Self-Guided Exploration of the Missouri Hancock Amendment: AI Prompt Engineering

In the runup to the 4 August 2026 primary, there has been a great deal of ugly discussion regarding Amendment 5, the proposal to replace the Missouri Income tax. This post is not really about Amendment 5, but is rather targeted at two different sources of deep misunderstandings of the Missouri Constitution generally and the Hancock Amendment specifically. The first source of frustration is that many Missourians do not actually understand what the Hancock Amendment does (and does not do). This is quite understandable because it takes some work to wrap one's brain around Hancock. On the other hand, one cannot understand a proposal that affects the Hancock Amendment without understanding the Hancock Amendment. This is where the second source of frustration comes in: people ask chatbots to tell them what Hancock does; the chatbot may or may not give them accurate information because many common chatbots use social media among their sources. The chatbot then simply feeds the reader back recycled misunderstandings from other people. Now we get to what this post is really about: a better way to use a chatbot which does not tell you how to understand Chapter X, Sections 16 through 24, of the Missouri Constitution but guides you through the process of figuring it out yourself.

The idea is fairly simple: I include a chatbot prompt below which will tell your LLM to walk you through a self-guided tour of this crucial part of the Missouri Constitution. In order to complete the tour, you have to find the Constitution text yourself (from any of the suggested sources). The model will guide you to the specific parts of the Constitution you need. You then get asked and can ask questions about it in a sort of back and forth scavenger hunt to answer four questions about Hancock. The chatbot suggests places you can find the answers, but you, yourself, do the heavy lifting. Because you are looking at the authoritative source yourself, you do not need to believe what the chatbot tells you (or what I tell you). In one of my test runs, the chatbot seems to have had sections 16 and 17 of chapter X numbered incorrectly in its training data. This still worked because I was looking right at the official text from the Secretary or State and could see what was actually correct. It is possible that the LLM got the incorrect information from a secondary website or a file which contained a typo, but the problem becomes a learning opportunity as you face and solve an everyday issue with understanding law.

I developed this prompt for and tested it with Proton's Lumo 2.1, the service included with Proton's privacy-enabled mail and other services. I also tested it running entirely locally on IBM's open source Granite 4.1:3b model using Ollama on my laptop. Both options are private and the latter is data-center free. The prompt has been optimized to run with a 4K prompt limit and ought run in a variety of different models, whether they are connected to the Internet or not. The main difference will be whether your model has access to recent Missouri revenue information if you ask it for more information about the revenue calculations in sections 18(a) or 18(e). In the case of the IBM Granite LLM, it only had budget data through 2022. In either case, you can do as I did and just bring up the 2025 Missouri Budget PDF in a separate window (a good exercise in and of itself!) and find recent Hancock thresholds calculated there for you. It's a model-- play with it.

The Prompt

Without further delay, here is my 6th revision of the HancockLesson Prompt. If you are interested in how I made it and the prompt engineering behind it, and will add that at the end.

  HANCOCKLESSON PROMPT — SIXTH DRAFT (CORRECTED SECTION NUMBERS AND
READING ORDER)

ROLE
You are a patient, plainspoken tutor guiding one learner—no legal training,
may read at a high-school level—through a self-paced study of the Missouri
Hancock Amendment (Article X, §§ 16–24 of the Missouri Constitution). Speak
in short sentences, define every legal term you use, never assume prior
knowledge. Be formal but warm. Correct mistakes gently, celebrate progress
explicitly.

SCOPE OF THE LESSON
Keep these four questions in mind throughout. By the end, the learner should
be able to give reasonable answers to all:

  Q1.  What powers of the legislature does the Amendment restrict?
  Q2.  Under what circumstances does the Amendment allow the legislature to
       alter or raise taxes on Missourians?
  Q3.  What might the legislature do to raise or alter taxes WITHOUT the
       proposal needing to go to a vote of the people?
  Q4.  What kinds of things might occur under this Amendment if a tax change
       is passed which is found to create "new annual revenue" for the state
       or the local governments?

TRACKING SYSTEM
At several checkpoints, assess progress on these four questions. Each question
has three possible states:

  [ ]   Not Yet        – the learner hasn't encountered enough material to begin
  [*]   Partial        – the learner understands some elements but not all
  [✓]   Got It         – the learner can articulate a reasonable answer citing specific sections

Record progress visibly at each checkpoint so the learner sees where they stand.

DEPTH CONTROL
The learner controls how much detail they receive at any point. At the start,
explain these options plainly:

  DEFAULT MODE — Short, punchy explanations (about 2–3 sentences). This is how
    the chatbot will operate unless the learner asks for more. Each response
    ends with a comprehension question or an invitation to continue.

  DEEP-DIVE MODE — The learner may say "go deeper," "give me more detail," or
    "explain that more fully." When this happens, the chatbot expands its
    explanation to a fuller treatment—still in plain English but longer, with
    examples, hypotheticals, and references to specific authority. Confirm:
    "I'll give you a fuller explanation. Say 'back to normal' when ready to move on."

  TARGETED QUESTION MODE — The learner may ask a specific question at any time,
    even if it takes the conversation away from the current section. Answer it
    and help the learner return to where they were.

  RULES OF CONSTRUCTION — At any point the learner may ask about a rule of
    legal construction (how courts interpret legal language). Explain it plainly
    and, when relevant, show how it applies to the specific text the learner is
    reading. If the learner wants a deeper treatment, shift into DEEP-DIVE MODE.

Periodically remind the learner: "Remember, you can ask me to go deeper on
anything, or ask about rules of how courts interpret this language, at any time."

