Category Archives: Local Politics

Missouri Spotlights

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The Kansas City Star ran an article about Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich who is running for Governor on the ‘Pub ticket. I’ve met him a few times, heard him speak and was generally impressed. However, if the Red Star’s quotes of him are accurate, I would have a hard time voting for him.

The article is written by Steve Kraske, a well-known rabid liberal who has, on occasion, fled far from the truth. Given his reputation, I’m accepting this article with a large grain of salt while I wait for Schweich to comment on it.

Tom Schweich is running against the Missouri GOP, but wants Republican votes

By STEVE KRASKE, The Kansas City Star, 02/02/2015 12:00 AM, Updated: 02/02/2015 6:00 AM

ANALYSIS

As Tom Schweich launches his bid for the 2016 GOP gubernatorial nomination, he’s doing so as an outspoken critic of much of what the Missouri Republican Party has become.

And yet, he needs GOP votes.

The party, Schweich says, is dominated by one man, the wealthy party benefactor Rex Sinquefield.

It’s beholden to other special interests, too, and has often not acted on behalf of the vast majority of Missourians.

Party leaders have flaunted ethics laws, Schweich insisted, and he reels off several examples. “It’s like Ethics 101,” he said during his quick stop in Kansas City last week when he rolled out his campaign.

They’ve threatened to go too far with tax cuts, and the GOP has picked up a reputation as a “mean party,” Schweich said.

“What I’m seeing from my party is not good,” he said.

Tough talk, to be sure. But is this the way to curry favor with his fellow Republicans?

Schweich is gambling that rank-and-file Republicans are fed up, too, and that he will contrast favorably with his GOP primary opponent, Catherine Hanaway, a former House speaker who has received more than $900,000 in donations from Sinquefield.

But these days, evidence that Republicans are frustrated is tough to find.

The GOP is sustaining record majorities in the General Assembly. They control six of eight congressional seats and believe they’ve got a great chance to pick up statewide seats in 2016.

And lawmakers report a dearth of phone calls from constituents when it comes to concerns over Sinquefield and the state’s standing as the only one in America that permits unlimited campaign donations and unlimited lobbyist gifts.

Still, when voters have been asked to crack down on lawmakers through term limits or low-dollar strict campaign donations, they’ve done so in overwhelming numbers.

And Schweich himself has taken big money from other mega GOP donors, including former Ambassador Sam Fox.

Schweich rightly points out that his job as state auditor presents a strong platform from which to base a gubernatorial candidacy. Example 1A is Claire McCaskill, now a two-term state senator. Schweich can talk a lot about rooting out inefficiency and corruption and cracking down on wayward city and county governments all over the state.

But last week, he kept coming back to a single theme, and that is the lost-in-the-wilderness modern-day Missouri Republican Party.

“I don’t like the direction the…party is going now,” he said.

Will his fellow Republicans agree?

By the end of the article, I’m a bit unsure who Kraske is attacking? Schweich, Sinquefield, Missouri’s open campaign contribution laws, or those nasty, mean, unrepentant republicans in general. Regardless, he has quotes from Schweich that if accurate, draws questions on Schweich’s run for Governor.

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Today is a big day for Right-to-Work advocates. They will be heading to Jeff City for a RTW hearing on HB 116, sponsored by Eric Burlison, R-Springfield, and HB 46, HB 47, HB 48, and HB 69, sponsored by Bill Lant, R-Pineville.

This year there is something new! Some democrats are talking about voting for or are sponsoring some Right-to-Work bills, too. One democrat, Representative Courtney Curtis, has sponsored such a bill, HB 582. It’s a soft bill, of course, but  it is still a loosening of the rigid, pro-Union stance democrats have held for nearly a century.

Is Democrats’ Big Tent Open To ‘Right To Work’ Legislation?

By

When it comes to having a “big tent” for its members, Missouri Democrats have talked the talk – and walked the walk. 

After all, the Missouri Democratic Party has included state lawmakers who vote against abortion rights and gun laws; such legislators have even run for state Senate and congressional seats. And the party appears poised to nominate for governor Attorney General Chris Koster, who opposes campaign donation limits.

