#MOLegDemsRoadTrip: Missouri Democratic Leadership Seeks to Bridge Rural-Urban Divide
Missouri House Democrats joined forces with local activists to visit the state’s ultra-red Bootheel region. What they saw: hospital closures, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of access to high-speed broadband.
Kennett, Missouri is a small town tucked in the state’s famously red southeastern corner. (None other than conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh hails from this region.) Nearly a decade ago, the CEO of that region’s local hospital testified before the state’s notoriously conservative Republican-controlled assembly, arguing in favor of Medicaid expansion. The GOP would go on to shut that effort down that same year. Since his testimony: that hospital has shut down.
Residents of Kennett now drive 17 miles to the closest hospital in Hayti, MO. When a group of Missouri Democratic lawmakers also spoke to Hayti residents during a weekend bus tour earlier this month, the very residents of Hayti told those lawmakers that if Medicaid expansion doesn’t pass in the state: that hospital will follow the same fate.
These conversations and more happened when a group of eight lawmakers and activists took a bus tour of Missouri’s so-called “Bootheel”. That little leg of MO that borders Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee includes the town of Cape Girardeau (where aforementioned Limbaugh was raised) and is synonymous with Trump Country for good reason. (The President hosted a rally in Cape for then senatorial candidate Josh Hawley in 2018.)
St. Louis Activist Debbie Kitchen (R), Missouri State Representative Keri ingle (L)
Activist Debbie Kitchen, who organized the tour, is originally from Cape. Now retired and living in St. Louis, Kitchen sounds a lot like what writer and historian (and fellow St. Louisan) Sarah Kendzior described in this piece about the women in our region who oppose Donald Trump: a retiree who is dedicating her golden years to regional and national activism.
Before the trip, Kitchen approached members of the house, including House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, to do an old-fashioned bus tour. Kitchen said that she told Quade that “we could show those folks in those towns that we were using our own resources, our own time, to be there.” Quade immediately jumped on board.
Kitchen and Quade were joined by House lawmakers Peter Merideth (D, St. Louis), Greg Razer (D, Kansas City), Doug Beck (D, St. Louis), Sarah Unsicker (D, St. Louis), Doug Clemens (D, St. Ann), Keri Ingle (House Minority Whip, D, Lee’s Summit), and Ian Mackey (D, St. Louis).
Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade Speaks (L) speaking with a local constituent
On the surface, rural Missouri may seem hostile to the “urban values” of many of the core constituents of those lawmakers (all of whom represent districts in Missouri’s bigger cities). That’s not what Rep. Peter Merideth discovered when he and his colleagues sat down with the concerned residents of towns that often feel left behind by both parties.
Merideth represents Missouri’s 80th district, which encompasses an ultra-blue swath of the city of St. Louis. He’s also the chair of the MO House Victory Committee, an organization that supports blue candidates throughout the state. Missouri Republicans enjoy a trifecta currently, controlling two branches of the state’s assembly as well as the governor’s office. Merideth and the other democratic house members who joined him on the tour hope to engage rural voters to swing that...eventually.
“We were there to build a bridge between the urban and rural divide.” MO State Rep Peter Merideth
(L to R): MO House Reps Greg Razer, Peter Merideth, Doug Beck
Merideth sees tours like this as one way of “rebuilding a level of trust with parts of Missouri that aren’t connected to democrats.” He went on to say that “people in rural Missouri think that what separates us is the [values in] urban areas that a lot of us represent.” The more he travels to rural parts of the state, he said, the more he sees connections rather than separations.
Per Merideth, representative Greg Razer hosted a similar bus tour last year. On that trip he and other House Dems learned and witnessed many of the same things this time around. Voters in these rural areas confront many of the same issues that urban areas grapple with: poverty, drugs, gun deaths, bad roads, and a lack of access to healthcare and high-paying jobs. In short: working-class and working-poor voters everywhere face the same set of issues.
Merideth: “We were there to build a bridge between the urban and rural divide.” He went on to explain that the perception of this divide is the real problem, and that perception is overriding the conversation about policy and solutions. “If we go to where people are, we find that we agree more than we disagree.”
When I asked Kitchen why she spent her time and her own money (she organized and funded the trip herself), her response was quick and passionate. “After being raised in blue Southeast Missouri, I watched my hometown go red,” she says, briefly referring to hometown hero Limbaugh, calling the Cape “Rush country.”
“I have worked as an activist for years, and all I heard was, “why should I support the democrats in this state? Nobody shows up.” So they felt like the party left them.” Kitchen decided it was time to do her part, and bring a group of elected democratic officials to increase that sought after face time.
(L to R): MO Reps Keri Ingle, Crystal Quade, Greg Razer, Doug Beck (Center)
What Kitchen heard and saw was disturbing. Rural Missouri towns are lacking key infrastructure to remain competitive and appealing for today’s young workforce. Namely: public transportation (to get them to job centers), access to healthcare, and broadband expansion. The local economies are collapsing around them.
Both Merideth and Kitchen reminded me that broadband expansion is a huge issue in the state. Teachers in Caruthersville, MO told the group that they send students, who don’t have broadband access at home or at school, to the town library to do their homework. Kitchen also said that in many towns, the cell phone reception was so poor or non-existent: the group was unable to use their phones anywhere but within the town libraries.
L to R: MO Reps Crystal Quade, Keri Ingle, Doug Clemens, Peter Merideth
The catch? Every legislative session, Merideth himself has included broadband expansion in the state budget, and the members of the GOP vote it down every time. Symbolically, House Republicans voted to approve a resolution to increase broadband access throughout the state, but will do nothing budget-wise to make funds available to lay the literal groundwork. (According to the broadband trade website, BroadbandNow, Missouri ranks 41st in the country for high-speed broadband access.)
Kitchen framed the argument thematically as we spoke: without access to public transportation, healthcare, and information, how are voters in the region supposed to inform themselves?
“What I keep seeing are third-world conditions in rural America,” she said gravely.
While she, as a native to the area, is familiar with many of the uphill battle rural Americans face, she’s thrilled to see the conversation making its way to the actual policy makers who can help solve those issues.
(R): Razer, Quade, and Ingle speak with local Bootheel ressidents
Both Merideth and Kitchen were pragmatic that it’s going to take more than an occasional bus trip to bring rural voters back to the party. Kitchen clarified that, as fas as she sees it, Rush-country residents remain two-issue voters (guns and abortion). That alone makes it far easier for republicans to retain and even gain seats in those areas.
When I asked Merideth about how he felt about how the trip itself was financed, not by his own party, but by a local activist, he told me that was likely the only way forward. “More often than not,” he said, “it takes a local person to organize this kind of outreach.” Just the week before we spoke, he was back down in Cape to speak at a local fundraising dinner for the Cape Girardeau Democrats.
This is the kind of bridge building that motivated Kitchen to organize the trip. It’s a slow process, they both admitted, but it’s the only way an outspent and underfunded party is going to bring voters back. Old-fashioned engagement is the goal, with the hopes of returning resources and economic aid to poor and underserved communities throughout the state.
MO Reps Greg Razer, Sarah Unsicker, Ian Mackey
Correction: Peter Merideth spoke at a dinner for the Cape Girardeau Democrats. We previously reported he spoke at a dinner to raise funds for regional house races.