The headline blared from The Kansas City Star in December: “KC ethics commission faces busy year.” But of all the adjectives that could describe the watchdog’s 2010, “busy” reads like a dark joke.

Designed to keep watch over city government, the ethics commission in Kansas City, Missouri, has yet to meet in 2010. Its first meeting is scheduled for August 25, but that might get canceled. A commission requires commissioners, and four of the seven members resigned in the wake of the recent “reve­lation” — that’s what the Star called it, anyway — that some of them had taken sides in the upcoming mayoral race.

City leaders want you to believe that change is in the works. The City Council passed an ordinance last month that bars ethics commissioners from supporting city candidates. “This is good government here,” Councilman Terry Riley announced.

But the new rules put a coat of Bondo on a totaled system. The ethics commission is intended to serve as a check against conflicts of interest, campaign-finance irregularities and other foul play. Historically, though, it has kept a quiet watch. Composed of volunteers, limited in its authority and susceptible to political pressure, the ethics commission has done a better job of padding résumés than keeping politicians in line. “It’s never worked,” Councilman Ed Ford says. “I can’t remember it ever being an effective body.”

But its ineffectiveness has reached a new low. Since 2008, the ethics commission has done nothing but abandon one investigation and not act on another.

Part of the blame rests with Lajuana Counts, who chairs what remains of the commission. A federal prosecutor, Counts has largely been an invisible figure since Mayor Mark Funkhouser made her chairwoman in mid-2008. (The mayor appoints all the members; terms last five years.) She has convened precisely one meeting, prompting questions about her level of commitment. “I don’t know how much time she has to give to it,” Marsha Campbell, a former commissioner, says.

Counts says she relies on the Office of the City Attorney to alert her to issues that need to be addressed. “Nothing comes to me directly, or to the commission members,” she says. “It goes through the city. I don’t know about anything until they let me know.”

But the commission doesn’t have to work so passively. Two years ago, the City Council asked the city auditor to send all his reports to the ethics commission. The commission can now launch investigations based on those reports, which analyze the city’s practices.

The mayor and the City Council also refer matters to the ethics commission. And two recent referrals fell into a black hole.

In 2008, Councilwoman Deb Hermann asked the ethics commission to investigate how the city had selected a company to provide copiers and other document services. The selection process was a mess, and Riley was right in the middle of it, steering the contract in the direction of a campaign contributor. “Call me before u vote. Please!!” he wrote in an e-mail to a member of the committee that selected the vendor.

The ethics commission met February 5, 2008, to discuss the copier contract. The decision to look into the role played by Riley, who is black, broke down along color lines. Four white commissioners said his actions deserved scrutiny; two black members disagreed.

Despite the majority’s sentiment, the investigation never took off. Not long after the commission decided to take action, its chairman, former City Attorney Walter O’Toole, resigned. O’Toole didn’t say why he stepped down, but the racially divided vote likely played a role in his decision.

After O’Toole’s departure, the investigation ground to a halt. Counts replaced him and could have taken it up herself. You can imagine her sitting down with City Attorney Galen Beaufort, the commission’s main contact at City Hall, for a chat about unfinished business. Instead, 16 months went by before she called her first meeting, and when she did, the copier incident wasn’t on the agenda. “I don’t know what happened with it,” Counts says.

Dan Porrevecchio, a commissioner who voted for the review of the copier contract, still thinks it needed to be examined. “What happened?” he asks. Former commissioner Campbell says, “It was a hanging chad.”

The copier contract isn’t the only opportunity that the commission has mishandled in recent years. In late 2008, Ford sponsored a resolution asking the commission to look at Funkhouser’s handling of an open-records request, as well as the role that the mayor’s former communications director, Joe Miller, played in a political campaign.

It took almost a year, but the ethics commission finally decided at its November 2009 meeting — again, the first called by Counts in 16 months — that the allegations deserved a review. The city’s internal auditor, Roy Greenway, prepared a 600-page report about the activities in the mayor’s office. (Greenway has a reputation for being — how do I put it? — thorough.) But nine months later, not a single witness has been called to testify because the commission hasn’t met since then. The Funk allegations are on the agenda for the August 25 meeting, which Counts acknowledges is unlikely to take place.

Counts says it’s a challenge to find times for commissioners to meet. But other boards and commissions in Kansas City find a way. The citizen-led Public Improvements Advisory Committee makes recommendations on how to spend the 1-cent sales tax for capital projects. The group meets weekly at times during the year. “Bottom line is, a commission that doesn’t meet can’t fulfill its obligations,” Ford says.

