Week that was: Blunt stands up, Hawley seeks cameras, abusive KCPD officers avoid jail

Only Blunt stands up for marriage rights

There’s nothing more personal than who we love, so here’s a hearty thank-you to retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, who signed on this week to a bill to protect Americans’ right to follow their hearts in marriage.

It’s shameful this legislation has to exist in the first place. But it’s the necessary reaction after right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ insult-to-injury concurrence to the unjust and unpopular Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade this summer. Since the court is now in the habit of reversing its own precedent, he wrote, it should also revisit its past rulings in favor of same-sex marriage and contraception. Curious, isn’t it, that he didn’t target interracial marriage, too? Maybe it’s because the wife of the Black justice is white. All politics is local at the Thomas household.

The Respect for Marriage Act has bipartisan support, but Blunt’s fellow Republicans from Missouri and Kansas chose to vote no. That’s no shock from culture warrior freshmen Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall, but we had higher hopes for Jerry Moran. Kansas’ senior senator has long talked a big game about personal freedom (including when it runs counter to rational public health policy, like COVID-19 vaccines). What’s more personal than whom you choose to marry?

Nobody has been or ever will be forced into a same-sex union against their will, and the lesbian couple living two doors down has no more effect on your life than the family with the cocker spaniel three houses in the other direction. Americans are strongly united supporting gay marriage — and they sent a clear message about the GOP attack on abortion rights in the midterms. The future is more liberty, not less, and Sens. Hawley, Marshall and Moran have written their names on the wrong side of it.

Josh Hawley has an eye on the cameras

Sen. Josh Hawley also made the news this week lambasting a government official for — wait for it — taking a vacation.

Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, took part in an August hearing before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, which counts Hawley as a member. In a hearing this week, Hawley claimed Wray left that August meeting to take some time off.

This angered the still-junior senator. “You left an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee required by statute so you could take a vacation with your family,” he told Wray. “I find that absolutely unbelievable, and frankly indefensible.”

The FBI director showed immense patience during this latest demonstration of Hawley’s stunning jackassery. Wray explained that he had arranged his departure with the committee’s leadership beforehand. He used a government plane to travel, he said, because the law requires it.

To the point: High government officials such as Wray are always in contact with supervisors and principals. His vacation wasn’t a normal vacation.

More to the point: Witnesses often answer written questions from senators after a hearing. If Hawley truly had an inquiry burning a hole in his shorts, he could have sent it to the FBI in writing, and received an answer. That was apparently unacceptable because it would not have been televised — which, of course, is also not acceptable to Josh Hawley.

Even more to the point: There are 304 days between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31. The Resume of Congressional Activity shows the Senate was in session for 148 of those days, or less than half the calendar.

If you take out weekends, the Senate still had 68 out-of-session days in 2022, or almost 10 weeks of off time. Do you get 10 weeks of vacation? Didn’t think so.

Senators work hard. So do FBI directors. Attacking either for taking a few days off is, frankly, indefensible.

House control a tricky gift to Republicans

Despite all the hand-wringing and internal bickering over the midterm results, the GOP did achieve its most important goal of the campaign: It displaced Democrats (and fired Nancy Pelosi) as the boss party in the U.S. House of Representatives. That’s no small deal, as in the House, the majority party rules with a much stronger grip than in the Senate, where even the minority can jam up the works. In the House, the Speaker decides every piece of legislation that will make it to the floor for a vote, and the majority, no matter how slim, appoints committee chairmen and women, and those roles come with the power to investigate just about anything they choose.

But if the majority remains as narrow as the ongoing vote-counting suggests it will, the new GOP Speaker — Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California or whomever prevails — will face a daunting challenge nonetheless. Even a few stray votes among the hard-right caucus will doom any legislative ambition, so long as the Democrats remain united. That’s one thing Pelosi excelled at: corralling the left wing of her party to keep her relatively slender majority united throughout the first two years of the Biden administration. The new GOP speaker may not be as fortunate, or as deft. Memories don’t have to be especially long to remember how disastrous the right wing was to Paul Ryan’s hopes of governing the House, or John Boehner’s for that matter. The latter retired after endless frustration with the House Freedom Caucus, which seemed to be taking its lead from Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, rather than House leadership.

Bottom line: Winning the House is a big victory for the GOP and spells gridlock for the Biden administration, no matter how rosy a spin the president tried to put on it Wednesday when congratulating McCarthy for his party’s win. But the new speaker will learn quickly that heavy lies the head that wears the crown.

Philanthropy boosts KC teachers, civil rights

‘Tis the season of giving, and Kansas City has been on the receiving end this week as billionaire MacKenzie Scott showered $6 million dollars here as part of a $2 billion giving spree she announced on Monday. The Kansas City Teacher Residency program and the Urban League of Greater Kansas City are two of the 343 organizations Scott donated to in support of “voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities,” she said in a Medium post.

The ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, Scott has a net worth of $334 billion and a 4% stake in Amazon, and is the third-wealthiest woman in the United States. So she’s not worried about how she’s going to pay the bills. But her gift will make a big difference not only for the two recipients but for Kansas Citians in general.

For the teacher program, “it’s transformative,” said Andrea Bright Harrell, the organization’s operations manager. With this infusion of funds, the one-year teacher certification program will be able to recruit and train more teachers to fill classrooms in area school districts struggling in the midst of a national teacher shortage. And with recent reports about how far behind students have fallen in math and English because of the pandemic, recruiting and training qualified teachers has never been more important.

For the Urban League, the million-dollar gift is “the largest, unrestricted, single contribution in the affiliate’s 102-year history. President and CEO Gwendolyn Grant said her organization “will use the gift to strengthen our capacity to advance our civil rights mission and continue to ensure that our programs remain a viable resource for those we serve.” The Urban League’s equal justice initiatives “remain paramount to bridging the Black-white wealth gap and addressing many of the divisive tactics that serve to slow the implementation of true systems change,” Grant said.

That’s good for our entire city. MacKenzie Scott, Kansas City thanks you.

Abusive police off the force at least

We’ve waited more than three years for former Kansas City police officers Charles Prichard and Matthew Brummett to be held accountable for their role in the violent beating of Breona Hill, a Black transgender woman. On Monday, Prichard and Brummett pleaded guilty to third-degree felony assault in connection with the May 2019 assault.

In exchange for admitting guilt, the ex-cops were placed on three-years unsupervised probation but avoided jail time. A passerby captured video of the May 2019 arrest, which showed the disgraced officers assaulting Hill and one placing a knee on her neck.

The officers were cleared by an internal KCPD investigation, prompting more calls for accountability within a department that repeatedly thumbs its nose at Kansas Citians.

Prichard, 50, and Brummett, 39, left the department last year. Under terms of their plea arrangement, the officers — who were also accused of using excessive force in two other incidents — were ordered to surrender their peace officer licenses and cannot own firearms while on probation, just penalties that were long overdue.