LEGISLATURE SPURS NEW LOGO: 'IF SOMETHING'S WORTH DOING, IT'S WORTH DOING BADLY'

The record of this year's session of the Missouri General Assembly was perfectly characterized by a Chinese general and military strategist who lived in the 4th Century B.C. More than 2,300 years ago, Sun-tzu wrote in "The Art of War" a telling epilogue for our state's Legislature: "Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective."

Incompetent, coupled with political perfidy, partisan posturing, ambitious angst, issue incontinence and indigent indifferent -- all mark the just-ended session as one of the least effective and least responsive in recent memory.

Political apologists, many of them participants in this turn-of-the-century comedy, swear the lack of achievement can be traced to August's primary and November's general elections. There may be a scintilla of truth in this excuse if the state had never held elections before, but the public should view with jaundiced eye any tradition that disrupts its business every other year.

Another explanation offered is equally illogical: term limits. According to this theory, lawmakers are so intent on furthering their own political careers that they have no time to accommodate a citizens' agenda. Since career advancement has been the principal preoccupation of ambitious public servants even before Sun-tzu cracked open his first fortune cookie, such an excuse is less believable than a campaign promise.

Leadership -- either too much or not enough -- never fails to make the excuse list of why the public is always last in line. Strong leadership is viewed as undemocratic; weak leadership is seen as leading to chaos. Enlightened leadership is an oxymoron in a roomful of people who would trade their grandmother for a speaker's gavel.

Last on the reason-for-failure list is the anonymous special interest, composed entirely of advocates opposed by the critics. Whether seeking tax or crime abatement, interests are always special to sponsors -- and advocates can be identified as citizens who prefer using the democratic process rather than the method used earlier against King George III.

One of the previous strengths of the democratic system was the ability of at least one branch of government to remain stable, even as another part of the system was undergoing change or turmoil. Thus a stable executive office provided leadership when chaos in one or both legislative chambers was rampant, and by the same token, those occupying legislative halls could provide stability at a time the governor's office was either clueless or distracted.

Unfortunately for 5.4 million Missourians, the pejorative periods of both the executive and legislative branches occurred at the same moment, leaving the state bereft of the leadership it needed. A strong governor is leaving office; a legislature already weakened by retirements was focusing on private rather than public concerns. It was a perfect setting for this year's unfortunate, regrettable disaster.

A great deal of valuable legislation was left on the desks of lawmakers when the session adjourned, with the unfinished list longer by many times over the completed list. Let's examine the discarded topics by subject rather than the individuals bills, since there isn't space for the latter.

First, scant attention was paid at any level of the session to Missouri's principal constitutional responsibility: the education of its children. A few measures, such as teacher pensions, nibbled at the list, while large numbers of other bills never made either chamber's consent calendar. This might be understandable at a time Missourians were satisfied with the direction and progress of their public school programs, but no such satisfaction exists. First and foremost, citizens want remedial steps for what appears to be a crying need for remedial education, particularly at the junior and high school levels, as well as a shoring up of pre-school curricula.

You won't see much in the way of new educational enrichment progress on this year's finished calendar. Lawmakers were too busy, too divided, too leaderless to produce anything resembling comprehensive solutions to reprehensible obstacles to our children's learning.

As noted in earlier columns, the "solutions" to the 15-Year Road Plan proffered by Jefferson City is really not a remedy at all but a temporary Band-Aid that promises to evaporate within a short time, presenting an even greater problem in a couple of years. It is both deceitful and precarious to borrow against future revenue to provide stopgap relief for a long-term problem, which is an honest appraisal of HB 1742 authorizing the Department of Transportation to spend $2.25 billion for some pending projects. There will be no admitted supporters of this measure in a few years when the state is forced to cut other programs to meet its debt-servicing needs.

From Missouri's abandoned baby problem to its lack of childhood immunization programs to its dilemma of a void in health-care coverage for low-income families, you will see a huge list of unfinished health initiatives and only a pathetic handful of enacted bills on the session's accomplishment list.

New reports on who is responsible for this massive failure have focused on individuals, groups and political parties, but such an exercise is relatively useless when one recognizes that, given the same set of circumstances, virtually everyone reacts in the same manner. Nor, it should be added, will the correction of one problem automatically lead to solutions of other dilemmas. Public governance is not a one-remedy exercise, but rather an involvement of both the public and its servants in honest dialogue, discipline and dedication.

How's this for a new state slogan: "If something's worth doing, it's worth doing badly"?