Lant: Voter ID Vetoed, Local Activities

Along with all the disaster news this past week is a quiet little tidbit from our Governor. He decided to veto the legislation for Voter ID and Early Voting. Missouri has tried to implement this idea before, only to be ruled unconstitutional in the courts. This time, after lawmakers worked to address the courts' concerns, it happens without the voters having the opportunity to voice their opinions. This will benefit only those who work to poison our elections through fraudulent and illegal activities.

There were provisions in the bill [SB3] to issue provisional ballots for those who didn't have proper ID, thereby they could come back later with proper papers. You can't even rent a movie nowadays without a picture ID, you would think the sacred right to vote would be at least as well protected.

Even though this has been vetoed, you will still see this question posed on the 2012 ballot as Senate Resolution 2 will proceed. We also have the opportunity to try a veto override or just try again next year. One thing I have learned for sure is very few things are passed the first time out. In reality, this is probably a good thing as we are forced to look at bills more than once and sometimes find better ways to present things.

The McDonald County Republican Club met last week and had a great meal at the home of Kenny Underwood. We were able to award two scholarships to area youth and heard from a couple of State Senate hopefuls. We also heard reports on the flooding and the great work of our local emergency responders. I've said it before, but we really need to offer a "Hats' Off" to all our volunteer fire and rescue people. They put in countless hours of training in order to be prepared to deal with disasters. Along with the tragedy at Joplin, we had tornado damage at Diamond and Granby and terrible flooding in McDonald County. This has been a rough spring for us but folks around here are amazingly tough! Now it looks like it's going to get hot and dry.

We can look forward to parades, picnics, fireworks and family get together of all kinds over the next couple of weeks. Last week I touched on how much there is to do right here in our area. We really have a lot of attractions close by that we overlook. In addition to the camping and river activities in McDonald County, we have the Carver Park in Diamond and the National Fish Hatchery in Neosho just to name a couple of attractions. There are many celebrations like Old Mining Town Days in Granby to look forward too and most of these things take very little gas and are either free admission or very cheap to participate in.

Have a safe and fun week. As always I am and remain, in your service.