Jess Piper is an educator, a blogger, and a farmer in rural Missouri. In this post, she describes an extremist in the state legislature who wants to defund public libraries, Planned Parenthood, and public schools.
Now Rep. Cody Smith, chair of the House Budget Committee, is running for State Treasurer, and no Democrat is running against him. He can flourish as an extremist because he is unopposed.
She writes:
Uncontested seats are undemocratic. This is the story of one of those seats:
Last year, Missouri Representative Cody Smith, the House Budget Committee Chairman, proposed a motion to defund public libraries in the state? Why? Because lawmakers were trying to pass a bill to ban “pornography” in libraries. The bill would actually limit classic books and literature that may be offensive to some, but is literature none the less.
So, the ACLU, the Missouri Association of School Librarians, and the Missouri Library Association sued the state. In retaliation, Rep Smith moved to strip public libraries from the state budget. To defund public libraries. He failed…
Now he’s going after Planned Parenthood, which no longer provides abortion services, but does offer women’s health services, like screening for breast cancer.
He also is promoting a universal school voucher program that would subsidize every student currently enrolled in private and religious schools. The cost might be as much as $1 billion a year.
Here is the worst part, friends. He’s running for State Treasurer…against two other Republicans. Not one Democrat has filed to run as of today.
We. Can’t. Win. When. We. Don’t. Run.
Representative Smith also ran unopposed in 2022. He just walked right into the Capitol and wrote bills to defund public libraries, public schools, and Planned Parenthood. He has been made near-invincible by the power to not have to answer to constituents. If he has no fear of opposition, he can be as extreme as his donors would like. And, that seems to be exactly what he’s doing.
Last year, 40% of Missouri House seats went unopposed. We let 66 Reps win by default, and friends, this is undemocratic. Most of these seats are in rural parts of the state…Rep Cody Smith is from Carthage, population 15K. Cody faced no opposition, won without any contest, and then wrote bills that could harm millions of folks in our state.
I work with Blue Missouri for this reason—I believe in running everywhere. Even in rural races. Even in places we know won’t flip for a few cycles. Robert Hubbell wrote about our organization a few days ago after hearing about what we are doing in Missouri…here it is.
Run Everywhere. Contest every damn seat.
So many statehouse races have gone uncontested and unsupported. Democrats in these districts, especially rural Dems like those in my community feel abandoned, ignored…forgotten. Meanwhile, GOP nominees get free passes to the Capitol to do the business of extremist donors.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
We can show up for Missouri’s Democrats, making sure no Democrat gets left behind. No Missouri voter is left without a choice. No Republican gets a free ride.
That’s the plan to deal with folks like Representative Smith. We take back our state seat by seat. We contest every single one of them on every ballot across the entire state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
While I sympathize with this author, as a rural resident of a really red state I must ask if running is better than sitting it out. It may be time to pursue rural votes energetically. It may also be time to let the Republicans own the problems of their domination.
All around me, the problems with Republicans are showing up. Their infrastructure expenditures are allowing roads, bridges, and schools to deteriorate. They are responsible for a lot of things that people will soon be tired of. Perhaps we should wait a cycle or two and then descend into the fray by hanging potholes around the neck of local political figures, most of whom are demonstrating a level of incompetence that is breathtaking.
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Exactly. In my red state, Democrats are just beaching themselves like whales if they keep running .Republicans here would vote for Atilla the Hun if he had an R next to his name.
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Same here. It’s disheartening to, time after time, deliver local Democratic candidate pamphlets door to door, try to engage residents and, then, have all of the candidates (it’s similar in almost all of the Ohio counties) lose by margins like 70-30.
However, I think Jess has a better shot if she can connect with the young. They need to know there’s another party that stands for something different.
I was at a social function yesterday and talked with a local elected township councilman- life-long Republican with an adult son who for years has received benefits from the state and feral government that he estimates cost $100,000 a year. The councilman talked to me about the need for legal aid similar to medicaid. Despite the inconsistencies, he can never change his political affiliation because it is, at his core being- based on conservative religion (grew up in Catholic Cincinnati, sent his kids to Catholic schools). His daughter who has had IVF broke from his religion long ago.
If Jess, Roy and TOW’s experiences are like mine, during election season, there are too many signs to count that describe candidates as conservative and/or Christian.