PHASE 1: FINDING THE LAW AND SETTING UP
───────────────────────────────────────
1. Ask the learner whether they already have a copy of the Missouri Constitution
   handy. If not, point them to: official online text (Missouri Secretary of
   State or Missouri General Assembly), Ballotpedia's annotated text of Article X,
   Justia's HTML version, or a printed handbook (public libraries carry the
   "Missouri Revised Statutes" with the Constitution bound in front).
2. Have the learner open to Article X ("Taxation"), specifically §§ 16–24.
   Confirm together that they can see those section headings.
3. Briefly explain WHY the Constitution—not a statute—is the place we look:
   the Constitution outranks ordinary statutes, so a constitutional amendment
   is the strongest kind of tax limit.
4. Share the four SCOPE questions with the learner now. Display the questions
   along with the tracking system. Tell them these are the questions we're
   working toward and we'll check progress at several points.
5. Introduce DEPTH CONTROL to the learner. Make sure they understand they can
   ask for longer explanations, targeted questions, or deeper treatment of rules
   of construction at any time.
6. Initial Progress Check (Check-in 1): Record the starting position. At this
   point, most learners will have "[ ] Not Yet" for all four questions. Confirm
   this together and save the baseline.

PHASE 2: SCANNING, DEFINITIONS, AND PRIORITY ORDER
───────────────────────────────────────────────────
7. Ask the learner to skim each section heading from § 16 through § 24 and, in
   their own words, guess what each section is about. Do not correct yet—just
   collect guesses.
8. Walk through the guesses together. Give a one-sentence plain-language summary
   for each section:
      § 16   - describes the purpose and key provisions of the
   sections 17 through 24.
      § 17   – defines key terms used in the Amendment.
      § 18   – the core spending/tax lid and the refund mechanism.
      § 18(e) – added later; requires voter approval for tax or fee increases above a dollar threshold.
      § 19   – tells how the limit may be exceeded (emergency declaration).
      §§ 20–24 – implementation, local-government provisions, enforcement, and effective date.
9. Explain the priority reading order (not numerical):
      STEP A  →  §§ 16 & 17 (Purpose and definitions — learn the vocabulary first)
      STEP B  →  § 18   (The core revenue limit and refund trigger)
      STEP C  →  § 18(e) (Voter-approval requirement — the heart of Q2, Q3, and Q4)
      STEP D  →  §§ 18(e)3 and 19 (Emergency override — another way the legislature can act without a vote)
      STEP E  →  §§ 20–21 (Local-government provisions)
      STEP F  →  §§ 22–24 (Enforcement, severability, effective date)
    Tell the learner: "We start with definitions so that every word we encounter
    later already makes sense. Then we tackle the most important sections before
    moving on to supporting and housekeeping provisions."
10. Identify terms that the learner will need defined. Some are defined inside
    the Amendment itself (§ 17); some elsewhere in the Constitution; some in
    statute or case law. Suggest these reference aids: Black's Law Dictionary
    (most libraries have it), the "Legal Construction" primer on the Missouri
    Bar website, Missouri caselaw via Casenet or Google Scholar (free).
    When teaching a rule of construction, use this framework: NAME the rule,
    STATE the rule in one sentence, SHOW how it applies to the specific text
    being read, OFFER to go deeper if the learner wishes.
    Be prepared to teach these rules when they arise naturally: plain meaning,
    expressio unius, ejusdem generis, noscitur a sociis, voter intent,
    specific-over-general. Introduce them one at a time, only when the reading
    makes them relevant.

PHASE 3: CLAUSE-BY-CLAUSE READING WITH PROGRESS CHECKPOINTS
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
11. Read the sections in the priority order established in Step 9. For each
    section, read aloud—or have the learner read—each numbered paragraph. After
    each paragraph:
     a. Restate the paragraph in one sentence of plain English.
     b. Ask the learner to restate it in their own words.
     c. Ask one comprehension question that checks a specific detail.
     d. Only move on when the learner's restatement is substantially correct.
    DEFAULT PACING: Do not lecture for more than three sentences before pausing
    to ask a question or invite a response. However, the learner may request a
    longer explanation at any time by saying "go deeper," "give me more detail,"
    or similar phrases. When this happens, suspend the three-sentence limit and
    provide a fuller treatment. Resume default pacing when the learner signals
    readiness (e.g., "got it," "okay," "back to normal").
12. SPECIAL EMPHASIS on §§ 16 & 17 (Step A): Treat this as a
    vocabulary session. Build a running glossary with the learner as
    terms are encountered. Encourage the learner to jot down each
    defined term and its definition. Note explicitly that some terms
    used in later sections are NOT defined in § 17 and will need to be
    looked up in outside sources. Flag those when you reach them.
13. After completing Step A, run Progress Check-in 2. Ask the learner which
    questions they now feel equipped to address. Some questions (like Q1 about
    legislative restrictions) may remain "[ ] Not Yet" because § 17 is just
    definitions. Others may shift to "[*] Partial" as the learner recognizes
    key vocabulary. Record the updated status. Display the tracker in the same
    format as Check-in 1. Affirm any movement forward, even small. Normalize
    if all remain "[ ]" and remind the learner the core sections are ahead.
14. SPECIAL EMPHASIS on § 18 and § 18(e) (Steps B and C): These are the most
    substantive sections. Pace yourself more slowly here. While working through
    § 18(e), make sure the learner can:
      • Identify the dollar/threshold test ($50 million adjusted, or
    1% of total state revenues, whichever is less).
      • Understand what counts as "new annual revenue."
      • Identify the stated exceptions that let the legislature act without a
        public vote.
      • Explain the refund-and-remedy provision for taxes collected in violation.
15. After completing § 18(e), run Progress Check-in 3 (MIDPOINT). This is the
    critical junction. Most learners should now show significant progress on Q2,
    Q3, and Q4. Ask the learner to attempt a brief verbal answer for each
    question. Based on their responses, update the tracker. Display the tracker
    in the same format as Check-in 1. Pause and reflect with the learner:
    • Which questions moved from "[ ]" to "[*]" or "[✓]"?
    • Which sections were most responsible for each gain?
    • What remains unclear?
    Celebrate visible progress. If any question is still "[ ] Not Yet" at this
    midpoint, flag it for attention in the remaining sections.
16. For Steps D–F (§§ 18(e)3, 19, 20–24), move at the learner's preferred pace.
    These sections deepen context but are less central to the four target
    questions. If the learner is pressed for time, you may summarize §§ 22–24
    briefly and move toward the wrap-up.
17. After completing all priority sections (Step F), run Progress Check-in 4
    (FINAL ASSESSMENT). Pose Q1–Q4 one at a time. Do NOT accept one-word
    answers; ask the learner to explain their reasoning and cite specific
    sections. Update the tracker one final time. Display the tracker in the
    same format as Check-in 1. If any question remains "[*] Partial" or "[ ]
    Not Yet," identify what specific gap remains. Refer back to the relevant
    clause and offer to review it in more depth. Alternatively, suggest targeted
    follow-up resources (caselaw, commentary, etc.).

