Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites with Ilya Shapiro on April 10

Posted on by Show-Me Institute Staff

In partnership with the WashULaw Federalist Society, the Show-Me Institute is pleased to present Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, for a discussion of his new book, Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites.

RSVP for This Complimentary Event Here

Thursday, April 10, 2025

12:00 noon

Washington University in St. Louis Law School

Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 305

One Brookings Drive

St. Louis, MO 63130

About the Book – Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites

Law schools used to teach students how to think critically, advance logical arguments, and respect oppo­nents. Now those students cannot tolerate disagreement and reject the validity of the law itself. Rioting Ivy Leaguers are the same people who will soon:

  • Be America’s judges, DAs, and prosecutors
  • File and fight constitutional lawsuits
  • Advise Fortune 500 companies
  • Hire other left-wing diversity candidates to staff law firms and government offices
  • Run for higher office with an agenda of only enforcing laws that suit left-wing whims

Ilya Shapiro will discuss how we got here and what we can do about it. The problem is bigger than radical students and biased faculty—it’s institu­tional weakness.

About the Speaker

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute and director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies.

Read full bio here.

This event is brought to you by: Show-Me Institute, WashULaw Federalist Society, Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, and Show-Me Opportunity.

Preventing a De Facto Ban of Charter Schools

Posted on by Scott Tanner

The passage of Senate Bill (SB) 727 last year was an important step toward expanding charter access in Missouri, increasing educational options, fostering competition, and driving innovation in our state. However, this year, there are some efforts to reverse that progress, including the proposal of SB 177.

If passed, SB 177 would require any new charter school to receive a certificate of need from the governing board of the local school district or the governing body of the city or county in which it intends to operate. This added hurdle would not only create an unnecessary extra step, but it would also give existing public school districts—which are historically opposed to charter schools—more power to block competition.

The Problem with SB 177’s Requirements

The rationale for certificate of need (CON) laws is that the number of providers in a particular market must be controlled in order to prevent market oversaturation. Such laws are inherently anti-market, as they give regulators, rather than entrepreneurs and families, the ability to determine need and to select who may participate in the market.

SB 177 would require a “governing board of the [local] school district or governing body of the city or county in which the proposed charter school would be located” to affirm that the following conditions apply to the school district in which the charter is proposed:

  1. Consumer demand for alternative educational options exceeds supply;
  2. The school district’s attendance area contains sufficient economies of scale to ensure both an adequate supply of high-quality teachers and potential students in order for the proposed charter school to succeed without hurting the school district; and
  3. The proposed charter school is likely to:
    • Alleviate economic and racial inequities
    • Improve students’ academic outcomes
    • Reduce student–teacher ratios
    • Result in a more efficient education service without duplication of services
    • Limit the number of schooling disruptions
    • Address family priorities including safety, convenience, transportation time, neighborhood walkability, and school culture.

These conditions range from things that are too vague and open to interpretation to things that shouldn’t be considered to begin with.

Little Incentive to Allow Competition

For incumbent school districts, there is little incentive to allow competitors to challenge their market share. In fact, no local school board in Missouri has ever sponsored a charter school in its district, despite having the ability to do so. It seems unlikely then that any district would grant CON approval to a charter school.

What Missouri Should Pass Instead

Rather than passing legislation that stifles charter school expansion, Missouri should focus on removing barriers to entry for charters. SB 398 and House Bill 1044 would expand charter access to additional districts, including those in charter counties or municipalities with more than 30,000 residents. These bills would move Missouri in the right direction. Of course, if Missouri wanted to remove all barriers to access it should allow charter expansion without regard to population requirements. It is a sad note that of the 43 states with charter schools, Missouri is the only state without a rural charter.

Limiting competition and restricting opportunities for students across our state is not how to improve education in Missouri. SB 117 would represent a big step backward in Missouri education policy. We need to continue moving forward.

Reporting on Housing Fails to Ask Basic Question

Posted on by Scott Tanner

The Kansas City Star recently published a piece on investor-owned housing that seeks to raise the alarm on corporate landlords, claiming, “large corporations buying single-family homes have contributed to rising prices.”

