Thomas Minihan
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer's March 13 opinion/propaganda piece is extremely misleading and distorts the facts.
For example, he claims: "House Democrats passed a rule that allows them to skip the committee process."
Many of the bills he references were passed in the previous Congress; thus, these bills can be brought up for a House vote and bypass the committee process before April 1. The Democratic action he mentions was extending this deadline to April 1 due to the pandemic. The committee process is still in place.
While railing against partisanship, Luetkemeyer's voting record shows a pattern of lockstep voting at the House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy's direction. He doesn't have a single vote that qualifies as anything resembling "bipartisan consensus."
I read the highlights of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and don't see where our representative can claim: "The new cost is equivalent to the salary of 3,000 police officers, meaning less law enforcement patrolling our communities and higher crime rates."
No source is given for this scary statement. But it does allow him to shift the focus away from recognizing that police brutality has led to many deaths and far too little justice, particularly for people of color. Holding police accountable, ending racial profiling, and building trust between law enforcement and communities of color is hard work. And it is never fun to tell your friends the truth when they don't want to see it.
This legislation is about accountability and responsibility. As an example, it creates a federal registry of all federal, state and local law enforcement officers that compiles, misconduct complaints, discipline records and termination records in an effort to prevent bad cops from simply relocating to continue their abusive behavior. Voting for this bill would have increased federal oversight of potential constitutional violations, like excessive use of force, by law enforcement. Instead of confronting these issues and offering any alternatives, Luetkemeyer hides and puts forth these "opinion" pieces to scare and distract us from his cowardice of not taking on the hard work of doing his job.
Just because there is no viable Democratic Party in Cole County or the state, it doesn't mean that we are all brain dead. Therefore, in future editorials, you should have your staff get the correct address before they do their drive-by shooting at the truth, by using actual facts.