PHASE 4: WRAP-UP AND NEXT STEPS
───────────────────────────────
18. Display the final progress tracker alongside the initial tracker from
    Check-in 1. Let the learner see the full trajectory of improvement.
19. Tell the learner which learning goals they have met and which (if any)
    still need work.
20. Offer to continue: the learner may wish to explore related topics (e.g.,
    local-government tax limits under §§ 20–21, the history of the Hancock
    Amendment, notable court cases, or current Missouri tax proposals).
21. End with a brief recap of the three or four most important take-aways.

STYLE RULES (COMPACT BLOCK)
────────────────────────────
• Use plain English. Short paragraphs. One idea per paragraph.
• Whenever a legal term appears for the first time, define it immediately, in
  parentheses, e.g.: "General Assembly (Missouri's name for its state legislature)."
• DEFAULT PACING: Do not lecture for more than three sentences before pausing
  to ask a question or invite a response. Learner may request a longer
  explanation at any time by saying "go deeper," "give me more detail," or
  similar. Honor that request, expand the explanation, and return to normal
  pacing when the learner signals readiness.
• If the learner gives a wrong answer, first affirm the attempt, then guide
  them to the correct text.
• At each checkpoint, display the progress tracker in a consistent visual
  format so the learner can easily compare across sessions.
• Remind the learner periodically—especially early in the lesson—that they
  control the depth: "Remember, you can ask me to go deeper on anything, or
  ask about rules of how courts interpret this language, at any time."
• If the learner stops mid-session, save and summarize the current tracker.
  Offer to resume with the same tracker next time.

Prompt Engineering How-To

Many people use Large Language Models (LLMs) like they use a Google Search: they just type in what they want to know and expect it to tell them. This is often exactly the wrong way to use them and frequently yields very iffy results. The better approach is to let the LLM ask you questions and refine its understanding of what you want to know before trying to answer. There is also the additional downside to relying on an LLM that by letting a machine do your thinking, you are not really learning anything.

The basic idea behind the HancockLesson Prompt is that, rather than have the Large Language Model (LLM) answer the question, you ask it to generate another prompt for an LLM that will then help you answer the question and learn the topic. This first prompt is called a metaprompt because it is a prompt about a prompt. You can then use the LLM to critique and improve the prompt in several back-and-forth iterations before you ever try to run it. In this particular case, I ended up with four major drafts before I ran it the first time, then some more back and forth the make the fifth draft. Finally, after some more testing, I hand-tweaked the 6th draft that was posted above.

Once you have a final prompt that works well, you can go back later and use it as a template to generate a different prompt: say, a self-guided tour of a different part of Missouri law or about the Arkansas Constitution.

So, here is the metaprompt I used to start with:

  The goal of this prompt is to produce and refine another prompt. We
will call the prompt to be produced HancockLesson. When HancockLesson
is executed by a competent chatbot (including potentially Lumo), the
chatbot will guide and facilitate the user-- who is not experienced in
law and may have as low as a highschool level of reading-- through the process
of learning about the Missouri Handock Amendment. By going through the
process, the user ought to discover what sources are available to find
information about the Missouri Constitution, including its
authoritative text (online or offline), and how to navigate or search
that text. The user ought be prompted to scan the sections to
understand their basic purposes, including where to find definitions
for terms (which may be defined within the Hancock Amendment itself,
within the Missouri Constitution, or outside the Missouri
Constitution. Throughout this process, the chatbot may suggest sources
to the user for finding definitions and for understanding basic rules
of legal construction. The chatbot ought to then prompt the user to
read through the Amendment clause by clause and work with the user to
achieve at least a high-level understanding of each element of the
Amendment, especially Section 18e.

The process ought iterate for as long as the user wishes to
continue. The chatbot may suggest to the user when the user has
appeared to achieve major learning goals. When this process is
completed, the user ought to be able to understand and be able to give
reasonable answers to the following kinds of questions:

* What powers of the legislature does the Amendment restrict?

* Under what circumstances does the amendment allow the legislature to
  alter or raise taxes on Missourians?
  
* What might the legislature do to raise or alter taxes *without* the
  proposal needing to go to a vote of the people?
  
* What kinds of things might occur under this amendment if a tax
  change is passed which is found to create "new annual revenue" for
  the state or the local governments?
  
Please generate a first draft of this prompt now.

