07/01/2009

By CHRIS BLANK  / Associated Press

Gov. Jay Nixon signed legislation Wednesday that names a Missouri highway adopted for trash pickup by a neo-Nazi group after a rabbi who narrowly escaped the Nazis during World War II.

The bill also requires the state to award contracts for driver's license fee offices through competitive bidding — officially ending a form of political patronage used for decades by Missouri governors.

The renaming of U.S. 160 in Springfield as the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway" comes after signs were erected last year noting the Springfield Unit of the National Socialist Movement had adopted the highway under a state-sanctioned litter control program.

But the rabbi's daughter, Susannah Heschel, objects to renaming the road after her father. Heschel is a Jewish history professor at Dartmouth College who was lecturing in Germany on Wednesday about her book focusing on the Nazis. She told The Associated Press her father wouldn't feel honored to have the road named after him and she's worried some might think her father condones the Nazi's beliefs.

"My father's name can't be used as a talisman," she said. "To put up his name isn't going to somehow bring neo-Nazis to the awareness that they shouldn't be Nazis."

The rabbi was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to Berlin in 1927 to study. He was arrested by the Nazis in October 1938, deported back to Poland and escaped just a few weeks before the country was invaded.

Heschel said she is offended that she wasn't consulted before it was suggested that her father's name be used for the road.

Cynthia Keeene, the leader of the Springfield neo-Nazi group, also said the state made a mistake in renaming the road against the wishes of the rabbi's family.

"We're just going out there and trying to do something for our community," Keene said. "I think renaming the highway is silly. I don't think they're proving anything except for how childish there are."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that membership in litter control programs can't be denied because of an organization's beliefs. The case arose after the Ku Klux Klan tried to adopt a section of Interstate 55 near St. Louis. The state later renamed the road after Civil Rights leader Rosa Parks.

The portion of the legislation related to driver's license fee offices puts into state law changes that started under Gov. Matt Blunt. He began soliciting bids for some offices after controversy arose about initial appointments made to supporters.

Upon taking office in January, Nixon started seeking bids for all offices. During a bill signing ceremony at a Springfield office awarded to a charity through the bidding process, Nixon said the legislation would ensure competitive bidding continues.

"For too long, the only meaningful factor in determining who ran our state's license offices was political support," Nixon said in a written statement.

But the Missouri Republican Party noted that several donors to Nixon or the Democratic Party received contracts for license offices under the competitive bidding process.

"I think the governor has shown elements of hypocrisy in the way these license bureaus were awarded," said Lloyd Smith, the executive director for the Missouri Republican Party.

In response to the Republican criticisms, Nixon's spokesman Jack Cardetti said the governor had changed an "ugly practice" in how offices are awarded.

"These reforms have been so successful that the Republican-led Legislature has now codified these reforms into law so that future administration can never return to the practice of political patronage," Cardetti said.

According to the Department of Revenue, contracts for 28 of the state's 183 license offices already have been awarded through competitive bidding.

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On the Net:

Fee office contracts: http://oa.mo.gov/purch/awardedfeeoffices.pdf

Department of Revenue: http://www.dor.mo.gov

Nixon: http://www.gov.mo.gov