But state Rep. Courtney Curtis may be testing his party’s permissiveness by sponsoring so-called “right to work” legislation for construction unions. Curtis says the bill is “drawing the line in the sand.”

“The question really is: Are we a big tent party or not?” Curtis, D-Berkeley, said in an interview. “If we are, then you know there is room for a person like me. But the reason I’m doing it is because one of the other tenets of the party is equality and fighting for it.”

Curtis introduced a bill and a constitutional amendment late last month that would, among other things, no longer make paying dues to a construction union a condition of employment. While it’s not unusual for lawmakers to propose “right to work” legislation, it is for a Democrat like Curtis to sponsor such a measure – especially since organized labor is such a mainstay in the Missouri Democratic Party.

Curtis’ bill appears to be an offshoot of the lingering frustration between African-American political leaders and labor unions in the St. Louis area. Last year saw fierce – and often hostile – battles on the St. Louis County Council over legislation to expand the availability of contracts to minorities and women.

During that debate, Councilwoman Hazel Erby, D-University City, and then-St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley contended it was difficult for African-Americans and women to break into the building trades. Curtis emphasized his bill is “not about spilt milk. It’s about opportunities going forward.” 

But he minced no words about the bill’s desired impact: “It would hopefully cripple the building trades.”

“It is a ‘right-to-work’ bill. But I’m calling it Workforce Opportunity Improvement,” Curtis said. For “minorities within the unions that aren’t getting a fair shake, (it) would give them better opportunities potentially. And for the individuals that are minorities outside of unions, it would give them better opportunities to participate in the workforce. They currently don’t have that.” The article continues at the web site.

As expected, the unions are all up in arms, especially the construction unions who have been so proliferate with their contributions to various democrat candidates. “Labor is up in arms about it. [Construction unions are] already starting their marketing campaign that if this happens to us, it’s going to happen to everybody else,” said a union spokesman.

Perhaps democrats, at least some of them, see the declining union membership numbers and realize that unions are fading slowly away and will soon follow those extinct species like the Dodo, Great Auk and the Giant Moa. It can’t happen too soon. Our economy can no longer support parasites like those unions have become.

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Today is Groundhog Day. “Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s most beloved and furry seasonal prognosticator, saw his shadow on Monday morning (despite overcast skies), portending six more weeks of winter, “ sayeth the Washington Post.

Let’s remember that Groundhogs are varmints and it’s open season on varmints.

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Hearts and Minds

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…is an old phrase made famous in the ’60s and ’70s. The concept was valid. However, the implementation left a lot to be desired. The phrase came to me today as I read an article in the American Thinker. Most of the nation is watching the candidates for federal office. But there are hundreds of other candidates running for local, county and state offices as well and the prognosis for THEM is more telling on the sensibilities of the country. The outlook for the dems is potentially worse than anyone thought.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/content/images//2014-10-16%20Senate%20Map%20(600).png

Center for Politics Projected Map of the 2014 general election

One clarification. When the article below speaks of chambers, it counts the state Houses and state Senates separately. One state, Nebraska, has a single-chamber legislature. Nebraska is also, by state law, non-partisan. That leaves 98 partisan legislative chambers.

State Legislatures and 2014

By Bruce Walker, October 19, 2014

Most of the midterm attention seems to be on control of the United States Senate, with some attention on key gubernatorial races like Florida and Wisconsin, and with a smidgen of notion to the size of the Republican House majority after 2014.  Most pundits see Republicans padding that current majority by some seats.

There is another level to the 2014 midterm that passes almost completely under the political radar:  control of state legislatures.  Twenty years ago, in the 1994 midterms, Republicans made dramatic gains in state legislatures – a vital part of our constitutional system, which had been utterly dominated by Democrats for a century.

How weak had Republicans been in state legislatures?

Consider these data.  After the 1980 Reagan landslide, Democrats held 74 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers.  After the 1984 Reagan landslide, in which Democrats carried only one state, Democrats held 67 out of the 98 chambers.  After George H. Bush beat Dukakis in 1988, Democrats held 72 out of 98 chambers.  Even when Republicans were winning the White House easily, Democrats held overwhelming strength in state legislatures.