This prompt was not perfect, but the whole point is that it did not have to be. The next step is to ask the model to critique its own prompt: what can be improved. Some models will do this part automatically, others may need to be told to make suggestions (it depends to some extent on your default settings and on the initial prompt in those settings). Then you can go back and forth: "I like your second and third suggestion, but don't worry about the first one," or "Can we make this a bit smaller to fit inside a 4k prompt limit?" I find it helps if you have it number the drafts so that you can refer back to them in the conversation and keep track of them in your own notes. I usually save pieces of these sessions in my notebook to potentially reuse later or to run the same prompt on different models. Over the last several years, I have done this methodically from time to time in order to learn about what the models are doing, how they work, and how they are changing in order to understand the issues that AI use poses. We cannot understand how these tools will change us unless we take some time to learn about them and to really learn how they "think".

In a future world where this technology will inevitably exist and continue to change, it will be critical to understand how to perform prompt engineering: knowing how to ask a question, how to refine that question (including refining your own understanding of the question), and evaluate the results. This is really one of the core skills that underlies computer programming, teaching, writing recipes, and other human tasks which required a structured approach and iterative thought process. I approach a prompt engineering task like this much the way I used to approach directing a junior programmer. In particular, leading a team of junior programmers is not just about giving them instructions and hoping that they will complete a task, but about advancing the understanding of the problem for the entire team.

The danger is that people who get in the habit of letting a machine do the thinking for them will never learn how to structure their own thoughts to perform these kinds of tasks, just like someone can use a phone or a computer without ever really learning how to program a computer or understand how it works.

In any case, in addition to producing this self-guided exploration of the Hancock Amendment to help other people, I also reached a better understanding of the nuts and bolts of the Constitution while testing the draft prompts and deliberately going down different paths. That makes me better informed about the proposed amendments on the upcoming ballot and it makes me a better teacher when people ask me questions (say, during our county information forum on the 28th of July). Hopefully, you will find it useful as well.

Version

You are looking at my first published version of this post containing the 6th draft of the HancockLesson prompt. I may make changes to it as people use it and give me feedback. c

I have uploaded a paper to Academia taking apart the 1971 pro-abortion Violinist Thought Experiment:

An exploration of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Violinist thought-experi- ment presented in her 1971 “A Defense of Abortion”. This thought- experiment has been brought up repeatedly in pro-abortion debate over the intervening 50 years, despite the fact that it has a poor fit to questions she attempts to answer and that, in the places where it really does fit the questions related to aborting a baby, it actually tends to support the pro-life position in significant ways. Nevertheless, like many thought experiments, it remains interesting and useful despite, or perhaps because of its flaws.

In the post-Roe v Wade environment where public policy is shifting rapidly, it can be important to go back to some of the foundational arguments which are still thrown around but which few people in the modern pro-abortion debate seem to have read-- which may not have been very good in the first place. Engaged in some of these debates in the last few years, I noticed that an older essay I wrote has long disappeared, but that I still had notes. I therefore rewrote it, partly so that I can now find and refer to it again and partly because the rewriting has allowed me to get some of my own thoughts in better order.

Mike Moon and Controversy over Sheriffs' Salaries in Missouri

A deputy recently made a comment in an online forum that Mike moon is an enemy of Missouri sheriff's because he introduced a bill to cut sheriff's salaries. I am not going to name the deputy; calling him out is not the point of this post, nor is it merely to defend Mike Moon. Rather, my purpose is to provide information about a complex and tangled issue that we do need to discuss and solve. Many people may not even know how the salary of county sheriffs is determined in Missouri or why this conflict exists. I do not, myself, know what the solution ought to be, though I would venture a guess that what we are doing is not the best approach. I provide links to sources so that people can read further and decide for themselves.

The short summary is this: a major change to the way pay is calculated was pushed through in an unconstitutional multi-subject bill, provoking a lawsuit by various counties. Mike Moon introduced a targeted bill to reverse the change. This bill died in committee and went nowhere. The underlying issue is real: questions about how to ensure adequate pay for MO sheriffs and deputies are important and ought be debated.

(In the interests of disclosure, I have been a volunteer for Mike Moon for many years and I have also been a volunteer of my local Sheriff's Office. I get paid the same in both roles: Zero. The opinions here are my own: they are not opinions of any candidate or organization.)

How is Sheriff Pay Calculated?

As of the time of this writing, the pay of a county sheriff is set through Revised Statutes of Missouri (RsMO) 57.317. I am making an effort in this article to link to particular versions of the statutes, so, hopefully, these will remain stable as this page sits on the Internet and the statutes are revised over time. Each page of the Revised Statutes has a table at the bottom which allows you to see when it was last changed and switch between historical versions. For the version effective 28 August 2022, we see the following:

Except in a noncharter county of the first classification with more than one hundred fifty thousand and less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, the county sheriff in any county of the first or second classification shall receive an annual salary equal to eighty percent of the compensation of an associate circuit judge of the county. [emphasis mine]

 The law goes on to present a table setting different percentages for counties of the third or forth classification. Lawrence County, Missouri, for instance, is a third class county with a valuation of roughly $620 million in 2024 (PDF). Consulting the table yields a salary of 60% for Lawrence County. In Missouri, since 2010, Associate Circuit Judge salaries are tied to their federal counterparts. If I am reading this correctly, FY2023 salaries for Missouri Associate Circuit Court Judges were set at $150,035 (Missouri Judiciary FY 2023 Budget Request (PDF) pp 21). Again, using Lawrence County as an example, that would yield $90,021 ($150,035 x 0.6).

So, Who Really Controls the Sheriffs' Salaries?

This means that, effectively, the salary of a Missouri County Sheriff is tied to that of a federal official. The local county have no control over the federal budget and, the federal government being somewhat erratic in its behavior, no reason to trust that this amount will be stable in the future. This was a core point of contention when SB53 was passed to set this compensation:

     According to Skiles, it is pretty well agreed among county commissioners across Missouri that one particular part of the bill is disagreeable because it eliminates county control over a budget item that each county will have to pay.

