Capitulation

Two years ago, while enduring sunsets at 4 p.m. along the Kentish Riviera and a successful grassroots efforts to make an anarchist's breakthrough track from 1992 the top song the week of Christmas, I began work on a novel approach to connecting everyday Missourians with their already approachable state representatives and senators in Jefferson City. Over the course of 27 months, over 35 lawmakers submitted their weekly capitol reports and various news releases for publication in Missives from Missouri.

Unfortunately, as I am now in the second year of my full-time radio job (and by full-time, I mean 60+ hours of news writing, copy editing, Cool Editing (I'm not bothering to upgrade to Audition), driving to and from council meetings, running the board during high school ball games, even getting to call some ball games, touring battlefields and on and on), time has gravely diminished to the point where maintaining Missives has become impossible to keep current.

It is with grave reluctance and disappointment that I announce that I am discontinuing updates on Missives. While a novel concept and one I enjoyed performing for much the past two years, the time and incentive required to maintain it has proven insufficient to warrant its continuation. (And if such incentive or marketability were to come up, I am very much open to the idea.)

Missives helped pull me from a dark moment in my life. My return from England was far from ideal, and while I had the greatest support system in my family anyone could ever ask for (and a job interview a week later at a station in the Lead Belt), I was far from confident in myself and felt useless. Just by contributing those snippets to the political discussion in our state I began to regain that confidence. And while I was a sandwich delivery driver, I kept my skills and focus honed on this task.

I'm amazed by the effort that many in the state blogosphere continue to contribute: first and foremost John Combest, whose headline aggregations are now in their second decade. Joplin's Eli Yokley has also been doing great work with PoliticMO. Indeed the list can go on and on with Randy Turner, Jason Rosenbaum, partisans on the left, partisans on the right, etc. etc. It takes a great devotion and stamina to stay focused on your craft, as does a willingness to risk one's investment of time and money, and most importantly, faith in yourself.

However, I can claim a minor victory: since starting this blog, increased interest has been paid to weekly columns. In this session, sign-up buttons have appeared on each state representative's page and state senators' columns now appear under their media section. Several other blogs have also taken to posting weekly reports, contributing these two cents to the political discussion. Of course, Missives took some of the legwork out.

I'll continue to read reports as they come in, and will likely weigh in on some from time to time in The Missouri Expatriate. And again, I'd love to bring this back up. But for now, it's time to dial things down and stick with making occasional comments from the sidelines of Missouri's 118th County.

Campaign.Mailers{at}mo.gov

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's "Political Fix" blog reports that Creve Coeur Rep. Jill Schupp, who is running unopposed for re-election to her House district, sent a campaign mailer from her former aide's Capitol e-mail address. Schupp is quoted in Tony Messenger's report as saying that it was her first time personally using the mass mailing client Constant Contact, that she was unaware that it had been set up that way, and that future mailers will come from a different e-mail address.

The missives in question were sent on 11 July and 11 May, from House.Mo.Gov addresses associated with Schupp and her office. As the operator of Missives from Missouri, I've been anticipating a mishap of this nature, as does happen often when politics mingle with new technologies and concepts.

And in this case, it has. To the untrained eye, Schupp's two e-mails did appear to come from her state office. This screenshot (click for full version) shows how I've set up Google Mail to place a label on every e-mail sent from House.Mo.Gov (Maroon) and Senate.Mo.Gov (Pink)

Also, as you can tell, GOP are Red, Dem are Blue, and e-mails sent by someone in a legislator's office is marked "Staffer". (And you can also tell that I've maintained support for the U.S. Soccer and Missouri's wineries, and even developed an interest in cricket. HOWZAT!)

In that screenshot, the mailing from Schupp, dated 11 July, was tagged as being from a House.Mo.Gov address. And this screenshot adds to that argument, but then re-qualifies it.