Regular meetings won’t solve everything. The ethics commission has other, built-in inadequacies. For one thing, it lacks a big hammer. It can’t issue fines or send people to prison. “About the only thing we can do is embarrass someone,” Campbell says.

The “reforms” that the City Council passed last month may not help. The ethics commission may even become less effective, if that’s possible. The new restrictions on political activity, Porrevecchio says, are “well-intentioned but shortsighted.”

Porrevecchio says the ethics commission needs people with a grasp of political nuance. Otherwise, the commission may find itself being led down rat holes. “Anybody can say anything about anybody and cause an investigation to occur,” he says. Campbell says the ethics commission “has potential for great mischief.”

Trouble is, the people who can tell a legitimate complaint from the caterwauling of cranks and opportunists tend to be the same people who give to candidates or get involved in political clubs. Porrevecchio belongs to the Citizens Association, which endorses candidates. Campbell made a campaign contribution to Sly James, who’s running for mayor. Both stepped down from the ethics commission after the council enacted the new rules.

Jay Stock, a former ethics commissioner who was “caught” supporting Hermann, notes that council members routinely vote on issues involving campaign donors.

“What’s the difference?” he asks. “Where does the difference lie?”

The difference is that the City Council makes the rules.

http://www.pitch.com/2010-08-12/news/kansas-city-ethics-commission/

by Jessica Machetta on August 3, 2010

in Uncategorized

Proposition C, also known as the Health Care Freedom Act, has been approved by Missouri voters.

Prop C was placed on the ballot as a referendum after being passed by the Missouri Legislature and authorizes Missourians to opt out of the federal healthcare plan passed by Congress earlier this year.

With 2,681 of 3,354 precincts reporting, 72.7 percent of Missouri voters approved the measure.

“Tonight is a historic night,” said Lt. Governor Peter Kinder. “Missourians have the distinction of being the first Americans to go to the ballot box and reject the reckless federal health care takeover. From Massachusetts to Virginia to Missouri, voters are rejecting the extreme liberal agenda being forced upon our nation by an out-of-control federal government.”

Kinder has filed a lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of Missouri, claiming the federal healthcare plan is unconstitutional.

Clearly the measure is split down party lines.

Kinder is the only Republican to hold statewide office. Democrats Gov. Nixon and Attorney General Chris Koster did not support the move.

Sen. Jane Cunningham, a Republican, fostered the bill through the Missouri Senate.

“Missourians have sent Washington a clear message: stay out of our health care decisions,” she said. “For more than a year, Americans have taken to the streets to protest the federal government’s irresponsible agenda. Washington liberals didn’t listen when they rammed through Congress their reckless health care bill — but they can’t help but hear us now.”

Cunningham noted that Prop C does present a conflict with federal law and the case will likey come down to a decision by the Supreme Court.

She also noted that Prop C does not prevent Missourians from participating in the federal healthcare system, it simply gives them a choice.

Four other states will vote on a similar measure in upcoming primaries.

via Missourians approve Prop C, the Health Care Freedom Act.

We want to thank all those amazing organizations who have helped Missouri break free from the shackles of the federal government on this issue.  We realize that with the passage of this issue, the fight is not truly over.  However, today we won a major battle and have told the federal government to back off.

ST. CHARLES, Mo. — For all its symbolic import, the first plebiscite on the Obama health care law, to be held Tuesday in Missouri, seems likely to be a low-turnout affair among an electorate dominated by Republican primary voters and conservative activists.

State Senators Jim Lembke and Jane Cunningham watching a commercial for Proposition C at a fund-raiser last week.

Missouri is the first of at least three states with ballot measures this year aimed at nullifying the federal health care law by invalidating its keystone provision, the requirement that most people obtain insurance or pay a tax penalty. A recent statewide poll in Missouri found that not even likely Democratic voters could muster a majority against the proposition.

The referendum on the measure, known as Proposition C, is seen as an organizational test for the Tea Party and like-minded conservatives in a swing state that President Obama lost narrowly in 2008 and that has since moved measurably away from him.

But the campaign has been a low-key affair, with no television advertising, debates or celebrity Facebook endorsements. Leading Democrats, from Mr. Obama to Gov. Jay Nixon, have kept their distance, seeing little to be gained by contesting what strategists dismiss as a Republican straw poll with a foregone conclusion.

The most competitive elections in Tuesday’s primary are on the Republican side, meaning turnout should be higher among those with natural sympathies for Proposition C. There are 291 Republicans competing for state and federal office, compared with 208 Democrats.

