From Missouri Digital News: https://mdn.org

®RM75¯®FC¯®MDBO¯COL245.PRB - A Missouri Senate Lion®MDNM¯ ®FL¯ By Phill Brooks This March, Missouri lost one of the most effective state senators I’ve seen, and one of the most complex, fascinating and dedicated. He was John Schneider, a St. Louis County Democrat who died on March 2 at the age of 80. Until voter-approved term limits kicked him out of office, he had served in Missouri’s Senate nearly one third of a century -- from 1971 until 2002. He came to his height in the Senate as the chamber’s leader for the majority Democrats from 1977 until 1980. At first, I found his leadership chaotic. The Senate’s annual session would come to the final days with no clear organized plan. As a result, I judged him as ineffective. I soon learned how wrong I was. In contrast to my initial impression, he became one of the more effective Senate leaders I’ve covered. Realize that at the time he was the Senate’s majority leader, Senate Democrats were deeply divided. There was an arch-conservative wing that opposed the agenda of more moderate Democrats like Schneider. The chaos I first saw in Schneider’s leadership I came to realize was a master gamesman putting together the conflicting agendas of his colleagues. His schemes, negotiations and strategies all came together in those closing days of the session. It may have looked like chaos to me and his colleagues, but there was a game plan that worked. I’ve often wondered if Schneider’s approach arose from his skills in chess. He seemed to handle competing senators like chess pieces, moving them around the board for an eventual win. My memory may be faulty, but I remember a two-level chess board in his office. There was something about John Schneider that did aggravate some of his colleagues. He was judgmental and strongly pushed the issues in which he believed, like child protection, rights for workers, support for private education, abortion restrictions, stronger regulation of utilities and campaign finance restrictions. But what I think put off some of his colleagues was an attitude that he did not suffer fools lightly. I must confess, I initially was intimidated by Schneider when I started covering Missouri’s statehouse. But dealing with Schneider when I started covering the statehouse and he was beginning his Senate career, I learned one of my most important lessons in being a public policy reporter -- to have the confidence to stand up and ask questions about subjects that you may not fully understand. When I did that with John Schneider, I found one of the more helpful and friendly sources I’ve had in the legislature. Schneider, I think, simply was looking for seriousness of purpose in people. And that’s what I think made him so special and effective in Missouri’s Senate. John Schneider’s passing has reminded me how much Missouri has lost from the departure of these past Senate lions -- some still alive, some not. They had enough years in the legislature to learn the process and to develop friendships across party lines that forged the votes for success. They had dedicated a significant portion of their adult lives to serve Missouri -- some for decades. For most, I never found an indication they were seeking financial benefit. Many were financially independent. Schneider, for example, was a successful trial attorney. At least some felt deeply wounded by term limits as I learned when a few invited me into a private session to reminisce about their last year in office. There was an undercurrent of frustration that legislative newbies did not appreciate the knowledge and perspective these term-limited Senate lions could have provided. That frustration emerged the last time I saw John Schneider when, several years out of office, he came to the statehouse to warn Senate Democrats of deep cuts Republicans were proposing in a bill on Workers’ Compensation that provides medical coverage for workers injured on the job. Nobody paid him much attention. “I don’t belong here anymore,” a despondent John Schneider told me as we talked in a window alcove just outside the Senate chamber. How wrong I think he was. Like so many of these Senate lions, I miss John Schneider. 

[Phill Brooks has been a Missouri statehouse reporter since 1970, making him dean of the statehouse press corps. He is the statehouse correspondent for KMOX Radio, director of MDN and an emeritus faculty member of the Missouri School of Journalism. He has covered every governor since the late Warren Hearnes.]

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