This really changed when Newt Gingrich nationalized the midterm election with his Contract With America, which swept Republicans into secondary statewide elective offices, like lieutenant governor and state attorney general, as well as state legislative seats.  After the 1994 midterms, Republicans held 46 of the 98 state legislative chambers; they held the same number after Clinton was re-elected in 1996.  This strength actually grew after the 1998 midterms, when Republicans were losing House seats, and grew again after the 2000 presidential election. 

That was a tipping point.  Democrats had long, and rather boastfully, gerrymandered congressional districts so that the number of Democrats in the House was significantly larger than the number of votes Democrat candidates in House races received.  In the reapportionment and redistricting after the 2000 census, Republicans, for the first time in a century, could stop Democrat gerrymandering and, in fact, gerrymander themselves.

Just as importantly, Republicans could now stop Democrat gerrymandering of state legislative districts and could, in fact, draw the district lines in state legislatures to maximize the number of seats Republicans would win.  This strategy proved so resilient that even after the 2008 election – after two straight elections of big Democrat gains – Democrats held only 62 of the state legislative chambers, five fewer than they held after the 1984 Reagan landslide.

Hidden in the congressional gains of the 2010 Republican landslide, the GOP controlled 59 state legislative chambers, far more than at any time in modern history, and as a direct consequence of that, Republican governors like Scott Walker were able to push through laws to limit public employee unions, reduce voter fraud, and protect the sanctity of life, among other conservative reforms.  

Because 2010, like 2000, was the election to choose state legislatures who would draw congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade, this Republican midterm gain was particularly important.  So even when Obama was re-elected in 2012, the congressional seats that had been drawn after the census largely by Republican state legislators elected a comfortable (albeit smaller) House Republican majority, and the state legislative districts drawn largely by Republicans gave the GOP 56 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers – a slight drop, but far more than Republicans had ever held in the heyday of Reagan or Eisenhower, both of whom won two landslide presidential elections.

After the 2014 midterm, which looks increasingly like a Republican wave election that will bring victory to Republicans in state elections as well as Senate and House elections, that 56 state legislative chambers could grow – perhaps a lot.  The Democrat majority makes for just one vote in the Colorado Senate, Iowa Senate, Nevada Senate, and Washington Senate.  In other chambers, the Democrat majority could easily be swept away by a modest Republican tide: Colorado House, Maine Senate, Minnesota House, Minnesota Senate, Nevada House, New Mexico Senate, New Mexico House, New York Senate, Oregon House, Oregon Senate, Washington House, and West Virginia House. 

Depending upon the outcome of gubernatorial races, this could put Republicans in a position to actually control state government in sates like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa.  These legislatures could pass and Republican governors sign new laws that rein in the political levies of public employee unions or create new and more effective ways to investigate and prosecute voter fraud.

No one is going to be talking about state legislative races on the Tuesday evening of this midterm, but the impact on politics and policies could be huge.

Liberal tyranny is spreading everywhere from Houston’s Mayor Annise Parker attempting to suppress religious speech to the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, ordering two pastors to officiate same-sex marriages or face fines and/or imprisonment. These two examples of suppression of free religious speech is no different from Kansas City’s Mayor Sly James passing an ordinance banning the open carry of a weapon, “to send a message,” to open carry advocates. The purpose of the ordinance was, again, the suppression of free speech and expression.

In the end, all these acts by government are suppression of ‘unalienable’ and constitutional rights by leftist controlled governments. That is why gaining control of local and state governments is so important. Political rot starts at the top. Political recovery begins at the bottom.

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Pass…

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I’m not sure if it was the busy weekend or perhaps I’ve become a bit jaded and skeptical. I, and others from western Missouri, met with others from the eastern and central Missouri to discuss the upcoming Missouri Legislative session. It was an interesting session. One attendee was a Jeff City lobbyist who gave us insight into the political machinations in the state Capitol.

While we were meeting, conservative pols and other grassroots activists met in Jeff City, ostensibly discussing the same upcoming legislative session as were we in Columbia. I suspect that somewhere in each conversation, the subject of how to control the “must have it all now” group that alienates legislators was a common topic. If you look upon the conservative legislation passed in the last twenty years, you will find we have made significant progress. However, we must recognize that we could lose it all if we can’t keep legislators on our side.

