If I Recall Correctly . . .

One of the funnier moments in my visit to the "Taking Our Country Backwards" tour came when some local radio guy handed the microphone over to a distant relative of President Obama (they share a great-great-grandfather). The guy started spouting debunked lies about health care reform (16,000 IRS agents? really? that lie got demolished weeks ago) and then begged people to go to recalldennismoore.com.

Ignore the fact that Dennis Moore is retiring. Ignore the fact that no congressperson has ever been recalled in the history of the United States. Ignore the fact that state recall of a federal officer faces some major constitutional hurdles. Go ahead and ignore the fact that Dennis Moore has not done anything wrong. Ignore all that pesky real world information.

The site he directs you to is a scam.

If you go to that site, which is registered to a proxy, it takes you to a blogspot page that features an internet petition, requiring you to surrender your email address in order to "sign" a "recall petition" purporting to support an "application to recall Congressman Dennis Moore".

Sorry, folks, that's not the way the real world works. If you signed this petition, I suspect you've put your email address on a list that is being sold world-wide as a prime source of gullible potential customers of pharmaceuticals, get-rich-quick schemes and whatever else they dream up.

This is NOT a legitimate recall petition.

If you want to see how the Kansas recall process works, go look here for how to do it.

I'll cut to the chase, though. It's not done by circulating an email petition.

Anybody who tells you it works that way thinks you're a chump.

The "K" to Become "KC" - Barnes and Sanders Team Up!

The announcement of Kay Barnes as the choice to head up a Jackson County Charter Review Task Force didn't attract much notice, but it could be the most significant event for Kansas City political insiders since Tom Pendergast started selling concrete.

A task force to review the Jackson County Charter sounds like an innocuous, perhaps even dull, assignment for a woman who once spent her days being chauffeured to ribbon-cuttings at taxpayer-financed boondoggles that profited her closest friends. Term limits forced her out of that cushy gig, much to the disappointment of her entourage of developers and real estate lawyers. A subsequent attempt to take her game to the next level by seeking access to the even larger federal dollar pot resulted in a bruising defeat and a nightmarish couple years spent north of the river, miles from the Country Club Plaza.

"Kay and I met one day when she accidentally visited Independence, thinking she would find the headquarters of The Independent, Kansas City's Journal of Society," Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders recounted.

"I saw my opportunity to solve some of the County's real estate problems - namely, the fact that the City has begun to realize that they have no obligation to donate $2,000,000 to the stadiums. Kay has demonstrated a real knack for sticking Kansas City taxpayers with outrageous financial obligations, and that is exactly what I wanted to accomplish."

While the Jackson County Charter Review Commission has yet to hold its first meeting, big changes are already afoot. Barnes is taking a fresh approach to the task, using the opportunity to use the County's governing document to alter some fundamental relationships.

Kay Barnes beamed with excitement as she announced the most visible change. "From now on, the 'K' will be called the 'KC'!," she proclaimed from behind a humongous flower.

While many in the audience assumed that the name was being changed to reflect a more active role for Kansas City, her posse of developers and real estate lawyers were quick to correct the mistake.

"'Kauffman Stadium' will now officially be called 'Kauffman-Cordish' Stadium, and the stadium complex will henceforth be part of the Power and Light District," former City Manager Wayne Cauthen announced. "I had never actually read the contracts between the City and Cordish, but it turns out that instead of promising free parking, like Kay and I told people it did, it actually gave Cordish the rights to use taxpayer funds to directly take over local businesses instead of slowly driving them out of business. Who knew?"

Of course, once Cordish takes over the site, Kansas City taxpayers will be on the hook for all the risk but none of the profit. "That's the way it works," former Mayor Barnes explained. "We're already paying $12 million this year for P&L, up from $4 million last year. What's another few million dollars? The snow on the streets will be melted by the time baseball season starts."

The deal will have a major impact on the management of the Royals baseball team, as well. CEO David Glass made the announcement that Steve Glorioso, longtime aide to Kay Barnes, will be joining Royals management as Revenge Coach.

