Editorial: Reduction of House from 163 to 103 Bad Idea

There is a ballot initiative petition in circulation which would reduce the number of House members in the State of Missouri from 163 to 103. This is a bad idea for a simple reason -- it takes away power from the people and into the hands of a select few. Missouri's legislative system has been in place for over 40 years and it is fair and adequate the way it is.

It used to be that every county had its own legislator -- which meant Worth County always had a seat at the table because they were able to elect their own legislator. Sheridan's own H.F. "Hoot" Holland served this county in the legislature for many years; Joe Jackson served in the legislature from 1960-1962. This was discarded in favor of the current system in order to give minorities better representation and to provide a better balance of power; everything is now done by population.

The result has worked out well. Speaking from personal experience, we knew each of the last three legislators of this area -- Mike Thomson, Rex Barnett, and Brad Lager -- personally before they ran for office. Sam Graves is part of a well-known farming family and he successfully translated that into a political career. Everett Brown was an institution at Northwest Missouri State before he served in the legislature. And Jerry Drake (remember the "I Care" buttons?) was an established attorney in the area before he ran for the legislature and won in 1972 in the face of the Nixon landslide.

And the personal service that one gets from this setup has surprised a lot of people who have moved in from elsewhere -- the last thing that Sheridan Express columnist Mickey Floyd (who was used to the kind of distant and impersonal service that certain other states have) expected was a personal visit from Mike Thomson in response to a piece that Mr. Floyd wrote. In our experience, when we query either of our current legislators, we generally get a personal response. Once, we called Sam Graves' office asking him to vote a particular way on a piece of legislation and he called us back personally. And people like Thomson come back home all the time even when the legislature is in session to meet with constituents and discuss their concerns; he has gotten universal credit for going all over his district to attend community events.

The problem is that if we reduce the number of House seats in the state, we take away that kind of personal service that we here in Missouri take for granted sometimes. It may be justified by the kind of tight budgets that the state is having. But it is simply not worth it. Given the kind of tight times we are experiencing, we need more power to the people and more personal service from the people we elect to represent us, not less.