The Missouri secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, who is herself expected to coast to the Democratic nomination for United States Senate, predicted that only 24 percent of voters would turn out.

Of 20 Missourians interviewed at random in St. Louis last week, only five knew that there was a primary on Tuesday, much less a referendum on the health care law.

“Really, there is?” said Jeff R. Swaney, 53, a lawyer from Chesterfield, a St. Louis suburb. “I wasn’t even aware it was on the ballot. I haven’t seen any commercials.”

Supporters of Proposition C are hoping for a substantial victory that will convey a message of discontent with expansive federal government and rally other states and candidates to press the issue through the fall campaign.

“This is a throw-down by the states, saying, ‘Not in our state, you don’t,’ ” State Senator Jim Lembke, a Republican, said at a rally for the proposition here on Wednesday. “This health care thing is just a vehicle, a vehicle for the debate about what is the role of the federal government and what is the role of the states.”

No grass-roots organization has formed to oppose the measure, and the unions and consumer groups that lobbied for the federal health care law have steered clear. Mr. Obama did not take time to denounce Proposition C when he visited Missouri in early June.

“The proposition will have no legal standing, so I don’t know why there’d be a reason to focus on it,” said Brian B. Zuzenak, executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party. “From the beginning, we’ve said it’s meaningless and unconstitutional. At best, it’s a ploy by the Republicans to get their base excited.”

Comparable measures have already been enacted by legislatures in five states — Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia — according to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that is pushing the initiatives. Arizona and Oklahoma are scheduled to vote in the November general election on state constitutional amendments to nullify the insurance requirement. A judge in Florida tossed a similar constitutional amendment off that state’s ballot last week, sayings its language was too overtly political.

The nullification laws are expected to have little immediate practical impact, because the insurance requirement does not take effect until 2014. And by then, the federal courts are likely to have had much to say about whether the new health care law is constitutional, and thus beyond the reach of state efforts to invalidate it.

Elected officials in 22 states, almost all Republicans, have filed lawsuits challenging the so-called individual insurance mandate. Among them, Virginia has made a direct claim that the federal law conflicts with its own 2010 statute, which asserts that residents of the commonwealth cannot be compelled to obtain health insurance.

The most recent lawsuit was filed individually by Missouri’s lieutenant governor, Peter D. Kinder, a Republican who acted without the support of Governor Nixon.

In the Missouri referendum, voters will be asked whether state law — not the State Constitution — should be amended to “deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful health care services.”

In May, Republican legislators, who control both houses, cut a deal with Democrats to put the question on the ballot. The Democrats agreed not to filibuster if the referendum was held during the August primary rather than the November general election, said State Senator Jane Cunningham, a Republican who sponsored the bill. With an open seat for the Senate on the line, the Democrats did not want to encourage heavy turnout among conservatives in November.

The legislation passed each chamber comfortably, winning a number of Democratic votes. By addressing the issue as a statutory ballot measure, the lawmakers managed to bypass Mr. Nixon, whose signature would otherwise be needed.

A spokesman for Mr. Nixon declined to reveal how the governor would vote on the referendum. The governor acknowledges that the health care law is not popular in his state, but has said he will work to maximize its benefits for Missouri. “This isn’t about protest,” he said recently. “It’s about progress.”

Support for the proposition is being rallied by Missourians for Health Care Freedom, which formed as an outgrowth of the legislative debate. The group raised $75,000 as of July 24, enough for radio advertising, yard signs and get-out-the-vote telephone banks, but not enough for television commercials.

“Do you think Washington knows what’s best for you and your family?” asks the group’s radio ad, which is playing on Christian and conservative talk stations.

The referendum is supported by the Missouri State Medical Association. The only organized opposition — beyond a Facebook page — has been mounted by the Missouri Hospital Association, which has spent more than $400,000 to send mailings to hundreds of thousands of homes, according to financial disclosure reports. The brochures warn that approval of Proposition C could burden hospitals, and their insured patients, with the cost of uncompensated care for people without health coverage.

“There’s an argument that a vote for Proposition C is a vote in support of freeloaders,” said David M. Dillon, a spokesman for the hospital association.

Mr. Dillon said there was no corresponding get-out-the-vote operation.

“I don’t even have someone I can direct people to,” he said. “There really isn’t an organized opposition. Frankly, we don’t want it perceived that we’re opposing it. But we certainly want people to understand that their choice has some implications.”
A version of this article appeared in print on August 1, 2010, on page A14 of the New York edition.

Proposition C provides Missourians a voice in the future of their own health care.