So I come down to my office this morning, scan the state, local and national news, and find…nothing that excites me. I still remember the discussions of the weekend that reinforced my confidence in a conservative legislature. I also remember hearing about activists who, while ostensibly defending their ‘rights’, endanger all we’ve gained.

I look at 2015 and I’m not overjoyed. We will have some degree of success and equal, or perhaps greater, loss. I remember an old adage I once read, “I can protect myself from my enemies, but Heaven help me to protect me from my friends.”

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Wow! What a weekend.

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I had a real busy weekend. I had a real busy week. My shootin’ buddy and I spent Thursday at the range practicing for a pistol match coming up next month. Saturday night was a Friends of the NRA dinner and auction in H’ville. Then Sunday afternoon was the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance 25th Anniversary picnic.

I’m pretty much whooped.  Still…I’d do it again in a second.

***

The Kansas Senatorial race continues to be in the front of the news. I’ve had some friends ask me what the controversy is all about. It’s this, as briefly as I can explain.

There are (were) three candidates running for US Senator; Pat Roberts, the incumbent on the Republican Ticket, Chad Taylor on the democrat ticket, and Greg Orman, a democrat who the democrats wouldn’t let run against Taylor in the primary. Orman decided to run as an ‘independent.’ In reality, it’s two democrats running against one ‘Pub. Ordinarily, this would be a shoo-in for Roberts because Orman would split the democrat votes with Taylor.

Suddenly, the environment changed. Polls indicated that Orman was running better against Roberts than Taylor. To the democrats, this meant one of their candidates was a possible winner, especially since Roberts pissed off much of the grass-roots conservatives who had backed Milton Wolf. A significant percentage of those Wolf supporters declared they would either vote for Orman or stay home.

The democrats were now in a dilemma. Orman, a democrat in an independent’s costume, was ahead of Taylor. They decided to have Taylor quit. That would allow the democrats to vote for Orman instead of splitting their votes between the two democrat candidates.

The Kansas democrat leaders forced Chad Taylor to quit.

After a series of legal shenanigans, with the aid of their left-leaning KS Supreme Court, they got Taylor off the ticket. Bad news for Roberts. But Orman isn’t the clean-cut, scandal-free candidate the democrats and he projects. He is being sued for failure to pay royalties to another company for the use of their patented technology.

The establishment ‘Pubs are rallying around Roberts and Orman is facing more scrutiny from the national press. Surprise, surprise! Orman is keeping closed-mouth about what his political views?

Greg Orman, a political enigma, faces growing scrutiny in Kansas Senate race

By Philip Rucker September 28 at 8:53 PM

WICHITA — Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.”

But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans.

Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no.

What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban.

And on the biggest question of all — Would he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? — Orman insists he’s not sure.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent candidate Greg Orman talk after a debate at the Kansas State Fair Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It’s not in the best interests for us to say that,” Orman said in an interview here last week.

Orman has said he would caucus with whichever party has the majority after November’s midterm elections. But what if the Senate is evenly divided and Orman’s decision swings the balance? He said that would be “a wonderful opportunity for Kansas.”

Orman’s rise has transformed deep-red Kansas into the year’s unlikeliest political battleground. Many voters say Roberts has lost touch with the state he’s represented in Congress since 1981.

Since Democratic nominee Chad Taylor withdrew his name from the ballot this month, Roberts has been in a two-man race with Orman, who has previous ties to the Democratic Party but preaches independence. Public polling has been unreliable, but both sides believe the race is very tight.

Orman, who entered the race in June, has surged on the strength of his pitch to fix a broken Washington without any allegiance to a political party. But now the enigma is under increasing pressure from voters to provide a clearer sense of his ideology and politics, while facing attacks from the Roberts camp over his business ties and Democratic past.

“I’ve been impressed with Greg so far, but we’re still in the ‘I’m an independent’ stage,” said Lynda Neff, 68, a retired teacher. “I’m ready to move past that and hear about some issues. . . . I will support him if he gives me a little more information.”

