SENATE LEADERSHIP CAN USE ABUNDANCE OF COUNSELORS

Search the old maps of pre-Columbian Europe, with Latin the language of the scholars, and you'll find the words "Terra Incognita" referring to lands unknown to the then-literate world.

It's like that these days in the Missouri Senate. We saw three members elected to higher office, leaving us with three vacancies. The result, after the defeat of only one incumbent -- Bootheel Democrat Jerry Howard -- is a tenuous 16-15 Republican majority, the first time my party has found itself in such a position since the GOP's last cup of coffee from 1946-48. Those vacancies will be filled following special elections that will occur on Jan. 24, exactly three weeks from our Jan. 3 swearing-in date.

Of the vacancies, one is in the overwhelmingly Democratic city of St. Louis, and two are in sparsely populated northern Missouri, with Republicans having long held the Northwest and Democrats the Northeast. Of the two competitive districts where the next 50-something days will see two of America's most important election campaigns, culminating deep in the snows of January, both parties believe they can win. Both are right.

North of I-70, then, it's high noon. The stakes are control of the Missouri Senate.

For the even-handed calling of those elections on the same date, and for not playing games as he could have on the calling of different dates, I have Gov. Roger Wilson to thank. This honorable man did what not every partisan would have done under similar circumstances: He kept his word to me, solemnly delivered in telephone calls a few days after the election. Our late governor's notable and highly partisan nature has been largely buried with him. Still, one can't help but recall that Mel Carnahan, of ever-honored memory, waited most of a year before calling a special election to fill an overwhelmingly Republican St. Louis County state representative seat when it fell vacant upon the death of the incumbent just a couple of years ago.

Two days after the election, this writer was elected Republican leader and putative president pro tem of the Missouri Senate. Official election to that post occurs, customarily, on the first day of the new Senate: Jan. 3, 2001. Customarily is the operative word. In Florida, eight years ago, a tie in the state Senate meant no election of officers for three chaotic days.

With that post comes a collection of humbling and deeply sobering responsibilities. The weeks since have been, for me, a whirl of activity punctuated by long meetings and an endless series of telephone conference calls, more phone calls, job-seekers, reporters calling for interviews, anxious longtime Senate employees afraid that the ax will fall, folks wanting bills passed, university types wanting money spent, senators-elect desperate to move into offices not yet been vacated by previous occupants, reading dense legal memoranda parsing conflicting cases, party caucuses, negotiating confabs with our Democratic colleagues and more phone calls.

Search Holy Scripture and somewhere in the venerable book of Proverbs you'll find the admonition, "In the abundance of counselors there is wisdom." As a first-time party leader and would-be president pro tem in a nearly evenly divided Senate, be assured I have much need of, and am aggressively seeking, that "abundance of counselors." In the meantime I ask that you pray for me and for all senators elected by the voters of Missouri as we face this historic challenge.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.