In January, Rod Chapel was in ºüÀêÊÓƵ for a historic occasion.
The president of the Missouri NAACP, a lawyer who lives in Jefferson City, attended a celebration for Kim Gardner, after she was sworn in as in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. On his way back to the capital city, Chapel stopped to have drinks with me at a west ºüÀêÊÓƵ County bar. We wanted to chat about another little bit of history.
As one of his final acts in office, Gov. Jay Nixon 16 members of the so-called “Medicaid 23.â€
Those were the 23 pastors who during the 2014 legislative session had been arrested in the Senate gallery for chanting and praying during a protest calling on senators to pass Medicaid expansion. Last summer, Chapel was part of a team of attorneys representing the pastors as they faced trespassing and obstruction charges brought by Cole County prosecuting attorney Mark Richardson.
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A jury had found the pastors not guilty of obstruction but . They faced no jail time, but a possible fine. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green has yet to sentence any of the 23, but for 16 of them, the case is now officially over.
The rest, Chapel told me in January, plan to keep fighting, appealing the case once the sentencing is finally announced.
“The preachers we represent definitely feel that it is a serious issue about how people — particularly people of color — will be treated when they come to Cole County,†Chapel told me on that January evening. “The race issue is as important as the ability to express themselves through their First Amendment rights.â€
On Monday, Chapel found out firsthand how difficult it can be being a black man who wants to testify against a bill in the Missouri Capitol. On behalf of the NAACP, Chapel was testifying against House Bill 552, which is one of several pieces of legislation moving through the House and Senate that will weaken discrimination laws in Missouri.
There is no dispute that the laws will make it easier to discriminate in Missouri — on the basis of race, religion and gender. Republicans and the business interests backing them have long wanted to water down Missouri’s strong anti-discrimination laws. Twice, Nixon has vetoed similar measures.
This year’s sponsor of the Senate’s version of the bill, Sen. Gary Romine, R-Farmington, owns a rent-to-own business facing a .
For Chapel, this sort of obvious self-dealing is madness. But on Monday, his target wasn’t Romine, or even some of the business groups that support the legislation, but schools.
“I have to tell you that I’m kind of dismayed at the groups that have come forward today,†Chapel said. He mentioned the University of Missouri and his alma mater, Washington University. “Schools, where we send our children, are all in favor of expanding discrimination. … This is nothing but Jim Crow. You cannot legalize discrimination on an individual basis and call it anything else.â€
Then he reminded the committee why it could be so devastating for Missouri to make it easier to discriminate at this point in the state’s history. He talked about Ferguson. He mentioned the Concerned Student 1950 protests at the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus in 2015. When it comes to discriminating against black people, Missouri has been a national “laughingstock,†Chapel said.
That’s when Rep. Bill Lant, R-Pineville, decided he had heard enough. and ended his testimony.
Chapel protested. Democrats protested.
Lant would have none of it.
Dissent, he apparently determined, is no longer an American value.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,†Chapel told me Tuesday morning. “It’s nuts. He invited me to give public testimony at his committee and then wouldn’t let me talk.â€
The NAACP president and lawyer has testified before legislative bodies numerous times. He’s a former director of the state Department of Labor and an administrative law judge, in both cases having been appointed by Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican.
Lant can turn off Chapel’s microphone, but he can’t, and won’t, silence Chapel.
The attorney made that clear months ago when the Medicaid 23 trial concluded. On that day, he stood outside the Cole County Courthouse in front of his clients, and spoke words that seem all the more prescient today:
“We as Americans have rights,†Chapel said. “We have the First Amendment right to free speech, and if we can’t exercise that right in the Capitol, I don’t know where we can.â€