"For years we've focused on Offense and Defense, but it hasn't worked out very well for us. When we saw how Mr. Glorioso handled the defeat of his chosen candidates in the Mayoral and Congressional elections, we realized we were missing out on an important facet of the complete game. From now on, whenever a team defeats us, we will focus on attacking them, their families, and their supporters. We will contact other teams in the league to badmouth the victors, and then we will badmouth those teams when it suits us." Glorioso chimed in, "Do you know what kind of cars opposing players drive? Do you know that some of them talk to their wives about the games??"

When asked why they were hiring Mr. Glorioso instead of someone with a better track record of success, Mr. Glass explained, "Jeff Roe was already talking to the Yankees, and Steve pointed to his experience."

Critics pointed to a looming problem with the concept of Cordish ownership of the the stadium. A reporter from a small newspaper raised the question - "What will those money-loving #### do when black athletes show up in athletic apparel?"

Cordish was not yet prepared to respond to the issue. "We're at least two task forces and a committee away from figuring out what to do with the dress code issue," Mayor Funkhouser replied. "Until we get it resolved, we will expect all athletes to play in proper 'club' attire."

As the press conference came to a close, Anne McGregor showed up in the parking lot with a few paid petitioners in an attempt to "Recall the Umpire". Upon hearing that there was no legal basis to recall the umpire, she explained that the umpire is the least popular person on the field, and that she felt compelled to try to score a few political points off the opportunity. "Even when - I mean if - I fail again to get the right number of legitimate signatures, I can get some publicity for my effort. Oh, and I'm supposed to say 'Stop the nonsense' - my sponsors pay me money every time I say that!"

In a final note, Cordish announced that the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame will be broadening its scope. "When we came to Kansas City, the first thing we did was bring in Minneapolis barbecue to replace Lil' Jake's. We want to bring a certain bland homogeneity to all cities, and we see no reason that the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame should feature Kansas City Royals. We'll be replacing the George Brett statue with a Kirby Puckett statue on opening day," a nameless company spokesperson recited. "The Johnson Countians we're hoping to attract probably won't notice the difference."

Harris Wilder Campaigning for Funkhouser?

The first campaign promise of the 2011 mayoral election has been issued, and it comes from somebody not even running. According to Tony's Kansas City, Harris Wilder has promised to leave Kansas City if Mayor Mark Funkhouser wins reelection in 2011.

Close observers will note that this is not the first time that Mr. Wilder has offered crucial support to the Mayor. When this summer's recall effort failed by a few hundred votes to force an election, it was none other than Harris Wilder who delivered essential complacency to the effort, assuring people that the effort was going to be a ringing success.

Demonstrating his wry and subtle sense of humor, Wilder asserted that a vote for Funkhouser would show that "the voters of Kansas City admit that they don't care about the budget". As treasurer of the recall effort, he somehow generated $33,000 of debt while bringing in only $1,175 in contributions. While Kay Barnes and the developer-funded prior city council managed to spend the our city into a fiscal crisis with larger numbers, Wilder wins hands-down when it comes to percentages.

(All joking aside, Mr. Wilder deserves sincere appreciation for both his passion for his causes - however much I may occasionally think them ill-chosen - and for his willingness to freely speak his mind. I wish him and all who read this a fulfilling 2010.)

Something's Fishy With the Recall Excuse

The Recall Group is claiming that the only reason it is not seeking a recall in court is because they don't have $10,000 to bankroll a lawsuit. The Star does its best to bury the smelly corpse with the remarkably gullible claim that "In the end, the effort to recall Mayor Mark Funkhouser simply ran out of money."

Folks, I don't think they're telling us the whole truth.

First off, there's no way they couldn't find $10,000 if they really thought they had a chance in court. Friends of other candidates would find a way to make it happen overnight. Barring that, they could have gone back to the streets and raised the money in a couple weekends. Not even counting the bogus signatures, that would be less than a dollar each. This thing has been headed up by a real estate lawyer and an experienced campaign professional - no way in hell are they giving up because they can't raise $10,000.

Second, they had a lawyer right there. Harris Wilder, their long-winded spokesperson, is an attorney in good standing, fully capable of typing up a petition and filing it. Dividing the $10,000 by $200 per hour (a fairly low rate for experienced attorneys), they're ballparking the thing at 50 hours of time - a long week of work, perhaps, but dwarfed by the hours other people put in on this whole misguided effort.

