CALL FOR SPECIAL COUNSEL GOES UNHEEDED

Two senior state senators, one from each party, took the extraordinary step of writing to Attorney General Jay Nixon a couple of weeks ago to ask that he appoint a special counsel. Sen. John Schneider, D-Florissant, and Sen. Steve Ehlmann, R-St. Charles, asked Nixon to take himself out of the representing the state in the case where a federal judge struck down the appropriations bill passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor. Schneider is the dean of the Senate, having served since 1970, while Ehlmann is minority floor leader. Both are attorneys. The senators informed Nixon of their opinion that he had been shown to have a conflict of interest and thus couldn't represent the state in these proceedings.

Faced with a governor who insists on funding Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions, the lopsided pro-life majority in the Legislature has tried to bar such funding for the last two years. Last year Planned Parenthood sued, getting a federal judge to rule that the law's language somehow violated the Constitution. This year the Legislature was back, after long deliberation in both the regular and an extraordinary session called for this purpose, with new but different restrictive language. Gov. Mel Carnahan, who favors abortion rights even to the point of vetoing the bill banning partial-birth abortions, could have vetoed the bill. He didn't. He chose to sign it into law. Next the governor immediately asked the attorney general to go to court and undermine the law he had just signed.

At this point it was Attorney General Nixon's job to defend the new law, but instead of doing so, Nixon went back into federal court asking the same judge who ruled last year, in a separate case, whether the new language violated his order. Unsurprisingly, the judge said it did. This the judge "ruled" in a brief telephone hearing altogether lacking in real parties in a real controversy sparring over real issues. The state's position simply went undefended. Nobody stood up for the law just passed by the people's elected representatives. The attorney general has but one client -- the state of Missouri -- and one duty at the heart of his oath of office: to defend the laws of the state. This Nixon failed to do, and the senators are correct to point it out.

Carnahan and Nixon have perpetrated on Missourians an outrageous violation of proper procedure. These two senators are to be commended for calling for a special counsel to see to it that someone, finally gives the state the representation it never got in this instance.

JUDGE BACKS COOK'S DECISION ON CANDIDATE

A bizarre story has unfolded in a party committee's effort to select a candidate to run in a special election for a vacant state representative seat in St. Louis County. Two Democratic candidates vied for selection by a party committee to the post: Betty Thompson, a county councilwoman, and Hazel Erby, a party committeewoman. It seems two committee meetings were held in this case. First, Erby chaired a meeting on June 18 at which the other three panel members walked out in a dispute over the open meetings law. While they were out, Erby nominated and elected -- herself! -- before terminating the meeting. A week later, the three members held another meeting and nominated Thompson. Nomination documents were sent to Secretary of State Bekki Cook, who was informed of the conflict. Charges flew from each side that the other had violated various election laws.

Cook sided with Thompson as the real nominee. A Cole County circuit judge initially sided with Erby, asking Cook's office to show cause why he shouldn't declare Erby the nominee. Last week the judge adopted Cook's argument and declared Thompson the real nominee. Good for Bekki Cook for sticking to her guns and persevering until the election law and its purpose was fulfilled.