook for both Kansas City AND St. Louis. Yet the issue has dominated this legislative session, preventing both houses from passing meaningful bills that could actually help Missourians. Statewide problems like access to affordable quality housing, childcare shortages, and impending drought, have gone largely ignored while far-right Republicans hijacked the legislative process with “culture wars,” primarily targeting St. Louis. The truth is that the only reason that Arkansas for instance, another state with also a huge agricultural sector, lags badly behind Missouri in annual GDP is the economic heft of the state’s two largest metro areas.
Gardner submitted her resignation to Gov. Mike Parson last Thursday afternoon. So, now we wait to see if the State Senate Minority Leader and his colleagues will follow through, as promised, and drop the legislative attempts to seize power over St. Louis.
We’ve also heard that our favorite lobbyist-turned-failed-candidate-turned-lobbyist, Jane Dueker, has been a key player in the push for a state takeover of the city’s entire law enforcement system. Her work allegedly has been on behalf of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, the St. Louis Police Officers Association (SLPOA), and the St. Louis County Police Association, the latter of which donated tens of thousands of dollars to her crushing loss in her county executive campaign only nine months ago and none representing St. Louis citizens. But even that “work” has been focused more on spreading the type of misinformation that Schroer spews late at night on his Twitter page. As it turns out, we hear that the overwhelming majority of Dueker’s advocacy on behalf of her police union clients have again been in vain.
Not only is the Governor reportedly not a fan of a state takeover of the police, but apparently legislators finally have learned not to blindly accept Dueker’s drivel. Dueker pal and South County Republican State Representative Brad Christbemoaned about the hostile takeover that it has been surprisingly “hard to get [it] across the finish line.” Parroting Dueker’s false narrative, Christ without evidence claimed that SLMPD was “crumbling” and St. Louis was “lawless.” We wonder when the last time the cowardly Sappington Republican dared to step foot in the purported “Wild West” that is St. Louis City.
This is probably where we should note that most importantly Missouri billionaire libertarian – and former Dueker employer – Rex Sinquefieldstrongly opposes the revocation of local control and putting the State of Missouri in charge of a municipal police department. Sinquefield was instrumental in funding efforts to return control of SLMPD to the city in 2012. He currently has 18 lobbyists in the halls of the State Capitol debunking Dueker’s lies about St. Louis police and reasoning with sensible Republicans. As he literally holds the purse strings for a lot of Missouri Republicans, many are ultimately pulling back their support of the hostile takeover.
Despite some of his political positions which we have vigorously opposed, we see Sinquefield as an earnest but principled libertarian and not a fear mongering racist, who makes a strong case here. Moreover, it should be more widely understood that the task of abating much of the violent crime problem can’t be effectively executed by policing alone.
Kansas City’s police department currently is under state control, and they arguably have as much if not more violent crime than St. Louis. Dysfunction is rampant there and the state-controlled police board fails to communicate with the Kansas City municipal government. Since the cessation of local control in the late 1930s in Kansas City, the State of Missouri has been directly responsible for the police department’s role in their still rising violent crime problem.
Does this Republican-controlled state government, while touting the GOP’s nationwide tough-on-crime agenda, REALLY want responsibility for St. Louis, as well?
UPDATE: Since our readers know about our disdain for Tod Robberson, the Connecticut-based editorial page editor of the Post-Dispatch and his skullduggery, we will reprint the stinging words of Sarah Fenske of the RiverFront Times about his retirement from the Post on June 15: “Robberson has been with the paper since January 2016 – a tenure that saw him clash repeatedly with local progressives, including Mayor Tishaura Jones… Under that stalwart of character, the editorial board…endorsed not only Cara Spencer, but also Lewis Reed. At least he was right about Reed, now in federal prison, being a pragmatist.”