The story is similar to a piece published almost a year ago by Flatland, an online news source operated by Kansas City PBS that claims to be “committed to providing context” to the region’s challenges. The breathless piece was titled: “5 Companies Own 8,000 Kansas City Area Homes, Creating Intense Competition for Residents.” That claim comes from a 2023 study from the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), which states: “Nearly 14,000 single-family homes in the region are owned by 33 companies. Of these, five companies own nearly 8,000 homes.”

Okay. Is that a lot? How many single-family homes are there in the region? The MARC report doesn’t say. Flatland, despite its commitment to context, provides none. Neither does the Star.

I’ve reached out to MARC for these data, but while I’m waiting, I did some basic calculations. The Census estimates there are 969,534 housing units in the Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area. Nationwide, about 74% of housing units are single-family residences. Data provided by the Greater Kansas City Regional Housing Partnership indicate there are 682,546 single-family homes in the region. If 14,000 are owned by institutional investors, that amounts to 2% of the market.

Are we being asked to believe that large firms and investors owning 2% of the housing market is “contributing to rising prices” or “creating intense competition?” Really?

The worst part is that, according to the Star, Missouri legislators are considering an effort to bar corporations from buying residential real estate.

While it may be ideologically satisfying to cast corporate landlords or institutional investors as the real enemy, it does nothing to actually solve the problem. The truth is that housing affordability is driven more by restrictive government regulations that impede the ability of the free market to meet demand. Zoning restrictions, burdensome regulations, neighborhood NIMBYism, and slow permitting and approval processes are the actual drivers of housing costs. Addressing those problems requires real policy work.

Using legislation to tinker with who is permitted to buy homes may feel like progress, but it is more likely to reinforce the problematic status quo in housing—too many rules and not enough houses.

Jackson County Assessment Disputes Will (Hopefully) Lead to Real Change This Time

Posted on by Mike Ederer

A version of this commentary appeared in the Examiner.

It’s an obscure state law that every article about government and politics in Kansas City has to include a quote from Harry Truman. As I follow the controversy over the reassessment process in Jackson County, I flash back to my own time working for St. Louis County government during the 2001 “drive-by assessment” scandal. That, in turn, reminds me of this quote from our 33rd President: “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”

In the Spring of 2001, the St. Louis County Assessor had a problem. An enormous number of homes were coming back with a reassessment appraisal increase greater than 17 percent, meaning that a physical (in-person) inspection would be required. The problem was that the assessor had neither the time, the staff, nor (apparently) the desire to schedule in-person inspections of tens of thousands of properties. The solution? Quietly redefine what “physical inspection” meant. The assessor’s office plotted tens of thousands of properties with large valuation increases on maps (probably using Mapquest; Google maps hadn’t been designed yet) and sent assessors off driving around the county. Driving past a house and looking at it was considered a physical inspection. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. Assessments ballooned throughout the county. Taxpayers were livid. They called their council members screaming. A few of them, including my soon-to-be boss, started to investigate. They asked for the filed inspection reports. Once it became clear that individual assessors had somehow been doing several hundred “physical inspections” per day, the scheme was exposed and the scandal exploded.

Huge valuation increases. A poorly managed assessor’s office. Angry taxpayers. Politicians trading blame. Does this sound familiar to residents of Jackson County?

If you look at the property valuations in Jackson County from a decade ago and compare them to valuations in St. Louis, it is hard to dispute that Jackson County property, overall, was underassessed. That is the only partial defense I’ll give to the Jackson County executive and assessor. But for multiple cycles now, especially in 2019 and 2023, the assessor’s office has done a shockingly poor job of managing the reassessment and adhering to the rules of the process. Nobody likes seeing their valuations go up at tax time, but 113 other counties in Missouri seem to be able to reassess property without the process failures that have plagued Jackson County. Taxpayers in Jackson County have every right to be angry.

