Filibuster freezes Senate for over 12 hours

Update: The Missouri Senate confirmed Warren Erdman as UM curator Friday morning after Sen. Matt Bartle abandoned a nearly 17-hour filibuster.

JEFFERSON CITY — Although nine cups of water, diet Coke and coffee sat on a Missouri senator’s desk Thursday, he stood without a bathroom break for more than 12 hours.

Matt Bartle, R-Lee’s Summit, took every cup that was brought to him on the Senate floor and tasted it — out of courtesy of the person who gave it to him — and then proceeded to spit the liquid out, as though he were at a wine tasting.

Bartle began around 10 a.m. and was still speaking at 10:30 p.m. And gave no signs of giving up.

Democrats who oppose abortion began to help him, seconding two roll calls — the first about 10 and a half hours into Bartle’s filibuster — which allowed him to take a 30-second restroom break, and another an hour later, so that Bartle could run out of the chamber and shove a piece of bread into his mouth. It had been nearly 14 hours since his last meal.

Bartle, the legislature’s leading opponent of embryonic stem-cell research, held his all-day, one-man filibuster in protest of Warren Erdman, a nominee to the University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators. Erdman, who refused comment, is a leading voice for life sciences research in Kansas City and at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Bartle’s solo performance included a demonstration of his personal digital assistant to a lengthy description of his work driving a garbage truck in Columbia when he was going to school.

“They used to say if you were a good garbage man, you didn’t have to bring your lunch to work. And I was a good garbage man,” Bartle told a nearly empty chamber Thursday night.

Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Erdman to the Board of Curators on Dec. 29. Because Erdman was named when the legislature was not in session, his appointment took effect immediately. Continuation on the board, however, is subject to Senate confirmation.

“He is passionate on the subject,” Bartle said. “It is unreasonable to think that Mr. Erdman would be able to set aside his passionate commitment to human cloning research as he deliberates about the expenditure of public money at the University of Missouri System.”

Erdman is also an esteemed Republican. He sat on the staff of former Republican Govs. John Ashcroft and Kit Bond, and his supporters said there is no doubt Erdman will eventually be confirmed.

“It’s clear that Sen. Bartle is totally on his own,” Sen. Mike Gibbons, R-St. Louis County, said. Gibbons, the Senate’s President Pro Tem said the senate would wait until Bartle gave up on his one-man filibuster to put the nominations to a vote.

“He has a stronger bladder than I do,” Gibbons said.

The curators exercise near total authority over the MU System, its budget and top administrative staff.

Beginning soon after Senate began at 10 a.m., Bartle objected to a motion to approve some gubernatorial nominations. That list included Erdman. Not one senator stood up to help Bartle while he took hours to speak about his personal digital assistant, more than two hours to read off the entire roster of the General Assembly, an hour to speak on major league baseball and 30 minutes to lecture Sen. Chris Koster, R-Cass County, on his eating habits.

“I urge you to eat breakfast,” Bartle said to Koster. “This morning I thought, ‘what would a filibuster-sustaining meal be?’ And I decided it would be the same thing I’d eat when I run. Rolled oats.”

By 7 p.m. Bartle was yawning periodically, but showed no signs of ending the filibuster soon.

“He’s a marathon runner. I expect him to go on into the night,” said Sen. Jeff Smith, D-St. Louis. Smith is a freshman senator who disagrees with Bartle’s stem cell stance, but vowed to sit through his entire filibuster.

When Bartle first began his protest, questions began to arise about the political affiliation of another curator nominee, Judy Haggard of Kennett. Haggard and a third nominee, Bo Fraser of Columbia, will be brought before the gubernatorial nominations committee next week.

Haggard’s husband is an active Republican who has helped Republicans win elections. Haggard identifies herself as a Democrat although she has never been a part of a Republican or Democratic committee.

“I hope that being appointed a curator is not a partisan thing,” the nurse practitioner said. “It’s more for people who have a passion for the university.”

Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, has been quoted as being in opposition to Haggard’s nomination, but he refused comment on the nomination Thursday.