    “And not a red cent from the state,. Local taxpayers will be left to pay for it,” he said.

    That budget item is sheriff salary, tying it to federal judge’s salaries, which in Dent County will increase the sheriff’s salary by more than $19,000. (The Salem News Online -"COUNTY COMMISSION: Veto of bill tying sheriff salaries to federal judge salaries urged")

 There were many other problems with SB 53, which was combined with SB 60 into a complicated and likely unconstitutional mess (violating at least the Single Subject Rule in the Missouri Constitution). There is at least one lawsuit over the change.

How Was Sheriff Pay Calculated Before?

Prior to this change, the version of RsMO 57.317 effective 28 August 1997 said:

"The county sheriff in any county, other than in a first classification chartered county, shall receive an annual salary computed as set forth in the following schedule.  The assessed valuation factor shall be the amount thereof as shown for the year next preceding the computation.  The provisions of this section shall not permit or require a reduction in the amount of compensation being paid for the office of sheriff on January 1, 1997."

This is comparable to how the pay of other county officials are calculated. Looking up Lawrence County's Assessed Valuation in the table yields $54,000, which is, clearly, much lower than $90,000. An additional $2,000 came from the state if the local Sheriff attended state-required training.

The salaries set by this system make it difficult to attract and retain qualified sheriffs if the base drifted too low. However, the upsides of the system were that it was a) predictable for the county budget and b) tied to the tax valuation of the county which ensured that the county ought be able to pay for it as its valuation forced a pay increase. Although forcing an increase in sheriff pay may be seen as a good, it can have perverse effects:

Clearly, it is not only the number of deputies that County Commissions might consider trimming: other emergency services, road repair, etc., all has to balance somewhere within the limited county budget. In many counties, including our own, our ability to pay and retain deputies was already very poor.

Mike Moon and SB1036

This is where Mike Moon enters the picture. Compliance with the Missouri Constitution, including the Single Subject Rule has been among his primary issues in his legislative career. He has also pushed for the state (or local government) to have control over its own affairs rather than automatically tying Missouri law to federal law we do not control. He introduced SB1036 to undo the tying of the sheriff's salary to that of a federal official. It restored the original table and added the ability of a salary commission to increase the local salary schedule by up to $6,000. This change did not decrease the pay of sheriff except with a 2/3 vote of the salary commission.

SB1036 was killed in committee and never progressed. As far as I can find, that was the sum total of his involvement.

What Is the Correct Solution?

Once again, we have a complicated issue with no clear perfect fix. We end up with some basic points that need to be balanced somehow:

• There are serious concerns with being able to pay and retain good sheriffs in Missouri counties
• Many counties have great difficulty balancing their budget across the board
•  Tying budget items to actions of the distant federal budget can make the job impossible. Increases, as much as possible, need to be predictable and not disconnected from revenue
• Putting pay completely under the control of the local county commission can allow them to stifle or starve a sheriff's office
• shoving through significant changes in large, multi-subject bills makes them hard to vet, lawsuit prone, and hard to later fix; this is why the MO Constitution flatly forbids the practice
  

On the balance, I believe that the solution of SB53 was wrong and potentially dangerous. I am not certain that simply resetting the pay schedule to the status quo ante is the correct choice either, but it was at least a reasonable and rational option to undo SB53. Either way, we need a better solution going forward.
 

Eleven Hours: after the 2024 Missouri Republican Convention

Non nobis, Domine, sed nomine suo gam gloriam.

Yesterday was the most unusual-- bizarre even-- convention I have ever attended in 16 years of caucus/convention activism. None is even comparable. As a co-Parliamentarian for the Temporary, the replacement Temporary, and the Permanent convention Chairs, I got a view of it perhaps noone else could or did.

I am exhausted. Once I recover, I'll have time to organize my notes and refer to recordings but I'll give quick initial impressions.

Credentials was a complete disaster, wasting hours. Everybody has heard this. To quash some rumours, I'll describe a bit more below. The grassroots organizations had a near-complete victory: handily winning the Chair vote, seating Sophia Shore, passing a fix to the confused mess of the rules by near consensus, winning the slates and elections, and after the ruinous start, making real progress on the platform. This was marred by the steady drift of delegates out-- we had worked through lunch and were heading toward 11 hours on the floor-- and the loss of quorum. As a result of the failed quorum count (less than half of delegates elected per Robert's Rules on conventions), the amended platform could not be passed (effectively reverting to 2020).

The credentials fiasco was not done on purpose to wear out the grassroots. It was taken advantage of by some (two in particular) to engineer the later quorum failure, but the disaster was real. It was clear to me from my vantage point that the stress and panic of the Chair and convention committees was quite genuine. That does not necessarily let people "off the hook" for the colossal failure that clearly occurred, but a breakdown of exactly when and where the convention planning derailed is going to be a longer conversation where I only saw specific pieces, mostly the wreckage and victims.

Like any ethical responder to a trainwreck, I worked hard to respond to the emergency at hand. How it came off the track wan't my worry so much as immediate triage and care for victims. The State Chair, surprisingly and quite courteously had asked me to be there as parliamentarian. I wanted the grassroots to win, but I was in a position where I was required to be neutral and fair to the extent humanly possible (to some degree so that the grassroots could win fairly and above-board). My position gave me a duty to help the State Chairman fix the problems and put bandages on the bleeding. I did this to the best of my ability, and although some people may see that as "helping the enemy", I did it out of duty and-- to a fair degree as the event went south and as the Temporary Chair became exhausted, flustered, embarrassed-- out of human compassion. I do not have and will not accept any shame for that.

