FAFO Friday: The Ford Carr Problem
The newest legislative complaint seeks to punish criticism and silence dissent
A few years ago, I was speaking on a bill in front of the entire House of Representatives, when I noticed a group of people from the Republican side of the aisle laughing vigorously.
It’s not unusual for there to be chatter and conversation during floor debate, but this was more than usual. Enough to catch my attention and bother me.
After the day’s session ended, I walked up to the House member at the center of the laughter. I told him I noticed it, and wondered if I had said something so funny that they couldn’t help themselves from cackling during a serious legislative debate.
He said it wasn’t anything I said, but that he had told a joke to the lawmakers sitting near him, and that’s why they were laughing so much during the debate.
I told him that I liked jokes. I like to laugh, and that I’d like to hear the joke he told his friends.
He seemed uncomfortable, but told me the joke.
It went something like this…
“What’s the most confusing holiday in Ferguson, Missouri?”
I waited for his answer.
“Father’s Day.”
I told him that I could see why he would think that was funny. Then I left. In retrospect, I should’ve said more.
Ferguson, Missouri, if you don’t know, was the site of a series of protests after local police shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown. The population of Ferguson is approximately 73 percent African-American.
So when Rep. Ford Carr raises the concern of comfortable and institutional racism, he is not wrong. And when women raise concern of comfortable and institutional sexism, they likewise are not wrong. There are also a number of the conversations, and off-putting jokes and comments that have been made by the people who are in positions of power. If those people search their memories, they’ll know that I’m not wrong, either.
I maintain that most elected members are decent people who want to do good in the world. But some are not. And there’s a system dynamic where even good people can be drawn into a skewed sense of normalcy, or fall victim to groupthink. In fact, the leadership structure forces compliance through abusive ends. Stand too firmly against the leader, and you will lose your chairmanship, your seat at the table, your district will lose funding for an important project, or they’ll kill that bill you’ve been working on for years. That is how leadership controls members in their own party.
If you are up to speed on the conflict between House leadership and Rep. Carr, you can scroll past the next few paragraphs.
To catch you up on the legislative drama, some time ago, Rep. Carr angered leadership by saying from the well some salty things about another black legislator he felt had betrayed his community for some personal gain. Carr was swiftly admonished and reprimanded and asked to apologize.
This year, there was a widely reported scuffle at a Topeka bar and grill between Ford Carr and Wichita city council member Brandon Johnson. The police were called, the dispute ended, and no charges were filed.
Then, Carr made a comment from the well that angered leadership - suggesting that racism might underlie another representative’s refusal to answer his questions. That comment apparently emotionally triggered Rep. Nick Hoheisel, who quite literally walked completely out of his way to drop some profane comments at Carr’s desk. Rep. Carr filed a formal complaint, hearings were held, and the committee deadlocked.
(I’d suggest going here to watch video clips and get a full refresher on the triggering event and response - including Hoheisel’s long journey to Carr’s desk. It’s hilarious to see how agitated this “own the libs, snowflake, F-your feelings” crowd gets over a few edgy words. I thought Democrats were supposed to be the sensitive ones. 😜 )
Rep. Leah Howell then filed her own complaint against Carr, which is seemingly done in a spirit of retaliation and with the blessing of House leadership.
This, ladies and gentlemen, are the powerful rulers of your state in all their glory.
While the stock market tanks and your expenses rise, the majority party - with all its power and all its control - is wasting time and resources to be petty and small, all because they don’t like the way a black man speaks and they mean to bring him to heel.
It is amazing to consider how weak the powerful really are. They bristle at criticism. They actively legislate to silence any dissenting voice. They use the levers of the system they control to enforce compliance. They punish those who refuse to be controlled by the rules they’ve written or who chooses to disengage from the systems they’ve created.
When the rules don’t serve them any longer, they change them. When another branch of government stands in their way, they attempt to undermine the Constitution to make it suit their demands.
It’s almost as if they really understand how weak their grip is, and how easily power can fall away. That they know the biggest threat to that power is a group of people who refuses to go along - and a group never starts out as a group. It’s usually a single person who shows another person that the world can be quite different than it is.
From Topeka to Washington D.C. there are people in authority who play the chronic victim. They never accept responsibility for what they’ve done or their role in any problem. They constantly point the finger at others and direct the blame elsewhere. They have every resource under their command - wealth, power, and institutional authority - yet they scream that they can’t solve our problems because the minority is standing in the way. They create imaginary problems so you’ll never see that they’ve been the problem all along. But dare to name that, to point it out, and their get all up in their feelings.
What’s that Bible verse about criticizing the speck in another’s eye while there’s a plank in yours?
Howell’s complaint says “Carr’s patterns of violent rhetoric, physical violence, intimidating behavior and derogatory language that is unbecoming of any Kansan, much less a member of the Kansas House of Representatives.”
Every year, there’s some legislative scandal that’s reported (and a bunch that aren’t) - drunk driving, leaving guns out in the open, sexual harassment, videos of supposedly mock sexual assaults, making jokes about shooting people, openly and public belligerent behavior - you name it. There’s plenty of “unbecoming” behavior to go around, and everyone that building knows it. Yet those never warrant an official investigation or complaint.
What’s more concerning to me than unkind words are the policies these people support and pass into laws that actively cause people harm.
For more than a decade some of these people have denied healthcare to poor Kansans, taken food out of children’s mouths, made it more difficult to access services, put more kids in foster care, trampled on our state’s laws, and eroded the liberty and rights of Kansans they don’t deem fit - all while handing out sweetheart taxpayer funded deals to their friends and partners.
That is unbecoming behavior.
Don’t forget to visit realkansan.com to order your Real Kansan shirt! You can wear it proudly anywhere - but it looks really great at a Roger Marshall town hall!