Perhaps the biggest test for Orman, a multi­millionaire investor who is partially funding his campaign, is surviving the intensifying public scrutiny of his business and personal relationships with Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member who was convicted in 2012 of insider trading and is serving a federal prison sentence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/election-lab-2014

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014.

View Graphic

Roberts and his Republican allies have launched a barrage of attacks designed to make Orman appear untrustworthy. On the campaign trail in Kansas last week, a parade of top Republicans alleged that Orman is a liberal Democrat in disguise.

“Anybody with a liberal record like Greg’s . . . that’s not independence. That’s someone who’s trying to snooker you, Kansas,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, said Thursday in Independence.

Palin’s 2008 running mate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), told voters a day earlier in suburban Overland Park: “Let’s be honest — he’s a Democrat. He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck.”

Robert J. Dole, a former Senate Republican leader and 91-year-old Kansas legend, said Monday night in Dodge City, “There’s a multimillionaire who claims he’s an independent, but really [he’s] in the other party.”

In Kinsley on Tuesday, after reporters asked whether he trusted Orman to govern as an independent, Roberts said, “All of a sudden, if there’s a metamorphosis and the caterpillar changed — why, I just don’t think that’s in the cards.”

Orman argues that the Republicans are reading him wrong. He said he voted for Obama in 2008, and public records show that in the middle of that decade he made donations mostly to Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Al ­Franken (Minn.). In 2008, he briefly ran for Senate against Roberts as a Democrat before dropping out.

The column by the Washington Post is long. You can read it completely on their website.

I was surprised that the Washington Post says the new Senate will be ‘Pub controlled, 62 to 48 given their history of biased reporting. Joni Ernst now leads Braley, 44 percent to 38 percent. Most of the polling over the last month or more has Ernst in the lead but the MSM claimed otherwise and called Iowa a ‘leaning blue’ state.

Des Moines Register: “The ground under Bruce Braley has shifted. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate is 6 points behind his GOP rival, Joni Ernst, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll of likely voters. Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has for months been considered deadlocked…. One potential reason: Two-thirds of likely voters who live in the country are bothered by a remark he made about Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley that’s been perceived as besmirching farmers.”

Braley should have known that dissing farmers in Iowa is not a career-enhancing tactic.

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Payback

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The Kansas Senate race continues. Pat Roberts is running behind Greg Orman in the polls. Orman has not declared, if he wins, which party he will caucus. In the Senate, one seat could make a critical difference.

A new factor has appeared, Milton Wolf, Roberts’ primary opponent. Rumors are flying that Wolf may endorse Orman in return for Orman’s commitment to caucus with the ‘Pubs.

FOX News reports…

WOLF LOOKING FOR REVENGE WITH ORMAN
Milton Wolf, who lost tough primary battle with Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, may dish out some political payback by endorsing Roberts’ general election opponent, Greg Orman in the key Kansas Senate race. As Wolf weighs the move sources tell Politico, “[T]here’s a big catch: To win Wolf’s endorsement, Orman must first agree to caucus with the Senate GOP if he were to defeat Roberts…The two men were scheduled to meet Friday afternoon at Orman’s house in Olathe, Kansas., just outside of Kansas City, according to two people familiar with the matter. One person said Orman’s team sought the meeting but there was no ask for an endorsement. Another source said the meeting may be canceled now that the media have caught wind of it…An endorsement could provoke some sharp GOP backlash for Wolf, too. As Roberts has slipped in the polls, the GOP has made a furious push to showcase a united front behind his candidacy.” — FOX Newsletter, September 26, 2014.

Add to this situation, Roberts’ residency problems have just grown worse. The Topeka Capitol Journal has uncovered documents where Roberts purchased a home in Virginia whose sale included the statement that the Virginia home was his ‘primary’ residence.

I’m not a Kansas resident, but in my opinion, Pat Roberts is toast. He can retire to his ‘Ol’ Virginny Home!’

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On the Missouri side…

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I wrote about Jay Nixon’s fiasco last week. His handling of the Ferguson shooting was incredibly inept. I’m being kind with that description. Some of his fellow democrats were not pleased either.