At the end, we won a great victory. The victory was not complete, but it was very good. Many people were responsible for it, including, to a substantial extent, our opponents themselves. God was gracious to us: be gracious, all, in our victory. Keep your eyes on the final goal in service to our state and communities.

"Not to us, O Lord, but to Your name be the glory."

P.S.: both Sophie and her "hired gun" parliamentarian, CJ, impressed me. Once she took over, the Chair was handled very well with an already cranky assembly and crafty opposition. More on that later when I start organizing my notes and my head hurts a bit less.

A Surfeit of Secretaries

In the practice session of a recent caucus/parliamentary law training I lead, the students ran into the issue of how to deal with more than two candidates nominated for an office, none of whom had majority support. It isn't an uncommon problem, but it can be tricky for first time chairs to facilitate and, often, for participants to understand how to navigate for their best- possible outcome.

My typical training day usually has a lecture in the morning, videos from actual caucuses during and after lunch (good and bad examples), followed by practice sessions in the afternoon. My own first caucus experiences were a bit less gentle: a small number of us taught ourselves and then were tossed in the deep end, sink or swim. I try to give my students a few more tools to work with than I had myself.

In any case, in the practice session at a recent class, I dealt playing cards to divide people up in support for different candidates (each suit represented a candidate). They had to come up with their own strategy. True to life, they did not necessarily know how many supporters they truly had until the caucus started. In any case, in this particular run, the chair vote went smoothly: the very first candidate got a majority on the first vote and I, dutifully, passed the gavel to the winner.

The new chair took nominations for secretary. There were four or five, but two withdrew from the nomination. This left three nominees, and, as it happened, none of them initially had a majority to support them.

Setting the Scene

In order to protect the innocent, let's call the three candidates John Smith (JS) , Pierre-Claude Wagonschlaus III (PCW3), and Sally Fletcher (SF). The chair started off from the beginning with a rising vote (as I recommend in caucuses). In the first round of voting, the ayes looked like this(*):

JS

13

PCW3

12

SF

2

The number of eligible voters is 28, but the chair is not voting. With or without the Chair, a majority is 14 or more and no one has it. Under Robert's Rules of Order (and most parliamentary systems), 50% + 1 is required to elect, not merely having the highest number of votes in a round (a 'plurality'). So, now what?

Sometimes, sets of rules for an event specify that a candidate receiving the least votes in a round drops away. The current 2024 rules published by the Missouri Republican State Committee (MRSC) has such a rule for other votes further into the process, but is silent on this topic. The MRSC document also forbids any local rule modifications and, at this point in the process, it is too early for a caucus (or convention) to pass its own standing rules. It is not a serious issue, however.

The MRSC states that the latest edition of Roberts' Rules of Order applies where it does not conflict the the MRSC document. In 2024, that would be the 12th edition of Roberts' Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR12). If you still have the 11th edition (RONR11), don't worry, the following process has not changed. Be aware, however, that RONR11 is cited by either page number or section, whereas RONR12 is cited only by section (because page numbers do not match between the printed and online editions).

What does Robert's Rules say?

OK, so what does RONR12 say to do with the 'extra' candidates? Nothing.

Let's explain.

When repeated balloting for an office is necessary, individuals are never removed from candidacy on the next ballot unless they voluntarily withdraw-- which they are not obligated to do. The candidate in lowest place may be a "dark horse" on whom all factions prefer to agree. [RONR11 pp 441, RONR12 §46:31]

(Be aware of the note on the bottom of the page regarding special rules and dropping candidates.)

This process flows from the fact that parliamentary law is designed to move forward the business of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority. Members have a right to nominate candidates and ought not have that arbitrarily taken away. Where there is no clear majority, Robert's Rules is designed to develop consensus for action.

So, the idea is for the Chair to simply represent the same set of candidates for a vote. The members of the assembly know what the count was and are free to change their votes. The candidates can make the same choice by choosing to drop out of contention and endorse another. But it does not simply have to repeat the same vote over and over. Various motions may be made to affect the voting process, including:

• reopen nominations and suggest a compromise candidate.
• vote by ballot if it is felt that members might be more free to change votes if they were private.

These are incidental motions (requires a second, no debate, majority vote [RONR11 pp 283, RONR12 §30]. Finally. a short recess may be requested for the candidates or their supporters to make a deal (privileged motion, requires a second, not debatable, majority vote [RONR11 pp 231, RONR12 §20]). The overarching principle is for the Chair to facilitate the process of reaching consensus without imposing their own will by arbitrarily removing candidates from consideration. As we will discuss below, these situations arise for different reasons and sometimes will resolve surprisingly quickly. Other times, it may be a long process.

Something else to be aware of is that members may change their votes even within the same round. This is perhaps best illustrated if we consider what might have happened if they had been nominated in a different order:

SF

2

PCW3

12

JS

15

Here, two voters for SF and PCW3, realizing that they have lost, transfer their votes. With 15 votes, JS ends the round with a majority and is elected. The fact that 2+12+15 adds up to more of the total available votes does not matter. It ought be clear, however, that order of nomination does matter for these reasons [cf RONR12 §38-39, RONR11 pp 443 par 1-10]. If the vote is conducted by ballot, this cannot happen, because each ballot may only contain one name.

If the two SF voters had immediately transferred their support to PCW3, then the 12+2=14 votes would have constituted a majority. PCW3 would win immediately and no vote would be needed for JS.

How It Came Out

So how did it come out in the actual class exercise? One of the members called for a 2 minute recess (without objection), the candidates left the room briefly, and two of them decided to drop out. The remaining candidate, now unopposed, was elected by acclamation. Remember, that it is important in any event of this kind to count every vote in an open and transparent manner, but if an election or motions is truly unopposed it requires no vote at all.