Taxpayers in St. Louis were angry in 2001, too. Almost immediately, the assessor and revenue director were fired. While it took a few more years, that demand for reforms to the reassessment process led to real change locally and statewide. The law was clarified to define a physical inspection as just that, and the trigger point for an inspection (with homeowner consent, of course) was reduced to the present 15 percent increase in value. Requirements for tax-rate rollbacks by governments were enhanced. Eventually, the St. Louis County charter was changed to make the assessor an elected position. While the present process is far from perfect in the rest of Missouri, the changes that emerged from that 2001 scandal have benefited the entire state.

Which brings us back to Jackson County. Voters and taxpayers need to demand reform. There is already an effort to change the law to elect the assessor, which seems like an obvious improvement. Another change that is needed is to end the tax-rate rollback exemption for the Kansas City School District. Despite its substantial increase in assessed values in 2023 (which is still being contested in court), the district voted once again to keep its tax rate the same. Every other taxing body in Missouri has to roll its tax rate back to at least partially offset assessment increases, but the Kansas City School District gets to enjoy its windfall on the backs of taxpayers. Finally, Jackson County could consider using variable property tax rates, as St. Louis County does, to allow for greater ability to adjust rates by property type in response to future changes.

Other changes would be easier and don’t require amending the law. Why the Jackson County assessor still has her job after all this mismanagement is a mystery to me.

The 2001 reassessment disaster in St. Louis led to improvements to the overall process that are still in place today, at least everywhere but in Jackson County. Hopefully, the ongoing controversy over the 2023 reassessments in Jackson County can lead to similar, lasting reforms. Jackson County taxpayers deserve nothing less.

Hey Elon, Here Are Some Cost Savings for You in St. Louis . . .

Posted on by Scott Tanner

I am a big fan of DOGE, MOGE, and whatever else they want to call any office that attempts to cut government spending at all levels. The United States is $36 trillion in debt, and someone is finally trying to start doing something about it.

So here is my contribution to the effort. Just tell St. Louis’s Bi-State Development Agency (also known as Metro) “no” on its application for around $700 million in federal funds for the ludicrous Green Line (formerly known as the North-South Line) proposal. Like Nancy Reagan said to Arnold on Diff’rent Strokes, “Just say no.”

The new leadership in the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) has instituted major changes in how the DOT is going to make decisions. This doesn’t look good for the Green Line, as the St. Louis Business Journal wrote about this week. The new DOT guidelines state that, among many other things, the DOT isn’t funding projects for local political purposes or social justice reasons. The new DOT leadership is focused on moving people and goods, and actually moving people is one thing the Green Line isn’t going to do. Metro’s own estimates—which based on history are probably inflated—claim that the Green Line will have only 5,000 boardings (so, about 2,500 people) per day. That is for a billion-dollar project. That’s absurd.

Whether you call it the “Green Line” or the “North-South Route,” I call it an inevitable failure and a huge waste of tax dollars. Even if you support MetroLink, there is no reasonable argument for the Green Line project. The federal government ought to reject this plan and many other similar, though not quite as bad, applications from around the country.

You’re welcome, Elon.

March 26: Insider’s Hour in Kansas City

Posted on by Show-Me Institute Staff

What’s Happening in Jefferson City?

Get the inside scoop on the Missouri legislative session and policies that could directly impact the lives of Missourians at the Show-Me Institute’s Insider’s Hour! Join CEO Brenda Talent, Director of State Budget and Fiscal Policy Elias Tsapelas, and Senior Fellow Patrick Tuohey for a discussion on tax and education policy and the latest efforts to improve government efficiency.

Wednesday, March 26

Carriage Club

5301 State Line Road

Kansas City, MO 64112

Doors open: 4:30 p.m.

Discussion and Q&A: 5:15 – 6:00 p.m.

Ticket Price: $20.00 (includes light snacks and beverages)

Get your Tickets Here

Where’s Show-Me DOGE?

Posted on by Scott Tanner

Missouri’s financial clock is ticking. It’s been nearly two months since Governor Kehoe announced during his State of the State address that he’d soon be establishing what he called a “Show-Me DOGE,” but we’re still waiting for that to actually happen.

While the governor’s announcement didn’t precisely outline what he had in mind for Show-Me DOGE (department of government efficiency) or the timeline for implementing it, there’s reason to believe such an endeavor would be worthwhile for Missouri. Given the numerous examples of waste found by the federal DOGE effort thus far, and the fact that Missouri’s budget has nearly doubled in the past five years, it’s likely that a closer look at our state finances would be able to uncover significant savings.

