St. Louis Public Radio Story on the Nicastro Scandal

Dale Singer has a nice story up at the newly merged St. Louis Public Radio/Beacon site on the Nicastro controversy.  There's a lot in there, so please read the whole thing, but here are a few highlights:

Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal says that Nicastro has not been honest during her time at DESE:

“My total issue,” she said, “has been her not being transparent and telling the truth. She tells school board members one thing and she tells senators and representatives something else. Since I serve in both capacities, I’m hearing both sides.”

Specifically, Chappelle-Nadal complained that when Normandy absorbed the Wellston school district in 2010, she was told that the district would not lose accreditation for at least three years. The district lost accreditation two years later, leading to the student transfers that have resulted in serious financial problems and questions about whether the district can survive.

“When you make a commitment,” Chappelle-Nadal said, “you stick to your commitment. The one thing I will never ever ever ever tolerate is an administrator who misrepresents the truth and makes misstatements and outright lies.

It doesn't look like the controversy is going away any time soon.  The Kansas City School District filed suit to prevent the state's breakup of their school district, stating that Nicastro has been working "covertly to orchestrate a breakup of (the district) into charter schools."

And Tom Schweich has asked for documents to investigate Nicastro's decision to change wording on DESE's cost estimate (or lack thereof).  There are reasons, however, to be skeptical about the chances of Schweich taking any action that would negatively impact Sinqeufield's agenda. Many reasons.

Mike Jones, a senior policy adviser to Charlie Dooley and the vice president of the state board of education, had a jaw-dropping quote:

“But the process of making the sausage is a different issue. I’m big on accountability. I think transparency is fairly overrated. Transparency is a liberal fetish. It’s way overemphasized.”

 His full quote is a little more nuanced and contains some interesting observations:

“On one side you have the education reform establishment. There is a small group of people who want it to work for all children, then there are two other groups: libertarians, who live in a fantasy world and don’t believe in public education, and corporate interests, who see education as a cash cow.

“Then you have the education establishment. They are genuinely concerned about the education of kids, except they collectively seem to lack the will to fundamentally change the way we deliver public education. They have lost the moral high ground.”

It sounds like Jones is thoughtful about this issue, but I have a feeling the transparency quote is not going to go over very well and will lead to future headaches.

Finally, I wanted to make sure to flag this important tidbit:

Sinquefield has declined repeated requests for an interview on his stand on education issues.

Rex spends millions to bend state policy to his will, relying on slick advertising campaigns and predetermined "reports" from stink tanks rather than comprehensive, honest debate.  So it figures that he would not want to answer questions about his true views.  

Support Local Control By Signing Up for Group Headed By Anti-LGBT Former Legislator?

Let me reiterate that I 100% support the citizens of St. Louis City having control over the police department. Excellent pieces in the St. Louis American, including a column by Jamala Rogers, who's been working on this issue for years, successfully make the case that even people who have suspicions about collaborations with Rex Sinquefield should support the passage of the bill. I think everyone should contact their state senators and tell them to support the bill, and I've been very disappointed in Maria Chapelle-Nadal for holding out on this issue, even if I agree with her reasons for distrusting Rex Sinquefield.

I'll further add that I don't think the argument that this is a nothing more than an opportunity for the city to raid police pensions is a good one. The pensions seem reasonably protected in the proposed legislation, and the reality is that cities across the state and country have been in control of their own police departments for a long time: that's just how the system should work in a representative democracy.

However, I still have some pretty major concerns with how the campaign is being conducted by certain members of the St. Louis political establishment. As pointed out earlier, several local politicians had been directing people to sign up for a local control lobby day without informing people that they were signing up through Rex Sinquefield's group, which could presumably be used to push destructive right-wing ideas like the mega sales tax. In fact, with the exception of State Representative Jamilah Nasheed, many of these local officials whom I asked directly refused to commit to fight the mega sales tax. Martin Casas, when asked point blank on my facebook wall, said that he didn't have a position on the mega sales tax issue, a remarkable statement for someone running as a Democrat for Jeanette Mott Oxford's seat:
(to see why the mega sales tax is such an obviously horrible idea for anyone remotely progressive, and even too extreme for many Republicans, see here and here and here)

Casas is now back with a new article on the issue for Vital Voice. He argues that local control is an LGBT issue, since the city of St. Louis is more LGBT-friendly than the state of Missouri. However, at the bottom of his post, he asks people to "sign the petition for a safer Missouri:"

The petition page it goes to is pretty clear that it is signing people up for the Rex Sinquefield bankrolled group, United For Missouri:

And, as aficionados of this blog or FiredUp Missouri will know, the executive director of United For Missouri is Carl Bearden, who moved there after he was done working for the Koch Brothers' astroturf Americans for Prosperity group in Missouri.

Why is this important? Because Bearden had a long record of anti-LGBT activity when he was a Republican leader in the Missouri House of Representatives.

Bearden voted to ban the existence of gay/straight student alliances in Missouri.

He was a co-sponsor of HB885 in 2004, which would "Prohibit public institutions or any entity receiving state funds from adopting discrimination policies that exceed state and federal protections against discrimination."

He voted in favor of placing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Missouri on the 2004 ballot.

In other words, Bearden's record was nothing more than the most cynical of Republican strategies of bashing the LGBT community to score political points with social conservatives in Missouri.

