MANUEVERING AIMED AT MEETING REDISTRICTING DEADLINE

We are busy looking at the once-in-a-decade task of redistricting for both the Missouri House of Representatives and the Missouri Senate. (Congressional redistricting -- a responsibility of the General Assembly -- was handled during the session ended May 18, followed by the governor's signature on the bill.)

Some bare facts stare us in the face concerning the drawing of new Senate boundaries. Under the one-man, one vote jurisprudence, each Senate district must be as close as possible to a few more than 164,000 people.

Another is that of the 16 Democrat-held Senate districts, seven have lost population, some drastically. All are located in the state's two major metropolitan areas.

By comparison, only two Republican-held districts have shrunk in population (each slightly), those being two districts in St. Louis County.

Fast-growing, prosperous Southwest Missouri, home to countless lakes and the Bass Pro Shop and much more besides, is of course a gainer.

An example is what happened 10 years ago with the old 28th District of Northwest Missouri. The population loss had been so drastic up there that the 28th District, held by former state Sen. Steve Danner, a Democrat, was moved to rural Springfield (Greene County) and five counties to the north and west.

The new 28th District seat was won in a walk by Republican Morris Westfall in 1994, a building block in the slow but steady GOP climb to majority status, achieved only this January.

A citizens commission composed of five Democrats and five Republicans appointed by the governor is meeting to try to come up with a map that can gain the statutorily required seven votes out of 10. You can be sure lot's of maneuvering is going on. The commission has a deadline of Aug. 28 for its preliminary map, after which more public hearings could follow on the ones they have already held. If the commission hasn't finally approved a map by the end of September, then the whole question goes to the Missouri Supreme Court, Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., Chief Justice.

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Res ipsa? To be sure.

In the aftermath of the governor's order concerning collective bargaining, followed by the unions rushing cash in to pay off his inaugural debt, this writer has been asked by various media why I haven't issued a statement blasting him. I responded with some of the little Latin I can recall from schooldays: Res ipsa loquitur. "The thing speaks for itself."

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Desperately bad schools:

Don't look now, but some time in the next month, you're likely to hear that a group of influential pastors in one of Missouri's two urban cores will urge parishioners to pull up to 3,000 youngsters out of that city's desperately awful public schools. Big Education can keep Americans held down for only so long in miserably failing schools before pressure for other choices simply becomes overwhelming. The Education Establishment had better wake up and smell the coffee: More choices there will ultimately be one way or the other.

This and a host of other developments are converging to make St. Louis and Kansas City two hotbeds in the nationwide battle for parental freedom to choose any school for children who, after all, get only one chance at an education.

We supporters of greater parental freedom will continue to press our case.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and is president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.