Chair: Without objection, we will have a 2 minute recess while the candidates discuss...
JS and SF have informed me that they are withdrawing from the contest. Seeing that we have only one candidate remaining, without objection, we will elect PCW3 by acclamation.
Seeing no objection, PCW3 is elected Secretary.

Clearly, if there is objection, the vote must be taken. It is possible, for instance, (though rather rare) for the assembly to reject a single nomination, at which point, the only option is to reopen nominations.

Why It May Happen

It may seem odd that you would end up with a large number of options for secretary with no majority. If the Chair was elected by a majority, why would the Secretary not follow as a matter of course. There are several reasons this might happen, however. In a caucus where the delegates to a higher level convention depend on careful paperwork, it may be highly desirable for a faction to try to elect a Secretary they know and trust, not just to be honest but careful and thorough. The Secretary position might also be used as a test vote where a faction does not wish to contest the Chair vote. As I mention above, you do not know in advance how many people will actually show up for a caucus and how their support will be divided. A test vote acts as a physical verification of the numbers for your group and can then be used to determine overall strategy ("Do we introduce our own slate?" "Do we try to introduce this platform amendment?"). In this case, whether the election is actually won is not as important as simply getting the firm count. If the election is merely a test vote, it is common for a faction to withdraw their candidate once it realizes it does not have a majority and will not win.

When I talk about 'faction' here, most people think in terms of candidate blocks. In the 2012 Lawrence County Republican Caucus, for example, their were five candidate blocks who showed up, two of which voted together. This left a four-way split of votes with no majority and, eventually, a four-way split on the delegate slate. The faction split does not have to be by candidate, however, and in 2024, there is unlikely to be any such split by presidential candidate. In some cases, this may result in a rapid caucus with votes by acclamation as occurred in Lawrence County in 2016. In other cases, local groups, such as a grassroots coalition or a strong pro-life group, for example, may wish to present their own Caucus officers and slates in order to secure delegate representation, particularly if they want to participate in platform debates or other Convention business at higher levels of the process. If this occurs, Caucus Chairs and group floor leaders ought to understand how to handle the votes fairly and smoothly. The ultimate goal is to come together as a party to win in November. Unnecessary strife detracts from that goal.

Conclusion

If our goal is to avoid unnecessary strife which may hurt us in November, it is worth spending the time to understand the rules and the different scenarious we may encounter. Prior to 2008 in Missouri, caucuses were rarely contested. This lead to waning parliamentary skills which, in turn, lead to avoidable conflict when participation dramatically increased and the process suddenly became contested. Some of these events-- as I show in my classes--- were ugly, others less so. The presence of conflict itself is not the problem: the entire purpose of a caucus/convention structure is to make difficult decisions between competing interests. It is well worth fighting over some of these things; we just need to be able to get through it fairly and come together afterwards.

* Ayes and Nays

When I say I am listing just the ayes for each vote above, keep in mind that when a voice vote, rising vote, show of hands, etc., is called, the Chair calls for the ayes first and then the nays, even in an election:

Chair: As many as are in favor of John Smith, please rise. [count]
You may be seated.
As many as are not in favor of John Smith, please rise. [count]
There are 13 in favor, 14 opposed, and 1 abstention. John Smith does not have a majority.
Now, as many as are in favor of...

This can seem odd to people. Why vote against a candidate instead of simply voting for your chosen candidate? This is possible when using a ballot vote because the voter can just list their choice out of all possible choices. There is no need to count nays. With a voice vote (see viva voce in Robert's Rules) or any other non-ballot vote, the nays must be counted for a crucial reason: any member may abstain from any vote. If a candidate must win by 50%+1 of votes cast, then one must know how many votes are actually cast in a given vote and separate it from the nays. In our example, one vote, the Chair. abstained leaving 27 votes cast each time and a majority of 14 or more. If even one other member had abstained on any vote, the threshhold needed for majority would have changed.

As noted in Robert's Rules, this means, effectively, that if you want to vote for a later candidate, you must vote against the earlier ones. A no vote must not be taken, therefore, as any special animus toward a particular candidate, but only that the member intends to hold their vote for someone else (that round). The only other way to make the math work is to count the abstentions and subtract them from the seated total. I have seen a few Chairs specifically count abstentions, but it is often done to check tally committee math when the count seems off. I am not aware of any inherent unfairness to counting abstentions.

The futility of action and speech: Arendt and "The Inner Light"

Hannah Arendt in "The Human Condition" (first published in 1958) notes that human language has a deeply-embedded distinction between 'labor' and 'work' in terms of the durability of what they produce: labor producing consumable goods of no real duration and work being oriented toward tools and other 'use objects' of a more lasting sort. As she develops in her work, this distinction has critical significance in the nature of human beings and the shape of social structures which we, in 'modern' society and theory, often muddy and ignore to our dissatisfaction. Setting that aside for the moment, what of human action and speech? Are they simply another kind of labor to be organized and tuned (as e.g. Marx lumps them), more like works oriented toward a goal or end-product, or something different?

"Distinguished from both, consumer goods and use obects, there are finally the 'products' of action and speech, which together constitute the fabric of human relationships and affairs. Left to themselves,they lack not only the tangibility of the other things, but are even less durable and more futile than what we produce for consumption...

"In order to become wordly things, that is, deeds and facts and events and patterns of thoughts or ideas, they must first be seen, heard, and remembered and then transformed, reified as it were, itno things--- into sayings of poetry, the written page or the printed book, into paintings or sculpture, into all forms of documents, records, or monuments." --Hannah Arendt, "The Human Condition", 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press (via Scribd). 2019. Section 12.

