Harry S Truman, Missouri’s favorite son, is credited with a quote that doesn’t get enough play in today’s divided political system:
“It is amazing what can be accomplished if you do not care who gets the credit,†said the nation’s 33rd president.
Too much of politics today is built around an opposite philosophy, with each party trying to use votes in legislative bodies to inflict maximum political damage on opponents.
That is why the passage of , signed by Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday, was such an important accomplishment for the 2015 Missouri Legislature and for the St. Louis region. The bill, which will reduce the amount of traffic revenue cities can use to balance their budgets, is more important for the coalition it built than the actual effect it may or may not have over time.
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Sponsored by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, the bill is the Legislature’s top response to the Ferguson unrest. It attempts to address the insidious practice in many north St. Louis County municipalities of using police departments and municipal courts not for justice, but as fundraisers. Cops and courts were ordered to fill city treasuries by using drivers, many of them poor and black, as virtual ATM machines.
The bill says the 90 St. Louis County municipalities can generate only 12.5 percent of their budgets from traffic offenses. The law may start a domino effect, forcing many of those municipalities, and their 57 police departments and 81 municipal courts, to start merging.
At its worst, this longtime practice in the St. Louis region for failure to pay traffic tickets, turning governments into operators of unconstitutional debtor’s prisons.
“There’s been a breakdown of trust between people and their government and their courts,†Mr. Schmitt Thursday, hours before Mr. Nixon signed the bill. “This is a cause worth fighting for. The stakes couldn’t be higher.â€
Reducing incentives for cities to operate debtor’s prisons is justice, and it was made possible because a diverse coalition worked together to learn from the Ferguson unrest and seek a solution focused on success, not credit.
The result, of course, is that everybody gets the credit. Mr. Schmitt and his fellow Republicans. Mr. Nixon and his fellow Democrats. The media, local and national. The business community. The protesters. The police. The . The Missouri Supreme Court, specifically Judge Mary Russell. The nonprofit Arch City Defenders, a group of lawyers seeking justice for poor citizens needing a voice. St. Louis University law professors, especially Brendan Roediger and John Ammann. The nonprofit organization that published studies on how much money each St. Louis County municipality was raising from traffic tickets.
In a divided St. Louis region, Senate Bill 5 brought us together.
In fact, the coalition built to pass the legislation has been so successful in raising awareness of the traffic-court cabal that has ruled in St. Louis County for too long that the law might be obsolete before it ever takes effect.
In the time between when the Legislature passed the bill, and Thursday, when Mr. Nixon signed it, some remarkable things have taken place.
• First, the Missouri Supreme Court has taken up the cause of municipal court reform, recognizing its constitutional role as supervisor of all the state’s courts. The court has appointed to study the municipal courts and propose reforms. If it does what it should do, what this page and the Ferguson Commission have urged, the Supreme Court will make most of the municipal courts go away. They should become part of the circuit court or divisions of a countywide municipal court. This will erase the profit motive, bring a higher level of justice to the courts and eliminate the conflicts of interest rampant in a system that sees the same lawyers wearing multiple hats as prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers.
• St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, hardly a leader in the municipal consolidation movement, has decided that the parts of Senate Bill 5 that raise police standards take too long (six years) to implement. So he’s planning on asking the County Council to and put them into place more quickly.
All of this is a result of a thoughtful debate happening simultaneously throughout St. Louis and in the Legislature. The role of police and courts is under study. So is the monstrosity that fragmented government has become. There simply are too many small municipalities without the financial resources to survive.
A smart coalition has formed around the idea that the time for St. Louis to change is now.
How many municipalities? How many police departments? How many courts?
The numbers are elusive. Our favorite number is one. One St. Louis. One united future.
But whatever the ultimate number, there is widespread agreement that what we have been doing for decades isn’t working. St. Louis is changing. The Senate Bill 5 debate helped make it happen.
Everybody take a bow.
