WITH STROKE OF PEN, STATE WORKERS GET BARGAINING RIGHTS

Hey, this is cool. Stroke of the pen, law of the land." -- An unidentified Clinton White House aide, commenting on their heavy reliance on executive orders to decree an outcome in what had always been contentious issues, fought over among elected lawmakers.

On Friday, Gov. Bob Holden did something no other governor ever had the temerity to do. By the stroke of his pen, he decreed the unionizing of your state government. The extremely contentious issue of public-employee collective bargaining, fought over annually by the elected representatives you send to Jefferson City these last 35 years, has now been resolved. And not to worry: It's been resolved just the way the Big Labor bosses wanted it, just the way they demanded it in last year's campaign.

Just last year, Gov. Mel Carnahan pressed hard for this result legislatively, but a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives refused, for the umpteenth consecutive year, and it wasn't even close. In the Senate in which this writer sits, they've never had the votes to push it through.

So there. Who needs elected representatives of the people, deliberating through hearings in which both sides are heard, and all interests weighed? We can eliminate all that -- with all the attendant messiness and shouting and stuff -- through government by decree.

Government-by-decree isn't the only similarity to the Clintontonian style on display here. Note the timing of the announcement of this dramatic sea change in state policy: Late on a Friday afternoon, preceding what will be for many a long holiday weekend.

Conservative outstate Democrats had long blocked efforts to pass collective bargaining, one of the reasons they were so unbeatable for so long. Former state Sen. Al Spradling Jr. of Cape Girardeau, for example. Former Bootheel Democratic senators Nelson Tinnin and J.F. "Pat" Patterson, for others.

I pledge my efforts to undo this latest raid on taxpayers, which is sure to worsen an already tough state budget picture.

This isn't your grandfather's Democratic Party, as the following choice excerpt also helps to illustrate.

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As observed here before, ace columnist Bob Novak is consistently worth reading, as he does more shoe-leather reporting than anyone around. Novak's column last week -- you can read him online on the Drudge Report -- on moderate-conservative Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller is a case in point. Novak reports that when Miller co-sponsored the Bush tax cut bill last winter, joining Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, his longtime friend and former consultant, Ragin' Cajun James Carville asked for the return of his $1,000 contribution to Miller's 2000 campaign. Miller promptly returned it, and the two friends haven't spoken since.

The following astonishing quote from Miller is making the rounds. Asked why his Democratic Party has trouble getting votes in the South and, for that matter, increasingly throughout rural and small-town America, Miller said:

"Unlike our GOP opponents, we have to prove that we will not raise taxes, let all the crooks out of prison, pour the public's money down a variety of rat holes, double everybody's welfare check, condone the burning of the American flag, let serial ax murderers escape the electric chair, confiscate everybody's guns and take down the Christmas tree at city hall."

That about says it all.

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