Like I said, I'm in favor of local control and I even understand why Democrats might want to work with conservative allies to get it. However, are we really supposed to believe that Mayor Slay or the Young Democrats of St. Louis can't simply make their own petition and email list rather than gathering signatures for a leader of anti-LGBT activities of the legislature a few years ago? Couldn't Slay's group use some of the Civic Progress money they're funneling to cronies (some of whom worked for Rex on the other end of the earnings tax initiative) to get one of their buddies to do two hours of work to make their own petition site? And Casas is running for office: shouldn't he be building his own email list? I think it's ridiculous that the community of Vital Voice is being asked to support Bearden's organization, when other clear alternatives could be available.

I highly encourage people to contact their Missouri State Senator and tell that Senator that they support local control. I would also recommend contacting Maria Chapelle-Nadal and respectfully telling her that you think it's important that people have oversight of their own police department. And if you don't mind being on Sinquefield and Bearden's email list, by all means sign that petition as well, now that you know what you're getting yourself into.

Update: If you're interested in working to support local control, I'd recommend signing up with CAPCR, a group that has been working on this issue for a long time, well before any of Rex's money got involved: capcr_cob@hotmail.com

Endorsements for August 3rd

The August 3rd primaries are coming up in Missouri, so I thought I'd share my 2 cents on a few of the upcoming races. I don't claim to be an expert on the intricacies of all of the local races, and as you'll see I don't have a strong opinion on many of the contests, but I thought it might be helpful to share at least one perspective from a progressive point of view on the elections. The November general elections are often the traditional Democrat v. Republican matchup, so primaries can be a great opportunity is a place like the St. Louis area to really look for candidates that reflect the values you care about.

So with no further ado...

The Most Important Point: VOTE NO ON PROP C! Proposition C is a right wing attempt to roll back the health care reforms passed after a long and brutal struggle earlier in the year. As has been pointed out by those on the left and the right, Proposition C will not be legally binding. However, it's an attempt by the Right to create the impression that people are opposed to the reforms (many of which have not even taken effect yet). In fact, with support of the new health care laws growing, this vote can be seen largely as an attempt by the Right to shift momentum back in their favor. The Right in Missouri has been organizing around this issue for a while, with no comparable effort on the Left, so Prop C is likely to win. However, since it's really about sending a message, and since the Right has raised the goalposts pretty high (for example, right-wing blogger Jim Durbin at 24thstate, who's been working on this campaign for a while, said they were aiming at getting 75% of the vote), we can send a strong message by generating a significant No on Prop C vote. Basically every vote matters for the national narrative, and everyone who votes against Prop C and for moving forward rather than backwards on healthcare reform can help shape the message for the November elections.

Missouri House Races: Pastor James Morris is a strong progressive who is very connected with the activist community. I strongly support his bid for re-election.

There are a couple of Democratic candidates who I would say are not part of the establishment and have real potential to improve the Missouri House of Representatives. Doug Clemens in MO district 77 might not call himself "progressive" on his website, but I'd say he stands for the core values of the Democratic Party: he's labor-friendly, he's environment-friendly, and he understands the need to combine the two values by helping to create green jobs. Many of the people whose opinions I value most are supporting Clemens' campaign. You can find out how to help Clemens campaign by clicking here. Byron DeLear also supports the creation of green jobs, and he brings an expert perspective as someone who has been working in the clean-energy industry and who helped pass the Property Assessed Clean Energy bill through the Missouri House. It would be fascinating to see what effect a genuine green jobs expert could have in the Missouri legislature. Find out how to help Byron here.

Missouri Senate: I don't have definitive opinions on any of these races, but I do have a few thoughts. Probably any of the four candidates in the Democratic Primary for the 14th district would be reliable progressive votes. I used to really like Maria Chapelle-Nadal, but have been very disappointed in some of her recent antics, from her obnoxious comments on Twitter, to her recent ridiculous legal threats (which she refuses to support with any evidence) against my friend Clark at Show Me Progress, to a couple other things that I won't bother to mention. If she was elected, she hopefully would vote the right way and maybe could even because a strong progressive voice in the Senate, but some of her behavior strikes me as pretty serious warning signs. Among the other candidates (Don Calloway, Joe Adams, Ted Hoskins), I don't have strong views. Don Calloway wrote a blog post several years ago that I thought very nicely articulated a progressive vision for St. Louis, and I trust the judgment of a couple of intelligent young progressives who have been working hard for his campaign, but I realize this probably isn't enough to base a "full endorsement" on.

Similarly, in the 24th District Senate Democratic Primary, I don't have a conclusive opinion. This case is a little different, however, because whomever wins will have a competitive Republican challenger in November. The race is for the seat of Senator Joan Bray, one of the most important progressive voices in Jefferson City, so I'm inclined to support Bray's strong endorsement of Barbara Fraser. She seems to me to have a stronger chance of victory in the general election.

One last thing: if you are a conservative who by some odd twist of fate stumbled across this website, surely you would support a genuine conservative like Chuck Purgason in the Republican Senate primary rather than a D.C. insider Corporocrat like Roy Blunt, right? It seems clear to me that anyone who, like the St. Louis Tea Party, supports Blunt over Purgason in the primary, is standing not for conservative values but for the exact Government-playing-favorites-based-on-who-donated-the-most ideology that free market enthusiasts claim to oppose. Just sayin.

So, those are my thoughts. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

Update: for information about voting rights and election day, click here.