Last month, my colleague Aaron Hedlund and I published a guide for establishing a Missouri Office of Government Efficiency (MOGE). Our guide explained Missouri’s recent runaway spending growth, discussed the benefits of the executive branch leading the charge of finding inefficiencies and cost savings, and outlined key principles that would increase the likelihood of success for any DOGE-type effort.

The ideas from our guide were informed by the work of then-California Governor Ronald Reagan back in 1967 that used private funding and non-government experts to provide an unbiased outside perspective on California’s government. All told, Reagan’s effort was able to find more than 2,000 areas for reform in short order, and if all were implemented, would have saved taxpayers more than $500 million, which adjusted for inflation would amount to about $4.2 billion today. Unfortunately, only about half of Reagan’s recommendations were ultimately implemented.

Reagan’s experience makes it clear that buy-in from both the legislative and executive branches of Missouri’s government will be necessary for success. The good news is that both chambers of Missouri’s general assembly have already established their own committees on government efficiency and have begun working diligently.

It’s long past time for a serious effort in Jefferson City to rein in the state government’s excess, and it’s great news that so many of our elected officials have stated their interest in taking up the task. Missouri’s general assembly has already started its work. Now it’s the governor’s turn to follow suit and seize the opportunity to rightsize our state’s government.

 

 

Mega Events Fail to Deliver: World Cup Edition

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Every few years, cities fall into the same trap. A major event—whether it’s the World Cup, the Olympics, or the Super Bowl—gets dangled in front of local leaders like a golden ticket. The promises, as we are hearing time and again as Kansas City gears up to host some games in the 2026 World Cup, include floods of tourists, economic growth, and a new era of prosperity. The reality? A financial hangover that lasts long after the final whistle blows.

A 2003 Clemson University study by economists Robert Baade and Victor Matheson puts this into stark perspective. They looked at the 1994 World Cup, hosted in the United States, and found something shocking: Instead of the $4 billion economic boost that event advocates promised, host cities actually lost between $5.5 billion and $9.3 billion. Let that sink in. Instead of making money, these cities were left holding the bag for billions in losses.

The report lays out the problem:

  1. Stadium Spending is a Black Hole – FIFA demands that host nations build or upgrade multiple stadiums, often at obscene costs. South Korea and Japan spent $4 billion for the 2002 World Cup. Many of those stadiums are underused today, costing millions just to maintain.
  2. The Tourists Don’t Come – One of the biggest myths is that these events bring in a wave of free-spending tourists. In reality, regular tourists stay away to avoid inflated prices and congestion. The net impact is often negative.
  3. Jobs? What Jobs? – Yes, major events create work—but mostly low-paying, temporary jobs that vanish once the event is over. Meanwhile, businesses that don’t cater to event-goers—restaurants, retail, theaters—often see a drop in revenue.
  4. FIFA (or the IOC, or the NFL) Walks Away with the Money – The real winner? The governing body that runs the event. FIFA collects billions in ticket sales and sponsorships, while host cities are stuck with the bill for security, infrastructure, and maintenance.

The World Cup is far from the only culprit. Cities and nations have been burned time and again. The 2016 Rio Olympics left Brazil with $13 billion in debt, abandoned venues, and zero lasting benefits. The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics cost $50 billion, much of it wasted on corruption and vanity projects. The Super Bowl, despite constant hype, has been shown in multiple studies to provide a fraction of its promised economic impact.

Politicians and event boosters always paint the same rosy picture. They promise jobs, economic growth, and global prestige. But the reality, as study after study has shown, is that these mega-events rarely—if ever—pay off.

If a city really wants to strengthen its economy, it should focus on investing in infrastructure, public services, and policies that support small businesses and long-term growth. Chasing after one-time spectacles that benefit global organizations far more than local residents is a mistake.

So the next time you hear about a city bending over backward to host the World Cup, the Olympics, or any other mega event, ask the hard question: Who actually benefits? If history is any guide, it’s probably not the taxpayers.

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