Under the redistricting proposal currently moving through Missouri’s state legislature, the City of Columbia stands to lose its staunchly Republican Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer. Considering the bill was successfully pushed through Missouri’s House of Representatives, we can only hope the Senate passes the proposal so Columbia can bid farewell to Congressman Luetkemeyer indefinitely.
As a media outlet at MU, The Maneater seeks to act as a voice for an expansive student body (“The Student Voice of MU,” if you will). The student population in Columbia comprises a large portion of Luetkemeyer’s constituency, yet the lines of communication between Luetkemeyer and MU students are blurry, at best, and the representative seems to care very little about communicating with or hearing feedback from his college-aged constituents.
The last time we see record of Luetkemeyer publicly addressing his constituency in Columbia was in August 2009 at a Nissan dealership during a townhall-esque meeting intended to raise awareness about government regulation of small businesses.
Since then, repeated attempts to contact Luetkemeyer about his policies or methodology have been met by unnecessarily abrasive, entirely too brief and completely uninformative statements from his spokesman Paul Sloca. Whether specific questions are posed or if a request for a mere statement is made, Sloca is apt to hang up after giving a one-word response and Luetkemeyer consistently remains an unavailable political phantom.
Because we are a voice of the student body for Missouri’s flagship university and because Luetkemeyer inexplicably separates himself from student inquirers as well as the community, we believe Luetkemeyer has failed at fulfilling his political duties. Luetkemeyer is currently positioned as a Missouri representative, yet excommunicates himself from MU students, thereby failing to adequately provide for his constituency.
But the issue of lacking, if not nonexistent, communication between Luetkemeyer and the student body extends further. Luetkemeyer loudly denounces the theory of global warming, publicly declares science a farce and remains hell-bent on defunding the Environmental Protection Agency. We believe his political agenda is not conducive to the values of the MU student constituency.
Such observed contradictions would be tolerable if Luetkemeyer offered an explanation for his political rationale, as opposed to either a dead phone line or a snarky Sloca.
That being said, Missouri senators should know we fully support the redistricting proposal. Good riddance, Luetkemeyer (we hope).