MISSOURI WATCH: ARE YOU AN UNREPRESENTED MISSOURIAN?

If the district candidate you supported in last year's election of all 163 members of the state's House of Representative lost to his or her opponent of another political party, then you qualify as an Unrepresented Missourian. If you live in one of the 17 districts that elected a member of our state's Senate and you again voted for the losing candidate then you are an Unrepresented Missourian.

If you fit the above description, then you can resign yourself to being without a voice in either chamber of the legislative branch of government in Jefferson City. If you happen to be a Republican -- and about one-half of the state fits this category -- then you are also without representation in a second division of government, the executive branch, since all six statewide officeholders are Democrats.

Before you conclude that you are no longer required to pay taxes because you are without representation in the state capital, several extenuations are pertinent. If you are a Republican residing in a House district that has sent a Democrat to Jefferson City, yo may be represented by a lawmaker who is as conservative, or more so, than yourself. This is especially true if you live in a rural part of the state, where lawmakers are traditionally, but not universally, conservative, particularly in fiscal matters.

If you are a Democrat living in one of the state's growing urban regions, your Republican legislator may cast more nonpartisan liberal votes than a conservative Democrat would, particularly in matters relating to education, social programs and racial matters. There are times in one or both chambers of our General Assembly when it is virtually impossible to guess a speaker's partisan leanings, although this indistinguishability diminishes the closer elections approach.

Regardless of the season, most of the business of a state legislative body is nonpartisan, despite sometimes deliberate attempts by the leadership of both parties to inject politics in every lawmaking act. Even the process of creating and approving a multi billion-dollar state budget is, for the most part, nonpartisan. There may be attempts to corral state appropriations for abortions and partisanship can flare when social programs are being funded, but even these often contentious issues are grounded more in philosophy than politics.

Even on legislative issues that are most divisive, there is often a greater doctrinal difference than partisan division. And, strangely enough, there are often more obdurate philosophical differences between urban and outstate lawmakers than partisan ones.

What can be gathered then from the two points we are discussing, namely that large segments of Missouri's citizens are without political representation in the state legislature and that most matters affecting the state's general welfare have no relation to partisan politics?

To be idealistically pure, I suppose the obvious answer would be the adoption of a legislative system that has singly been selected by Nebraska, which has only one chamber rather than the traditional two, and then to create an electoral process that selected these members without regard to party. Not all Nebraskans like their system, although they exhibit a trace of parochial pride in noting it is the only one in America. It could also be the worst, although I can cite several other states that far outdistance the Cornhusker State in this regard.

Given the polyglot nature of Missouri, its vast geographical variances, its urban-rural division and its vast economic divides, it's unlikely the state would fare better without traditional divisions and separations of powers that serve as a beneficial system of checks and balances.

What seems preferable would be an effort to make the General Assembly as apolitical as possible, with a minimum of spoils distribution by the party with a temporary majority. Minority representatives, and sometimes minority senators, are often treated as second-class citizens who, depending on the parochialism of the majority of leadership, have lessened powers that impact constituents and their constitutional right to equal representation and consideration.

It goes without saying that the lower chamber, with 163 members, is far too large to enjoy orderly processing of the people's calendar, far too large to permit intelligent discussion and debate. This membership overabundance produces an understandable urgency in handling business, a condition that leads to a trammeling of some representatives' rights and privileges. And this leads to the abetting of unrepresented constituents. It should also be noted that this same urgency enhances the degree of bitterness and divisiveness that creates pejorative attitudes by the minority losers.

A lessening of House membership, plus a requirement that all bills bear the sponsorship of members of both parties, would be major steps in ending several serious problems now permeating our state capital. Legislative bodies cannot create first-class laws with half the membership accorded only second-class citizenship.

There is no proof that political parties enhance the quality of government, while overwhelming evidence suggests they are harmful to an orderly system. Partisan divisiveness has never served the best interests of the vast majority of Missourians, a fact that has helped rid the state of an outmoded spoils system that for too long inhibited or prevented attempts to achieve good government in the executive branch in Jefferson City. Missourians ended the worst of the spoils system in their judicial ranch more than half-century ago.

Isn't it time we began removing the worst elements of the system in our remaining branch of government?

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.