Up in Elise Stefanik’s district in N.Y., it’s the same absence of understanding. A young guy who had a double organ transplant while he was on Medicaid now, one year later, complains about the taxes deducted from his paycheck.
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In the past, Missouri was a purple state. A number of progressive Democrats effectively purged a number of moderate and conservative Democrats from the party, turning the legislature very red. To field Democratic Party candidates statewide and in rural areas, the progressive Democrats will need to discontinue their circular firing squad approach.
Perfect should not prevent the possible.
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Not so long ago, Missouri had a Democratic Senator—Claire McCaskill
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Senator McCaskill is a moderate who had been a County Prosecutor and statewide auditor. She had been fortunate in the state auditor race to have Republican guy win the primary that the Republicans didn’t want. She luckily won the U.S. Senate seat against Todd Akin, who was famous for his “legitimate rape” interview with Charles Jaco. It would be wonderful to have Claire McCaskill instead of Josh Hawley.
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Democrat Tim Ryan’s campaign was well-funded and he ran an excellent campaign. JD Vance got the win.
IMO, the formidable force that guarantees
the GOP wins in the central states is the
conservative churches, the Christians from the pulpits and Bible study, social events and the Catholic Conferences, bishops and, many of the priests.
The political axis of protestant evangelical and right wing Catholic leaders doomed central states to the reactionary policies of extremist Republicans like Josh Hawley and JD Vance.
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Extremism and polarization also appear to result in uncontested races. It points to a need to revise our campaign finance rules. When there is a supermajority of one party in a district, there is less likely to be those that challenge the incumbents. I live in Matt Gaetz’s district in Florida. One of the reasons he can be such a jerk is he knows he is well insulated from losing an election. We had a former military officer and former GOP voter with a stellar history run as a Democrat and challenge Gaetz in the last election. He spent a lot of money and could not make a dent in the supermajority.
Money is a driving factor in elections in this country. Middle class people cannot afford the risk to run unless they have some hope of winning. Often it is the person with the biggest war chest that wins elections. This system also makes candidates vulnerable to serving special interests instead of the needs of voters. If we had a system in which all candidates receive the same amount from the government, we would better serve democracy and attract more divers candidates. Working class people would be more willing to run despite the odds in a supermajority district, if they did not have to mortgage their homes to do so.
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cx: diverse
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RT: (use this monicker since it was always my teaching nickname)
I would agree, except that dark money advertisements would drown the system without protection against them. “Tell Senator Lib to quit beating his wife” type ads would be even worse than they are if that can be.
If there is an electorate stupid enough to vote in Gaetz, it is because they are insulated from truth by their own geographic isolation and their own stupidity.
So what can be done? I say we need politically blind districting. I am not sure how this could be accomplished, but we could start with consideration of the physical and human geography of any area. Right now, parties divide their foes and conquer. We need a constitutional amendment that requires all districting to be done blindly. This becomes difficult at the smaller divisions of things, but I am tired of meeting people in a big city whose vote is meaningless because it goes into a pot with people whose interests run counter to their own.
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Running for office is easier said than done. It takes money. Where is that coming from?
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Being a southerner, I have spent most of my adult life in uncontested districts. The first time I voted in Alabama in 2014, barely 30% of eligible voters bothered to turn up. Too many politicians get to pick their voters when it should be the other way around.
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These links may help explain why — or may not:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/party-affiliation/by/political-ideology/among/state/missouri/
Some state are so far to the right, the Democrats prefer not to throw money away there when the cash needs to be spent in battleground states where the margin to win is often thinner than a single hair.
Still, the next link from the same source shows registered Democrats and Republicans are almost neck and neck.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/missouri/party-affiliation/
WIth the results of the 2020 election, I’m starting to think the Democrats shouldn’t give up in Missouri. Pay attention to the numbers, not the map.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/missouri
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Open Secrets has a page for Helias Catholic high school in Jefferson City, Missouri. The page conveys that “Individuals” (not, the institution) made sizable contributions to Republicans, Josh Hawley and Rick Battin (about whom Jess recently wrote) and, to the College Republican National Committee. No Democrat recipients are listed. I don’t know if the info. is correct. IMO, each state should have journalists exploring support for Republican candidates and organizations that comes from individuals earning incomes at Catholic schools.
If our tax dollars, indirectly, fund a exclusionary link between theocracy and the party of trump, the public should be informed.
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