Davis: Tuesday's Election

Paws and Relax Pet Spa, owners Jessica and Matthew Uzzetta (to my left), offers stress-free, cage-free play time and a large private fenced yard among other services. The recent ribbon cutting was held at their 1330 Sunburst Drive location in O'Fallon.

What Happened Tuesday?

Last Tuesday appears to have been a surprise to everyone.  The Missouri House has never had 106 Republican members since its inception.  It takes 109 votes to override a veto, so the majority is positively remarkable.  Additionally, this election produced a historic record of 41 women for the Missouri legislature. The previous high was 40 in 1999. For most of the eight years I served, there were eight other women Republican House Members.  Yesterday, I counted 17 women Republican House Members.

Having attended many women legislators meetings, it is common to hear speakers say, "If only we had more women in the legislature."  I wish they knew how sexist that sounds.  One can no more judge the benefit of a woman legislator by her gender, than by her hair or skin color.  We don't need more women; we need more principled legislators who are educated about our constitutional rights, the purpose of government and the importance of traditional marriage as the bedrock for every community and civilization.

Several of my constituents asked me about the judges.  Until yesterday, it was hard to have any hope for correcting the judicial branch of government because even though you see plenty of judges on the ballot, it is nearly unheard of for a judge to lose a retention vote. The judges don't campaign like other candidates do because they don't want voters to speculate on whether they are prejudiced about upcoming cases. Therefore, we are relegated to voting for people who appear to be "nice", rather than scrutinizing over whether they have a deep understanding of our laws, constitutions and the scope and purpose of the judicial branch of government.

When three activist judges in Iowa tried to legislate from the bench, they lost their seats last Tuesday.  The message is clear:  If judges want to act like legislators, they will lose their elections like legislators.  We should all be encouraged to know that even though it is very difficult, it is possible. Here is a link to two news stories about how voters took action to correct the problem of the renegade judges in Iowa: Iowa State Daily and New York Times.

In other good news, the voters of District 19 elected a very qualified replacement for me. I will be introducing you to Kurt Bahr in future Capitol Reports.

Dialoging with you is good, so please let me know what you think about Tuesday's election. You can send me your opinion by clicking here: Cynthia Davis

A Little Bit of Humor

A man walked into a bar with a shotgun in one hand and pulling a bull with the other. He ordered a drink, downed it, turned around and shot the bull -blowing his guts all over the place- then left. The next day, he came in again with the shotgun and another bull. He ordered a drink, downed it, turned around, and shot the bull, blowing his guts all over the place. While walking out the bartender grabbed him and asked, "What are you doing"? The man replied. "I'm practicing to be a politician. I come in here, party with a few drinks, shoot the bull and leave the mess for someone else to clean up!"