A “Yes” vote on Proposition C preserves your present right to keep your own health insurance plan or choose any other private plan or no plan without being penalized for that choice.  It also allows Missourians to select the federal government designed and approved insurance plan.

A “No” vote on Proposition C would limit Missourians to only a government designed and approved plan.

The ballot language reads:

Shall the Missouri Statutes be amended to:

*”Deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services.

*Modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies?”

The entire language of the two page bill may be found at the following link: http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills101/biltxt/truly/HB1764T.HTM.  It simply states that government may not, “penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services.”  It does not require that the state opt out of any federal program or bar Missourians from participating in any plan of their choice including the federally designed plan.

If Proposition C passes on August 3rd, it will become a Missouri statute.

Missourians will be the first Americans in the nation to have a vote on this issue.  It is a very important election.  Many people around the country will be watching for the Show-Me State election results.

For even more information, check out this website:  http://www.mohealthfreedom.org/

The Liberty Restoration Project held a counter protest/rally in SUPPORT of Prop C yesterday on the Plaza in Kansas City.  There was a rally AGAINST Prop C at the same time, same place as well.  We had well over 30 people come out in support of Prop C, handed out fliers educating the public on the issue, and urging voters to vote YES on Tuesday, August 3.  We had a great amount of positive feedback from passersby.  Many honked their horns and gave us the thumbs up!!  Below are photos and a video from yesterdays rally:

Missouri Proposition C

A Kansas City Star article can cover the details of Missouri Proposition C. Groups both for and against the law concerning the recent health care reform bill protested at the same time, yesterday at 5 in Mill Creek Park/Nichols Fountain on the Plaza. Six photos via http://blog.ericbowersphoto.com/2010/07/missouri-proposition-c/

07/29/10

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 5:00 am. It is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

July 28, 2010 10:40 PM

By Jane Cunningham

(The following is a rejected submission to the Kansas City Star)

I encourage your readers to vote yes on Proposition C, The Health Care Freedom Act, on August 3. It is a critical election since Missourians will be the first Americans in the nation to have a vote on Obamacare. Many around the country will be watching the election results from the Show-Me State.

In response to your July 23 editorial on Proposition C, my first reaction as the sponsor of the bill was, had you bothered to check with its sponsors you would have saved yourself the embarrassment of bold face inaccuracies.

The language of the measure simply states that the government may not “penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services.” It does not require the state to opt out of any federal program or bar Missourians from participating in any plan of their choice including any federally designed and approved plan. It would only keep them from being penalized, including criminally, for exercising their choices regarding healthcare.

The Health Care Freedom Act passed the Missouri Legislature with an overwhelming, bipartisan, supermajority vote of the House and the Senate with 68% of elected Representatives and Senators supporting the measure. Legislators in 42 States, or 84% of the states in the union, introduced similar measures in a push back of historic proportions against the intrusive overreach of the federal government in the area of health care.

If the Health Care Freedom Act is ratified by a majority of the voters on August 3, it will become a statute that will authorize Missouri’s Attorney General to defend Missourians against the mandates and penalties of Obamacare. Unlike you, that is hardly what I would call “futile.”

Eventually, the Missouri law, joined with similar laws and constitutional amendments from other states, will work its way to the US Supreme Court for a decision that has never been made in the history of America – is the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution so broad that the federal government can force individuals and employers to purchase a product — any product — with their own money against their will. Many constitutional attorneys and scholars believe that it is not. If the Kansas City Star believes that is a “futile” question to have addressed, perhaps you need to review the historical account of the Boston Tea Party with the resulting revolution and sacrifice that was made to protect similar rights.

With regard to your prediction that premiums would be reduced under the federal law, we need look no further than Massachusetts where a similar program to the federal mandate law has been tried. The results: premiums rose 40% and uninsured visits to the emergency rooms remained the same or rose slightly.

You stated that Proposition C was “instigated by an advocacy group amply funded by health insurers and drug companies.” This is just flat untrue! Had you done your homework by checking the Missouri Ethics Commission financial reports where all donations are required to be disclosed, you would have seen that no donations to the campaign committee, Missourians for Health Care Freedom, came from insurance or drug companies. I will accept your public apology for this misrepresentation of our effort on behalf of hundreds of citizens who flooded the Capitol urging relief from the federal takeover. This is the people’s bill and the people’s campaign from the bottom up.

Contrary to your statement about the ballots, Proposition C cost nothing to add to an already available ballot. Had you bothered to check the publicly available fiscal note on the bill from the Capitol Fiscal Oversight Office, you would have seen that a nonpartisan review showed a fiscal note of zero. Fiscal notes are required of all legislation that is considered in the House or Senate.