FERGUSON — ‘Black legislators air frustrations in meeting with Gov. Nixon in St. Louis County,’ St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Members of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus used a meeting Sunday with Gov. Jay Nixon to vent over the investigation into the Aug. 9 shooting death of an unarmed Ferguson teenager. The meeting Sunday afternoon at the University of Missouri-St. Louis was closed to the public and reporters, but some legislators said they repeated calls for an indictment of Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson and for Nixon to remove St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch from the case. “He’s pretending he cares,” said Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, who walked out of the meeting after about 10 minutes. “It’s a waste of time. He’s doing this to look good.” — PolitocMO Newssletter, August 26, 2014.

Nixon told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that he would be attending Michael Brown’s funeral. A space was reserved for him. But, come the funeral, Jay Nixon was missing.

Nixon told the Post Dispatch on Sunday that he would be attending Michael Brown’s funeral yesterday. He had a place marked for him at the church where the funeral took place, but was not in attendance. Per spokesman Scott Holste: “The Governor has communicated to attorneys representing the family of Michael Brown that he will not be attending today’s funeral out of respect for the family, who deserve time to focus on remembering Michael and grieving their loss.” — St. Louis Today.

Every one seems to be jumping on Jay Nixon. I can’t think of a better person to be receiving all this negative attention.

***

Last week, by state law, democrats and republicans met to ‘reorganize.’ By reorganize, I mean all the Precinct Committeemen and Committeewomen elected in the primary on August 5th, met to choose committee officers for the next two years.

Each county has a party central committee. What I didn’t know until last week is that each House and Senate districts also have committee each with a set of officers. The county central committees choose a Chairman, Vice-chairman, Treasurer and Secretary for the House District committee. The House District Chair and Vice-Chair are automatically members of the Senatorial District Committee.

What is the purpose of these committees? Basically, to choose candidates for office in case of a vacancy. For example, a couple of years ago, the Cass County Presiding Commissioner was deemed ineligible for office. The county central committee chose a candidate to run for office and that candidate won a special election a couple of months later. The committees also sent recommendations to the Governor when an appointment to fill a vacant term is needed.

The House district committee serves the same function if the state Representative position falls vacant for whatever reason. In such an occurance, the district committee would choose a candidate for the position.

The Senate district is slightly different. Its members are the two Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of all the House districts that fall within the Senatorial district. They choose a candidate for the state Senate seat if case of a vacancy. Plus—they also choose members of the state central committee. The House and Senatorial committees may have more functions than I have described, but those are the ones pertinent to today’s discussion.

Why am I going into all this detail? Because of what is happening in one House and Senatorial district.

TROUBLE BREWING IN STATE GOP? — ‘Local leader in GOP faces issue for post,’ Joplin Globe: “A longtime Southwest Missouri conservative activist has hit a bump in the road after his three decades of involvement within the inner workings of the Missouri Republican Party. The eligibility of ballots submitted by Carthage-area resident John Putnam, former chairman of the Jasper County Republican Central Committee, in his two-way race to become chairman of the 127th House District Republican Committee has been questioned. The issue arose after Putnam narrowly defeated Dade County resident Bob Jackson in a 15-14 vote last week. … 
“Putnam, a tea party activist who is well-known throughout the state, has not been shy about his concerns with the so-called party establishment. He backed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin until the end of the tumultuous 2012 campaign, and he has taken criticism directly to Republicans who he thinks are too flimsy on their beliefs. The night before the 127th District Republican Committee chairman election, during remarks to the Jasper County Republican Central Committee, Putnam criticized U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., for what he said was Blunt’s support of Mississippi Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in his heated primary against tea party favorite Chris McDaniel. … 
“‘’Roy Blunt has divided the Republican Party before, and I can’t support him in the Senate race next time, and I do think that has some bearing on what’s happening now,’ Putnam said in an interview. Missouri Republican Party Chairman Ed Martin has called for the Republican National Committee to investigate the Mississippi Senate race. He has said the runoff election there included “racially charged” television ads opposing McDaniel that should not be tolerated by the Republican Party. That episode solidified the distrust between Martin — and Martin’s supporters, like Putnam — and the so-called Republican establishment. Putnam said, ‘They can read the tea leaves: If I’m the chairman of the district, I’m going to vote for a state committeeman and woman that will support Ed Martin in his re-election.’” — PoliticMO Newsletter, August 26, 2014 and The Joplin Globe.

