While you’ve been shoveling and layering, the Missouri Legislature has convened, and you should probably not look up from your shovel. From a legislative perspective, this year looks like it’s off to a Kansas City Royals type spring. The first session of the Senate had to be called off early because of the bickering that was going on, most of it is Republican-on-Republican verbal assaults.
If the legislature were a baseball team you’d be looking to sell off pieces before spring even hits. If you had hopes of anything substantive in terms of legislation from gambling to abortion, you should probably lower your expectations cause these people are not getting along this year.
I told you last week that Democrats are worried about gender and pronouns and that might be the less confused group of the two parties. Republicans can’t figure out if they are Democrats or Republicans, or simply political island representatives.
The Institute for Legislative Analysis recently released a study on the Missouri Legislature. They found that several Missouri State Senators are incorrectly aligning themselves with political parties that do not match their values based on their voting records.
Basically, they’re saying that the votes are being cherry picked, likely for public perception and electability or perhaps outside influence (like lobby money), rather than voting their values. That hurts.
Good news for Platte County, Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer gets ranked as a philosophical Republican along with 12 other Senators. The overall math is not great since there are 34 senators. This study claims that there are twenty-one left leaning voters in the Missouri Senate. We are walking around thinking we have a Republican or conservative Senate, and their voting record says we don’t.
And you thought gender was simple, imagine being a Republican stuck in a Democrat’s body and mind.
Speaking of confused, I was young and fun once. Then last week, I spent 20 minutes texting with a friend of mine about home air purifiers. He and his wife had recently purchased one and my wife and I were thinking about taking the same leap and so we were discussing the ins and outs of air purification via text one evening.
Then it dawned on me. I’m discussing an air purifier with my friend, and I have somehow gotten this old. It happens fast, don’t doubt me on this. We used to text about bars and football and man stuff and here we were, sad and pitiful seniors talking about air quality.
I scrolled back through our texts from January. Wait, I thought, here’s something. He said he was going to have to catch a break from daily life. Said he was sneaking off to get a hotel room. Ok, that seems like a departure from normal, but then he went on. “Listen, my wife has been off work for two weeks for weather and my grandkids have been here nearly every single day. I’ve got to get a room and catch a nap.” Father time is undefeated.
In case you’re wondering and even if you are not, the Dyson Air purifiers are a wonderful addition to any senior’s home.
(Guy Speckman can be reached looking for Republicans stuck in Democrats’ bodies)