This 'reification' is necessary to bring things of the mind, which are inherently other-worldly, into the world and give them a place: to make them 'real'. Without it, they--- thoughts, dreams, people, even whole societies--- disappear as if they had never been.

"Without going out of my door

I can know all things on Earth

Without looking out of my window

I could know the ways of Heaven

The farther one travels

The less one knows

The less one really knows" --- Beatles, "The Inner Light"

Contrary to the Beatles, or the Tao te Ching verses they based that song on, that kind of 'knowledge' means very little. One must commit oneself, paying with risk and pain, to understand anything, to grok in its fullness and make it a part of oneself. One must then pay a further cost to reify that experience, to make it a part of the world. The reflection of meditation may be necessary--- the digestion of the soup--- but it is not sufficient, is neither the beginning nor the end of the process.

What was the "product" of the Ressikan community in "The Inner Light" [Star Trek Next Generation episode, Season 5, 1992]? How did Picard (or anyone else!) know that his experience of a long dead alien civilization was 'real'? Picard could not merely view a world from afar and understand its inhabitants; he had to commit something to them, risk with them, share their joys, suffer alongside them. The experience had to change him, as it clearly did, in a way visible to others. Likely one of the best Star Trek episodes ever, it disproves the very premise of the song that inspired it and of the Tao te Ching verses.

It is not possible to 'understand' the world without being a part of it: even God Himself seemingly could not stand at a distance without experiencing, suffering, sharing, and reifying in exactly this way.

The FBI Entrapment Craze: the wrong people for the wrong reasons

There is another very good in-depth piece I came across today, talking about the FBI's facilitation of would-be radicals in order to 'catch' them. This one comes from C.J. Ciaramella at Reason, "It's (Almost) Always the Feds: How the FBI Fabricates Schemes To Entrap Would-Be Radicals". It deals with the Whitmer kidnapping plot particularly. There are (at least) two core problems with this approach: the first is that in spends enormous resources on investigating, charging, and prosecuting people, who, in the words of the author, "have little to no ability to actually carry out a terror attack." Second, however, is equally grave, that the FBI's misallocation of resources frequently ignores and misses the people who are capable and actually do carry out attacks, even when tipped off to it. The author spends most of the effort on that first problem, but we must not forget about the second. There is no difficulty in coming up with a list of assailants in recent years who fit in that latter category. Both problems undermine our self-government.

<<The FBI has typically portrayed these investigations as efforts to thwart domestic terror, but all too often, the result has been to encourage or invent plots that were unlikely to succeed. In the Whitmer case and others, the feds weren't stopping terror: They were helping bumbling defendants plan and enact it.>> ibid.

As the author develops, this is a long-standing problem:

<<The sort of informant-led investigation that resulted in the arrests of the Wolverine Watchmen is largely due to the rollback of Watergate-era restrictions on the FBI following 9/11. The Whitmer case wasn't just a poorly conceived investigation; it was the direct result of a strategic internal policy change that allowed the FBI to begin targeting people who had done nothing illegal in order to prosecute the war on terror.>> ibid.

It is also clearly non-partisan. When we are talking about post-9/11 changes, we are talking about the War on Terror under Republican George W. Bush. As Dempsey and Cole point out in "Terrorism and the Constitution" the Clinton Administration was actually responsible for cutting out many of the 1st Amendment protections in DOJ/FBI policy, but no subsequent administration of either party has restored them. Those authors also demonstrate that when these protections are not in place, the FBI frequently targets surveillance and investigation on the basis of religion or protected speech with no identified criminal nexus, frequently while letting investigations into identified criminal conduct slide to lower priorities.  [James X. Dempsey and David Cole. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties In The Name Of National Security. The New Press. Scribd ed. 2005. https://www.scribd.com/book/251562727 ]

Clear, firm, and sensible rules limiting FBI conduct therefore not only protect the rights of US citizens, they promote efficient criminal investigation:

<<The FBI is at its best when it does criminal investigations. It is at its worst when it acts in a counterintelligence, monitoring mode, secretly pursuing an ethnically, religiously, or ideologically defined target without the constraints and focus of the criminal code and without the expectation that its actions will be subjected to scrutiny in the adversarial context of a public criminal trial...>> [ibid. pp 292]

To be clear, the use of informants per se and the interruption of criminal conspiracies which have not yet resulted in an attack are not the problem. There is no reason that bona fide investigation of violent conspiracies would not be compatible with the constitutional protection of fundamental rights, not for Dempsey and Cole, not as far as I understand Ciaramella, not for myself:

"Inside the United States, we favor another vision of intelligence, one rooted in the concepts of the criminal law. 'Intelligence; in this context means the collection and analysis of information about a criminal enterprise that goes beyond what is necessary to solve a particular crime...

"The FBI routinely conducts 'intelligence' operations of this second type against organized crime families and drug cartels. It does so subject to the ordinary rules of criminal procedure. The goal of such investigations is to arrest the leaders and to put them on trial for specific crimes. And one of the most important constraints on such criminal intelligence is the public trial—everything done in the name of criminal intelligence must ultimately bear scrutiny in a court of law.

"...criminal intelligence can be fully compatible with the Constitution. The First Amendment does not require the FBI to be deaf when someone advocates violence. The Constitution does not require the government to wait until a bomb goes off or even to wait until a bomb factory is brought to its attention—it does, however, require the FBI to focus its investigations on the interdiction of violence and other criminal conduct. " [Dempsey and Cole, supra, 289-291]

Without a clear focus and bright line rules, the temptation to run amok is great. Our history concretely demonstrates-- to our shame-- that the temptation is too great, that no Department of Justice, no President, whether under Republicans or Democrats, may be trusted with a blank check.