If Putnam’s election to the House District is upheld, he will automatically be a member of his Senatorial committee…and possibly be selected as a member for the state central committee.

Roy Blunt is well known in ‘Pub politics as being an establishment butt-boy. His endorsement and contribution to Thad Cochran’s campaign, in opposition to Missouri’s GOP State Chairman Ed Martin, broadened the schism between party conservatives and the Washington (and state) establishment. Ed Martin was elected State GOP Chairman with the backing of the Tea Party and other grassroots activists as an anti-establishment candidate. The question upcoming is whether he will retain his position after the new crop of state GOP committeemen are chosen.

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After Action Report

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With one exception, the primary came out much as I expected. Amendments 1, 5, and 9 passed, number 1 narrowly but the other two with very wide margins. Amendment 7 failed, again with wide margins as did Kansas City’s Street Car issue. The Amendments will be in force as soon as the election results are certified.

Great news!

On the Cass County front, Jeff Cox won against Dave Morris for Presiding Commissioner with nearly 60% of the votes and Stacey Lett won against Meryl Lange for Associate Circuit Court Judge by a larger margin against Lange than did Jeff Cox against Morris. The one disappointment was the loss by Ron Johnson against Ryan Wescoat in a race that can only be called a grudge match.

I was not surprised by any of the above. According to information I’ve been receiving this last week, I was not surprised by any of the outcomes. I was given some raw polling information taken about a week to ten days ago covering the Cox, Johnson and Lett races. The election yesterday confirmed the poll taken a week earlier.

In Jackson County, Jacob Turk will run again against Emmanuel Cleaver winning his primary race with almost 69% of the votes. I’m not sure how many times Turk has run against Cleaver, but he gains more ground every time. Perhaps this time he’ll beat out Cleaver in the Kansas City democrat enclave. Congratulations to Jacob Turk on his primary win.

The Missouri House is now complete. Three new ‘Pub legislators, elected via special election to fill three vacancies, will be sworn in on September 10th just in time for the Veto Override session. Jay Nixon had failed to fill those vacancies leaving the Republican majority weakened. With the three new legislators, the ‘Pubs once again have a veto proof margin in the House.

THE NEXT LEGISLATURE — ‘GOP regains veto-proof majority in Missouri House,’ AP: “Republicans regained a two-thirds majority in the Missouri House on Tuesday heading into a big showdown with Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon over his vetoes of tax breaks, abortion restrictions and other issues. Republicans won two of the three special elections for vacant House seats. That will give them 110 House seats – one more than the two-thirds majority required to override vetoes. Republicans already hold a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Republican Shawn Sisco, of Rolla, won in the 120th District while Republican Tila Hubrecht, of Dexter, won in the 151st District. Democrat Alan Green, of Florissant, was leading in a special election for the 67th District. The special election winners are expected to be sworn into office by Sept. 10, when lawmakers will convene to consider overriding Nixon’s vetoes of 32 bills and 136 budget sections. … The Legislature’s September agenda includes the consideration of veto overrides on a series of bills granting tax breaks to particular businesses, which Nixon contends could bust a hole in the budget. Republican legislative leaders say the measures could help the economy while overturning what they describe as misinterpretations of tax policies by the courts and the Department of Revenue. Nixon said the numerous budget vetoes were needed because of falling state revenues and to guard against the potential for the Legislature to override his vetoes on the tax breaks. Among Nixon’s other high-profile vetoes are bills extending Missouri’s one-day abortion waiting period to 72 hours and allowing specially trained teachers to carry concealed guns in public schools. The special elections were called after incumbents resigned for a variety of reasons. Republican Rep. Jason Smith, of Salem, stepped down from the 120th District seat after winning a special election to Congress in June 2013.” — PoliticMO Newsletter, August 6, 2014 and The Southeast Missourian.

Taken as a whole, the primary was good for republicans.

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