How you conclude that this will increase legal costs I don’t know since the Attorney General’s office is responsible for defending Missouri Statutes. That budget item remains the same no matter how many or how few state cases the office tries.

And, by the way, there is precedent for state laws to trump federal law contrary to your assertion.

I hope you will check your facts first for future recommendations, but perhaps there was never an intention for facts to interfere with your viewpoint.

It really boils down to whether you want government to make your health care choices or you want to make them yourself. If you want to make them yourself, you should vote yes on Proposition C.

via Yes On Prop C: What You Won’t Read In the Kansas City Star.

Today · 5:00pm – 6:30pm

Location Across from the Fountain at the Kansas City Plaza

47th and JC Nichols Parkway

Kansas City, MO

There is a rally for Vote “NO” on Prop C in the same location, we will be across the street. They're spreading misinformation about the bill and we need to educate people on the TRUTH!

Vote “YES!” on Prop C – August 3rd

via Facebook | Vote “YES” on Prop C Rally – The Plaza.

Mayor Mark Funkhouser kept up the pressure Tuesday for his irresponsible idea to strip millions of dollars out of the public safety sales tax and use the money to hire more police officers.Good thing that City Council member Cathy Jolly and others are pushing back. They don’t want to make any decision on how to use the tax until the police board weighs in next week. That makes excellent sense, especially since Police Chief Jim Corwin has adamantly refused to include new officers in his plan for using sales tax dollars.Instead, he wants to use most of the public safety funds for capital improvements, such as building new North and East patrols and a new crime lab.But on Tuesday, Funkhouser sent out a release imploring his “friends” to come to the council’s Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee meeting Wednesday and lobby the council to approve money for the officers.Jolly, who is chair of the panel, says she does not plan to take any vote on the matter on Wednesday. Instead, testimony will be taken but the committee will hold the matter – as it should – until next Wednesday, she says.Presumably, by then, the police board will have made its decision on what it would like to include in the tax. Right now, there’s a good bet that zero funding will be included for new officers. Police officials say the department can add more officers with the general fund – not depending on a sun-setted sales tax that could go up or down in revenues every year.So next Wednesday’s planned joint committee meeting with police board members could be the key to what goes on the ballot in November.Funkhouser, naturally, will keep pushing his bad idea. Let’s hope the police board on which the mayor sits and the council don’t approve it. mailTell a friend fb Share on Facebook twitterTweet thisComments: 1. D h: — Jul 27, 2010 3:57 p.m. They really need to start thinking what is going to happen when the E-tax go’s away after November . 2. Nukman: — Jul 27, 2010 3:59 p.m. A couple of weeks ago someone tried to break into my house while my wife was home alone. She called 911 and it took the police from between 7 and 10 minutes to respond. I believe that this was the same individual who broke into a house just south of 103rd Street in Leawood and raped a ninty year old woman. If the Leawood police had been as slow as the KCMO police my wife could have been another victim. KCMO needs more police officers on the street.

via Jolly pushes back on bad police plan | Midwest Voices.

Council members and more than a dozen community leaders debated the contentious issue of redistricting, which the city charter indicates should occur before the next city general election in March 2011.

The charter says the city council must draw new district lines when a third consecutive general election would be conducted with the same districts, and those districts have already been used for the 2003 and 2007 elections.

But most city council members and many of the community representatives weren’t happy about that, saying this is the worst possible time to try to redraw the lines — just as a new election season is heating up.

“It’s not good government for us to sit here and draw these lines with everyone’s re-election looming,” Councilwoman Cathy Jolly said.

Critics of redistricting at this time said they don’t have enough reliable racial and ethnic demographic data to redraw the council districts in a way that will give all residents fair representation to make sure they’re not disenfranchising minority voting blocs. They also complained that the city will just have to redo the whole thing when formal 2010 census data become available, probably in April 2011.

But Councilman Ed Ford said the council needs to follow the charter and confront the issue.

“It makes more sense to bite the bullet and do this now,” Ford said. “What other sections of the charter do you want to ignore that you find inconvenient?”

Several Northland community leaders noted that the population has grown most dramatically north of the river in the past decade. It’s time, they said, to shrink those districts geographically, while increasing the size of other districts, to make sure the voting representation is fair and to make sure that the money that the city distributes between the six districts is split equitably.

The council late Thursday directed the city manager and city attorney to develop alternatives for redistricting, including the possibility of an advisory committee, and to report back by next Thursday.

via KC redistricting becomes contentious issue with council members, community leaders – KansasCity.com.