Here, the address and subject line affirms the source being from Rep. Schupp's office (and the address being a former staffer of the office), but adds that the e-mail itself was mailed through Constant Contact. However, it was signed by an account referring to Schupp's office and not her campaign, and on top of that (well, at the bottom of the mailing):
A re-affirmation of both the campaign nature of the mailer and the sender's address, from House.Mo.Gov.

Now again, I expected something like this to happen, and rather than continue providing screenshots until this is a shark-jumping, muck-racking escapade, I'll state my personal belief that this was an unfortunate oversight by Rep. Schupp. I anticipate the next mailer of this nature from the representative (provided my e-mail address isn't delisted!) to arrive from a different address. I should note, of course, that generally I don't post political mailers on Missives from Missouri, so as a result I opted to not post information on one State Senate candidate's barbecue for veterans in his district, or a discount that's being offered to readers of another campaign's followers for visiting a new restaurant. Both such items were sent from campaign addresses.

Ideally, lawmakers should follow in the example of lawmakers like Rep. Will Kraus of Lee's Summit and Sen. Joseph Keaveny of St. Louis City and maintain separate mailing lists for state and campaign business. Missives from both lawmakers, among others, have arrived from separate accounts. Reference the first screenshot, where the Keaveny Connection (which is providing exceptional publicity for organizations serving the St. Louis area) is tagged as being from Senate.Mo.Gov, but his later e-mail looking for canvassers for his campaign appears with only a DEM tag.

I have kept a close eye on weekly reports from both state and non-state addresses as to ensure that what's being posted is from a state legislator's perspective and not a political candidate. But of course, the line between state legislator and political candidate is often blurry, with caucuses from both parties providing material for their members to send home. Reports become as much an update to residents as they do a refresher of their legislators' values and political allegiances. State law, however, is clear in two areas:

1. State resources cannot be used, in an official capacity, for political campaigns.
2. Any e-mail sent from a state e-mail address to at least two people is available for public review through the Sunshine Law by anyone.

As such, any campaign material sent from either House.Mo.Gov or Senate.Mo.Gov will be published on Missives from Missouri, and I'm afraid Schupp's slip-up is not the only one that's been published in the seven months I've operated this site.

Yes, I'm noticing the patterns

As I'm getting everything sorted on my first full day back in the terra cognita of Northern Missouri, I'm keeping up with the Republican responses to Governor Nixon's State of the State address, which he began delivering as my flight was touching down at KCI. And I've noticed two things that are worrying me:

1. There are two responses, each being utilized by more than one state legislator. One is a prose version of the formal response delivered by Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, the other is a more condensed response. Already I've uploaded two missives which are near-identical repeats either.
   
   And yes, that's how it's going to be. Missives from Missouri desires to publish every weekly column and news release, and to do so with each legislator's full knowledge of it rather than invoking the Sunshine Law. If they're same, it's the legislators' prerogative, just as it is your prerogative to cast a vote for them or someone else.
   
2. Numbers of missives being published are disproportionately Republican. Again, it's just how it goes. Simply, more GOP reps & senators have availed themselves of the opportunity to have their missives published on Missives from Missouri than their Democratic counterparts. Ideally, I'd like 100% participation from both sides of the aisle.

Meanwhile, it's too quiet here. Could use a station for a high-speed train service. And some chicken jalfrezi. And two from the top and four from anywhere else to reach a target of 629.

In case that red badge to the right hasn't caught your attention already

Today is the first day of this year's Missouri General Assembly. And with a gunkload of more snow already falling on Missouri (that'll inundate the UK weekend after next – you've been forewarned again, Eurostar!) they won't convene on Thursday or Friday.

It gives everyone plenty of time to check out my new project, Missives from Missouri. This new project will post the weekly missives and news releases from many of the 197 members of the General Assembly. As of today, at least 23 members (14 house and nine senators) have indicated they will submit, or already are submitting, content to Missives from Missouri. And that number will grow as the session progresses.

Over time, it's my hope that Missives from Missouri will become a key addition to your bookmarked pages of Missouri political Web sites. This site will become an aggregate of reports and releases, sorted by legislator and the bills they mention. Any comments you may have about it, feel free to leave them here.