By Jason Hancock | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, and welcome to The Weekender.
There’s no good reason for the Missouri Senate not to provide a video livestream of its proceedings.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of reasons. Just none of them are good.
The honest reason — we don’t want voters to see how the sausage gets made — at least has the virtue of candor. The reasons actually offered run more toward dignity, decorum and the vague worry that cameras would, as opponents like to put it, “turn this into a circus of campaigning.”
To which state Sen. Mike Moon, the Ash Grove Republican pushing the Senate to change its ways, offered the line of the session:
“We’re already there.”
Right. And that is the part the Missouri Senate would rather you not see.
The Senate does provide an audio feed of its proceedings. That’s better than nothing. But just barely. Audio lets the public hear the people’s business being conducted. It does not let them see who is conducting it, who is standing, who is sitting, who is conferring, who is objecting or who is trying to make an uncomfortable vote disappear into the wallpaper.
Forty-eight states manage to run a video feed of their Senate or upper chamber. Missouri and North Carolina do not. Both states’ Houses livestream just fine. Apparently the cameras only get complicated when you cross the rotunda.
For what it’s worth, Missouri’s Senate is not allergic to cameras. It records video from the dais. You can watch it if you file a formal Sunshine request, wait up to three business days for the Senate to respond and pay whatever fee it says is required.
For a snapshot of why audio is not enough, let’s turn to the recent debate over video live-streaming.
Late last month, Republican state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman of Arnold moved to table Senate Resolution 668, Moon’s proposal to require the Senate add video to the audio feed it already provides. She then asked for a standing division.
A standing division is exactly what it sounds like. Senators rise from their desks to be counted. It is not subtle. It is not hidden. People stand. Other people watch them stand. That is the whole mechanism.
But here’s the thing about a standing division: there’s no record of how anyone voted. Only the outcome is documented. So unless you’re in the chamber watching it happen, you’ll never know how your senator voted.
Unless you request the video, right?
Watch the video recorded that day and you’ll find the audio kept rolling. You could hear the count — 12 to 11 to table the resolution. But the screen suddenly looked like the inside of a cigar box.
Act for Missouri, a conservative activist group, filed a Sunshine request to pry the footage loose. The Senate sent back a $6 invoice and a video that went black just as senators were killing a transparency measure.
The footage hit social media on April 30. Among those who noticed was Republican Lt. Gov. David Wasinger, who called the entire saga “next level insanity.”
There is nothing radical about a camera pointed at a public chamber during a public debate. The House does it. Most of the country does it. Local governments do it with worse lighting and smaller budgets.
Nobody should have to file a Sunshine request and pay six bucks to find out what happened in a public room during a public debate over whether the public should be allowed to watch.
Missouri is not being asked to invent anything.
Just turn on the camera.
(Missouri Senate Communications)
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