Third, there wasn't a deadline here. If they thought they had a valid claim, they could spend the time they need to raise the funds for the suit. Why would they throw in the towel so quickly? Remember when, a few weeks ago, they made a big deal out of hiring an experienced Civil Rights lawyer to give them legal advice?

And that, friends, is the fly in the ointment.

They've received their legal advice, and they know it's time to exit the stage. They failed to gather enough signatures, and no lawyer can change that fact. On top of that, I imagine those volunteers who submitted bogus signatures begged for this thing to go away as quickly as possible, in the hopes of avoiding criminal charges. When you ask someone for $10,000, they ask smart questions, and I imagine every donor lost interest the moment they saw the legal grounds proffered.

By pretending that their effort is shutting down because they could not raise $10,000, the Recall people are refusing one last time to admit the truth. They failed, plain and simple. $10,000 was not going to bring them any success, or they would have their $10,000, and plenty more where that came from. But they don't have to admit that to themselves if they can point the finger at someone else for failing to rescue them from their own failure.

Recall Petitioners Came Up Short With Cheating??

I was surprised to see how close the Recall petitioners came in their attempts to force a half-million dollar election on a city strapped for cash. While I had accurately predicted that the effort would fail, I had expected them to come up with fewer than they turned in. It turns out that they inflated their totals with bogus signatures.

How sad is that? What's the point of cheating if you're not even going to do enough of it to win? That's kind of like hiding a deuce up your sleeve in a poker game, instead of an ace.

It's also kind of disappointing that the recall organizers are changing their story now that violations of the law are coming to light. A few short weeks ago, they were crowing about how their percentage of valid signatures would be much higher in the second batch of signatures they turned in, because they had screened and checked them. Now that the excrement is headed toward the cooling unit, they are claiming they didn't provide their volunteers any formal training on how not to cheat (why not?), and that they did not review all the petitions.

To be crystal clear, there's no way, in my opinion, that any of the organizers of the recall movement actually condoned any cheating. Some of their followers drank too deeply of the anti-Funk kool-aid and went too far. Given their failure to train their volunteers and the fact that they turned in bogus petitions, I think it's time, however, that they stop wasting everyone's time and money.

If they file a lawsuit to force a recount of their bogus petitions, I hope that the judge is wise enough to insist that they, not the Kansas City taxpayers, be forced to pay the costs.

Why The Recall Recount Will Probably Fail

In an earlier email exchange concerning the statement of reasons for the recall of Funkhouser, I was assured by one of the organizers that "the petition and affidavit document are on the same page of paper in a large portion of the petitions printed later in the recall effort." He further explained, in a comment to this blog, "Did you examine the document, maybe even flip it over to see the affidavit is printed on the other side of the petition to save paper?"

Uh-oh.

From the City Code:

Sec. 730. Signatures to petitions.
The signatures to an initiative, referendum, or recall petition need not all be appended to one paper, but to each separate petition paper there shall be attached an affidavit of the circulator thereof as provided by this section. Each such petition paper shall consist of sheets of uniform size, printed and signed on only one side.

If the organizer was accurate in his claim that a large portion of the petition printed later in the recall effort were printed on both sides, then it seems that all those petitions should be rejected for violating the clear provisions of Section 730.

I don't know - maybe there are sufficient signatures on one-sided petitions to carry the day, and I'm not certain whether the double-sided petitions were rejected in the initial count. Judging from what the recall organizers have publicly stated, though, it appears the recall recount ought to fail.

Recall on its Way? Show Me . . .

Yesterday, the Recall activists turned in 13,000 new signatures in support of their effort to force a recall vote on Mayor Funkhouser. While some proponents of recall are declaring victory, such a claim is premature. A large percentage of their initial batch of signatures were invalid; a similar percentage for this batch would result in the effort falling almost exactly at the cut-off point.

Even if enough signatures are gathered, legal questions about the sufficiency of the grounds stated will need to be considered by the courts, and, of course, nobody has emerged as a strong candidate to replace the Funk.

I'm not saying it won't happen, but I am saying I'm not convinced it will. The next few weeks are going to be interesting.