GOV. HEARNES ASTONISHES WITH ATTACK ON KINDER IN SIKESTON

It isn't every day that an officeholder is publicly castigated, by name, on a public issue of great moment, at an unrelated ceremonial occasion, by a former governor. Such was my fate at the hands of the Honorable Warren E. Hearnes in Sikeston on Wednesday, May 26, 1993 at the 25th anniversary of the Sikeston Regional Center of the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

The regional diagnostic centers came into being under Hearnes' leadership during the '60s. Thus it was altogether fitting for the former governor to have been invited to deliver the address on this happy occasion.

On a brilliantly beautiful day in May, folding chairs were arranged for an outdoor program attended by more than 200 people. The program had already lasted more than an hour when Gov. Hearnes rose from his seat, which was next to mine, to address the audience. He quite openly "bragged" (his word) about the accomplishments of his eight-year tenure as Missouri's chief executive. (Many are indeed impressive.)

The former governor named me, going out of his way to sharply criticize Rep. Gene Copeland, D.-New Madrid, who was not present, and me. Our sin (Copeland's and mine): favoring a public vote before a $315 million tax increase was laid on Missourians this spring.

Last Wednesday's bizarre episode brought to mind an exchange of letters I had with a constituent on this same issue back in April. Inasmuch as I was offered no opportunity to respond to Gov. Hearnes' extraordinary attack (I smiled throughout), I herewith publish an exchange that fully explains my position on a public vote as a requirement for large tax increases.

April 12, 1993

Dear Peter:

I was disappointed to see your reaction to Governor Carnahan's education proposal in [the] Southeast Missourian. If I read the article correctly you said you would not support any proposal that was adopted by the legislative process rather than adopted by direct democracy. I'd like to urge you to reconsider for three reasons.

1. If the public rejects the proposal then, because the foundation formula has been found unconstitutional, the courts would operate the school system and raise the tax money as the courts see fit. You will recall that the United States Supreme Court has approved this procedure.

2. The Hancock Amendment intentionally allows the legislature to fund proposals of this nature in these circumstances because the public interest is so served.

3. Our system of government has never been intended to work in this fashion. We have a representative government because we believe that representatives elected by the people to serve the interest of all the people will be better able to provide for the public good than would a system of direct democracy.

I know that it makes good sense, on a facile level, to say that the people should vote on everything. For more than 200 years our country has operated very effectively on a rather different proposition. We believe that representatives should be elected based on their general philosophy, competence and experience. We believe that having elected such representatives, those representatives should conduct the public business. Our forefathers very specifically did not believe that the people should conduct the public's business directly. There are very good reasons for this. ...

It is a good deal easier, politically, to take the position you were quoted as having taken in the Southeast Missourian. However, I don't think you were elected to do the easy thing. We elect representatives to do what is in the public interest. ...

If you actually intend to oppose this measure on the ground that it is subject to legislative approval and not subject to a direct vote of the people then I wish you would let me know that as well so that I can begin to publicly point out your sins in the Southeast Missourian. For example: the sin of trying to create a "Judge Clark" for the entire state. ...

Best regards.

Sincerely yours,

(Name not revealed).

My response:

April 21, 1993

Dear ----------:

I have your letter of April 12, 1993 ...

.... My position, like your letter in opposition to it, raises a rich theme of political and governmental issues that resonate like a magnificent symphony throughout American history. ... the whole matter is not as simple as your ... letter would have us believe.

At our country's founding, the law permitted only property-owning white males to vote. Until 1913, when a constitutional amendment was passed permitting all voters to participate in direct election of United States Senators, the legislatures of the states elected these senators.

The broad trend of American history has been toward greater and greater popular participation. The full flowering of this trend, as you know, was with the Progressive movement during the early 20th Century. It was this populist, grass-roots movement that brought us women's suffrage and the now-familiar initiative and referendum process. By this method, the people asserted their absolute right to enact laws by their own initiative, explicitly choosing to bypass legislative elites whom they perceived then, as often now to be out of touch. As you know, Missouri is one of the 22 or so initiative and referendum states.

None of this means that we have abolished a republican form of government, understood as representative democracy. The point is that this tension between undiluted representative democracy and the people's direct assertion of their popular will has existed throughout our history. You are, at best, disingenuous to imply otherwise: that it is purely a matter of choosing one or the other. The whole of our history tells us this is not so. The reality is simply more complex and far more interesting than your neat little formulation admits.

I guess it boils down to one question: Do you trust the people? To that question, I answer "Yes". Your answer, I take it, is "No." Fair enough.

But remember just six months ago? A fierce campaign was raging for the governor's mansion. An electorate was being wooed. Governor Carnahan, the victor in that struggle, had a clearly stated position: he proposed a $200 million tax increase for education, to be enacted only after a vote of the people. Today, it's a $420 million tax increase, and no vote of the people. What gives?

I know, I know: you, the governor and others say Judge Bryon Kinder's decision changed everything when in January, he declared the foundation formula unconstitutional. But how much of this is true?

My cousin, Judge Byron Kinder, has no desire to be Missouri's state version of federal Judge Clark. You are wildly inaccurate to raise this bogeyman. Of more importance, nothing not one word in his decision warrants the kind of spending now being proposed, neither in Senate Bill 380, nor in Governor Carnahan's proposal ($420 million). Those of you who claim otherwise have some explaining to do. ...

Your letter continues in a vein of airy oversimplification when you casually mislead us about the Hancock Amendment. ... The point is that the question of whether the proposed taxes trigger the Hancock Amendment's requirement of a public vote is open to question and is, at the very least, highly debatable.

Where such Hancock Amendment doubts exist, I would resolve them in favor of a vote of the people, in keeping with their plain intent in adopting it. I would further add that if it's ultimately determined that a tax hike of $400 million does not trigger the Hancock Amendment's requirement of a public vote, then it should. Perhaps we need further teeth in that Amendment.

.... We have arrived at the decisive point, the end game of the great tax-and-spend charade. A fed-up, over-taxed public isn't buying what you have to sell.

Claiming changed circumstances, Governor Carnahan has abandoned his own "solemn compact with the people" (his words) of a promised public vote that he committed to last fall. That is his choice. I respect him and his argument. But on this point, I will not yield. ... I will fight to honor his commitment to the people and mine. As Democratic State Representative Henry Rizzo of Kansas City succinctly stated his support for a vote of the people: "It's their money."

I will echo Henry Rizzo and General Ulysses S. Grant, who in 1863 telegraphed President Lincoln from the battlefield at Vicksburg, "I am holding this line, and I mean to fight it out here if it takes all summer."

Sincerely,

Peter D. Kinder