He is Defunding the State and Running for Missouri Treasurer. Ope! He's Also Uncontested.
A Missouri GOP lawmaker has written bills to defund public libraries, Planned Parenthood, and public schools. He doesn't have a Democratic opponent.
Uncontested seats are undemocratic. This is the story of one of those seats:
Last year, Missouri Representative Cody Smith, the House Budget Committee Chairman, proposed a motion to defund public libraries in the state? Why? Because lawmakers were trying to pass a bill to ban “pornography” in libraries. The bill would actually limit classic books and literature that may be offensive to some, but is literature none the less.
So, the ACLU, the Missouri Association of School Librarians, and the Missouri Library Association sued the state. In retaliation, Rep Smith moved to strip public libraries from the state budget. To defund public libraries. He failed.
Missouri House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage (Photo courtesy of Tim Bommel, House Communications)
Now, Representative Cody Smith is back to his defunding bag of tricks, but his aim this time is Planned Parenthood.
You should know that Missouri was the first state to completely ban abortion after Roe fell. We had one abortion facility in the state and it has not performed abortions since the ban. So, what does Planned Parenthood do? The clinic provides: annual wellness exams, breast cancer screenings, HPV vaccines, Pap tests, testicular cancer screenings, birth control, yeast and UTI screenings and treatment, HIV screenings, and pregnancy tests among other things. Many of these services are provided to poor women and college students.
In a statement on Twitter, Cody Smith said, “This week, the Missouri House gave initial approval to my bill that will block Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood. While babies are already protected from abortions in Missouri, your tax dollars should never be spent on abortion facilities or their affiliates.”
Here’s the thing, the Missouri House has already attempted to defund Planned Parenthood this year and that attempt was struck down by the Missouri Supreme Court when it was ruled unconstitutional for the legislature to defund Planned Parenthood through the budget. This will be another loss for him.
But, let’s stay focused on the defunding Rep Smith enjoys so much.
What do you think he’s been doing to Missouri public schools? You got it. He’s desperately trying to defund them and divert taxpayer money to private religious schools.
From Smith’s statement on school vouchers, “HB 2620 proposes changes to the ‘Missouri Empowerment Scholarship’ program by expanding the definition of qualified students. The modification would broaden the eligibility… allowing more students to qualify for the scholarship account.”
That’s a lot of words to say that he plans to siphon taxpayer money from public schools to private religious schools. He is hoping for a universal voucher in Missouri that would expand the program and is projected to cost the state 9.5 million to 1 billion dollars. Yes, I said 1 billion. He plans to fund a completely separate educational system in the state while we are 50th in the nation for starting teacher pay and 49th in classroom funding.
Here is the worst part, friends. He’s running for State Treasurer…against two other Republicans. Not one Democrat has filed to run as of today.
We. Can’t. Win. When. We. Don’t. Run.
Representative Smith also ran unopposed in 2022. He just walked right into the Capitol and wrote bills to defund public libraries, public schools, and Planned Parenthood. He has been made near-invincible by the power to not have to answer to constituents. If he has no fear of opposition, he can be as extreme as his donors would like. And, that seems to be exactly what he’s doing.
Last year, 40% of Missouri House seats went unopposed. We let 66 Reps win by default, and friends, this is undemocratic. Most of these seats are in rural parts of the state…Rep Cody Smith is from Carthage, population 15K. Cody faced no opposition, won without any contest, and then wrote bills that could harm millions of folks in our state.
I work with Blue Missouri for this reason—I believe in running everywhere. Even in rural races. Even in places we know won’t flip for a few cycles. Robert Hubbell wrote about our organization a few days ago after hearing about what we are doing in Missouri…here it is.
Run Everywhere. Contest every damn seat.
So many statehouse races have gone uncontested and unsupported. Democrats in these districts, especially rural Dems like those in my community feel abandoned, ignored…forgotten. Meanwhile, GOP nominees get free passes to the Capitol to do the business of extremist donors.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
We can show up for Missouri’s Democrats, making sure no Democrat gets left behind. No Missouri voter is left without a choice. No Republican gets a free ride.
That’s the plan to deal with folks like Representative Smith. We take back our state seat by seat. We contest every single one of them on every ballot across the entire state.
We’ve drawn our line in the sand. This is our state too.
~Jess
Go for it! This is part of how Virginia Dems won back our state, including winning districts in good years that we weren’t expected to win. Democracy is won and saved at the local level by everyday leaders like you.
Great letter Jess. This, to me, is where the lack of organization and teamwork on the part of the Democrats works to our great disadvantage. We have Wesley Bell, a competent attorney with a very positive public image running against Cori Bush, an incumbent in a safe Democratic district with a national and growing positive reputation as a people-oriented legislator. If there were a strong party organization, someone there could suggest to Mr. Bell that his talents would be better used in a race against Smith where, with sufficient financial and GOTV support he could actually win. What Blue Missouri is doing is incredibly valuable already but would be much more so if the talent on the bench were better distributed.