JACKSON, CAPE ARE CLOSELY MONITORING FUTURE ANNEXATION PLANS

The joint Jackson-Cape Girardeau future annexation planning committee recently met at the Osage Centre in Cape. The committee was formed as a result of the first joint Jackson-Cape council meeting. The work between the two communities since then has resulted in a nonbinding flexible corridor being created between I-55, Route K and Highway 25 that will serve as a guideline for future requested annexations for both of our growing communities. This cooperation and planning are very important for the planning of future infrastructure for both communities. The major street plan of both cities has also been studied as to not conflict with each other.

This is simply a cooperative planning process and not an effort to annex anyone who doesn't want to. But as our cities continue to expand and as services become available in these areas, friendly annexation requests and development will occur. This effort should help the future orderly growth. Jackson and Cape city councils and both cities' planning and zoning boards are in the process of reviewing the joint committee's recommendations. Stay tuned. -- Excerpt from Jackson Mayor Paul Sander's column

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On the witness stand:

A defense attorney was cross-examining a police officer during a felony trial. It went like this:

Q. Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene?

A. No, sir, but I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender running several blocks away.

Q. Officer, who provided this description?

A. The officer who responded to the scene.

Q. A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow office.?

A. Yes, sir, with my life.

Q. With your life? Let me ask you this then, officer. Do you have a locker room in the police station, a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?

A. Yes, sir, we do.

Q. And do you have a lock on your locker?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, that you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with those same officers?

A. You see, sir, we share the building with a court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.

With that, the courtroom erupted in laughter, and a prompt recess was called. The officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's "best comeback" line, and we think he'll win.

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This is a column about congressional redistricting, which happens every 10 years and will happen next year.

It is also about U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, but let's take care of the local angle first. The 7th District will stay about as it is, except that it will lose a county or two.

That is because Southwest Missouri's population is up. Ryan Burson, state demographer, estimates these percentage gains from 1990: Jasper County, 11; Newton, 12; McDonald, 19; Barton, 7; Lawrence, 11; Dade, 7; Greene, 9; Taney, 39; Stone, 44; and Christian, 57.

Missouri will show about 5.5 million people, or 383,000 more than in 1990. The United States will have 275 million, an increase of 25 million.

Missouri will continue to have nine members in the 435-member U.S. House.

Congressional lines are drawn by the General Assembly, which must pass a bill to be signed or vetoed by the governor. Both chambers now have Democratic majorities, and the governor is a Democrat, but not all those conditions may exist next year.

Redistricting usually features creative computering and lots of bluffing, of playing chicken, of threats that if legislators do or don't do this or that, the governor will veto the bill, or that an impasse might send it to a federal judge, or that the judge's decision might be litigated until 2011.

The two major parties will seek advantages, but the most intense infighting may be among Democrats.

Party leaders will want above all to construct a district that will re-elect Gephardt. He is a former presidential candidate and might be one again. He is minority leader of the U.S. House, and if the House which now has 222 Republicans, 211 Democrats and two independents were to revert to Democratic control, he would be speaker.

After the 1980 and 1990 censuses, the party was able to protect Gephardt and also draw an adjacent district favorable to U.S. Rep. Bill Clay, a black.

But the St. Louis population is down. Gephardt's district must expand. It already has Jefferson and Ste. Genevieve counties, historically Democratic but culturally conservative and requiring assiduous attention. In fact, two years ago Gephardt won with 55.8 percent, not an impressive figure, against underfunded Republican Bill Federer, who is running again and soliciting contributions nationwide.

Assuming he is not upset this year, Gephardt's district might move south to Perry County, full of German-surnamed Republicans, or west to Chesterfield and Wildwood, full of suburban Republicans, or (only a bit farfetched) southwest to Washington County (Potosi) and St. Francois County (Farmington), full of Democrats who are also National Rifle Association members.

More tempting territory would be north, St. Louis' Central West End, racially integrated, trendy and liberal. It is in Clay's district. He is retiring, and his son, state Sen. Lacy Clay, is running in the primary -- which is tantamount to election -- along with Charlie Dooley, a black county councilman.

Around the Capitol, the word is that Gephardt thinks Dooley would be more willing to accept a diluted district, that Gephardt allies are helping Dooley, but that young Clay is likely to win. He would be intransigent.

It used to be that a congressman had a stick: He could threaten to encourage someone to file against a legislator. But most state legislators next year will be doomed by term limits anyhow.

Besides, blacks are the Democrats' most dependable core group, and sacrificing a black congressman for the benefit of a white male would be, well, insensitive. Not to mention that black Democrats could join with Republicans to keep it from happening. -- Jim Wolfe, Capitol Commentary, Joplin Globe

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A symphony for the powerless: "My party, the Democratic Party, should be the protector and claims to be the protector of the powerless. It's time to get back to what this country is all about, protecting all of the powerless ... and that includes unborn children." So said Robert Casey, the governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1994. Casey died May 30 of an infection at the age of 68. A champion for the sanctity of human life, Casey signed the 1989 Pennsylvania law instituting a 24-hour waiting period for abortions that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed and upheld. In 1992, Casey was denied the opportunity of speaking before the Democratic National Convention because he wanted to stand up against abortion. According to Walter Goodman of The New York Times, Casey "was not permitted on camera for fear that his sour note on abortion would disturb the symphony of unity" at the convention. Perhaps rival composers also cried "sour" when they heard Mozart. While all around him performers made names for themselves by playing the music of life backwards, shoving the end into its beginning, Bob Casey insisted that all should play life's notes in the way that the Author intended. -- Washington Update