My Personal Blog - SeanandRuth.us

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Questions about 8th District - Who do you support? What about Crowell?

After my last post, I got an email asking why I didn't mention Jason Crowell or how the Missouri House only narrowly has a veto-proof majority.

The House has 163 seats. Veto-proof means 2/3rds of those seats would have to be Republican. 163 x .66666666 = 108.66666 Rounding up, that means 109 seats.

According to this SEMissourian.com news article, that's how many Republicans reps. there are: 109

Thus if Rep. Jason Smith or Ron Richarson were nominated, there is no longer a veto-proof majority for Republicans.

My friend commended Jason Crowell as  a strong, solid conservative.

What are your thoughts?

It seems like the House doesn't necessarily get down to business until the end of the session, and it seem like are replacement would elected if Smith or Richarson were nominated. (Logically it's hard to believe that an entire district would go without representation for an entire session!!)

Yet, with 12 candidates in the race, it's hard to believe that either Smith or Richarson (or Kinder for that matter) would really have some special quality that justifies giving the Democrats an edge.

My friend also mentioned that Nixon appointed a Republican state representative to some state board to bring the number down to the absolute minimum of 109. (Yes, after Nov. 8th there were 110 Republican reps in the MO House!)

That being said, it seems like the Republicans struggle to get on the same page because too many are not aligned by principle and are divided by special interests.

Who is the best candidate to be nominated in 8th?

2 comments:

Jon Owens said...

Ruth, there is a slight oversight in your math. Assuming if Jason Smith or Richardson vacated the seat to replace Emerson, you would not use 163 for a two-thirds calculation; instead, you would use 162. Two-thirds of 162 is 108. Therefore, Republicans would retain the veto-proof majority even with losing Smith or Richardson.

Ruth said...

Jon, thanks for clarifying that. I just keep hearing that the legislature would lose it's veto-proof majority, but your logic makes sense.