Missouri Republicans’ latest attempt to thwart democracy in the name of ‘liberty’ is part of a much larger pattern

Missouri voters who overwhelmingly rejected their state legislature’s anti-union “right to work” law in August should know that Eric Burlison is not impressed.

“Democracy is not freedom,” the soon-to-be GOP state senator opined on Twitter, right after he filed legislation to reinstate the law that voters had just nullified by a two to one margin. “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.” 

Burlison, formerly a state House member from Springfield, probably thought he was channeling Benjamin Franklin, to whom that quote is sometimes attributed. The quote has a kicker, too: “Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”

That Burlison sees himself as that well-armed lamb — and his pursuit of a right-to-work law as a defense of liberty — is no surprise. Republicans in the Missouri legislature have a way of making everything about liberty. Carrying guns without permits? Denying low-income people health care? Gutting unions by relieving workers of the need to pay fees for services they receive? Liberty and freedom, baby. No matter how bad or dumb or unhealthy or downright dangerous the policy might be.

There’s a rich tradition of Missouri GOP lawmakers using this elastic concept of liberty to repeatedly thumb their noses at the state’s voters. Four years after a majority of citizens said at the polls that they didn’t want to legalize concealed carry of handguns, the legislature in 2003 legalized concealed carry, citing an inalienable right to bear arms. The state now has one of the nation’s most lenient set of gun laws — and a high rate of gun homicides to show for it. 

Looking back, the concealed carry prohibition was never going to stand. As state legislatures around that time caved, one by one, to fierce lobbying from gunmakers, Missouri was unlikely to be the lone holdout. But other reversals of voter decisions are less explainable. 

For example, back in the 1990s, citizens overwhelmingly voted for caps on campaign contributions in state races. The legislature removed the limits in 2008. 

This opening of the floodgates to anyone with a flush checkbook was also disingenuously framed as a defense of liberty. Republicans equate political spending with free speech, and have no problem allowing wealthy financiers to outshout people of more modest means. 

In November 2016, a full 70 percent of Missouri voters once again authorized campaign contribution caps. The new law has been under attack by Republicans and special interests ever since, though so far has stood its ground.  

One of the legislature’s most outrageous screw-the-voters acts was the puppy mill showdown of 2011. Frustrated by Missouri lawmakers’ refusal to regulate breeders — who, in some cases, confined dogs in filthy, brutal conditions — animal rights groups had successfully launched a ballot initiative the year before. Among other things, it required that animals have continuous access to water and cages be roomy enough for dogs to stand upright.

Citizens passed the measure. Rural lawmakers went berserk. Well-meaning voters, it turned out, hadn’t understood that those cute puppies in pet shops don’t enter the world as pets. They get their start as livestock, same as chickens and pigs. And livestock production is not to be messed with.

Jay Nixon, at the time the state’s Democratic governor, worked with Republicans on a “Missouri solution,” which basically unraveled the protections voters had called for. The Senate’s chief sponsor of the bill was one Mike Parson — now Missouri’s governor. In 2016, the legislature put a precautionary measure on the ballot to prevent such future meddling. They called it — need you ask? — the freedom to farm amendment.

The rejection of the anti-union law isn’t the only endangered voter-passed initiative from the November election. Republicans in the legislature have already nullified a public vote in Kansas City to raise the minimum wage here. So even though almost two-thirds of Missouri voters supported an incremental statewide raise, GOP lawmakers will have few qualms knocking that down.

Which brings us to Clean Missouri, the reform initiative that voters favored by a two-to one margin, because they know the legislature is incapable of holding itself accountable. Ed Emery, a GOP senator, has filed legislation to roll back provisions in the bill that make government more transparent. And a political group, cynically named “Fair Missouri,” has formed to gut the part of the bill that creates a new, less partisan system for redrawing legislative districts. The would-be unravelers have picked up a valuable ally in Gov. Parson, who told the Associated Press he agrees that the redistricting provisions should go. Parson, in fact, thinks the all-knowing legislature should make it harder for citizens to put initiatives on the ballot. 

“It is really unfortunate that norms of democracy don’t always resonate in Jefferson City,” says Sean Soendker Nicholson, campaign manager for Clean Missouri. He adds that the team that worked to get Clean Missouri on the ballot and passed by voters will remain intact to defend the new law.

As Burlinson makes clear, Jefferson City’s self-appointed lambs of liberty disrespect democracy itself and the voters who try to preserve it. The only times Missouri voters get things right, it seems to Burlinson, are when they elect Republican lawmakers who will unravel their future votes on ballot issues.

Voters in Arizona had a similar problem with their legislature a while back. They fixed it at the ballot box, with a constitutional amendment blocking the legislature from overturning voter-passed initiatives. Talk about doing something similar bounced around Missouri after the puppy mill travesty and could resurface this year if the legislature overplays its hand.

Meanwhile, it’s almost lunchtime. What’ll it be, people? Pizza, Mexican, Thai? Whatever it is, don’t trust Eric Burlison to pick up the order.