Friday, June 30, 2017

Politico: Roe in Kushner’s “Circle of Trust”

Politico reports that Jeff Roe is among the folks from whom Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner seeks advice.  See it here.

Pull Quote: The former Ted Cruz campaign manager first connected with Kushner in August 2016, a few months after the Texas senator conceded to Trump. Roe was drinking a Corona in Tahoe when Kushner called him from a vacation in Switzerland, in part to say how impressed he was with the data-driven primary operation he ran against Trump. Since then, the two speak regularly, and Kushner often seeks out Roe, an expert on data analytics with valuable focus group information collected across the country, for political advice and help in understanding how initiatives are playing with the Trump base.  “He’ll ask all the time, ‘what could we be doing better,’” said Roe. “Every time we talk, he asks that question. He is always asking, ‘What am I not seeing?’ If I offer a compliment he rejects it and tells me he wants to hear the bad news.”

Tax Credit Commission Draft Reaction

The reaction to the leaked draft of the Governor Eric Greitens’ tax commission report received a schizophrenic reaction from the left side of Missouri’s political community.

Outwardly several Democrats took swipes at specific proposals within the draft, denouncing his “food tax.”  For example, Sen. Gina Walsh released a statement that calling the draft “astonishing to see Gov. Greitens’ think about even more reckless corporate breaks, while trying to create a new food tax that will hurt working families the most.”

But there was also some private wonderment from activists that “several parts matched what we have been emphasizing.”   The draft repeatedly critiqued the Brownback tax cuts in Kansas, seeking not to repeat those mistakes.  Groups like Empower Missouri have testified in committee hearings that the state’s graduated income tax brackets as essential flat, and that allowing a deduction on state taxes for federal tax payments is a windfall for the wealthy.

Where Have All the Privacy Concerns Gone?

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is heading up President Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission.  Trump believes that there were “3-5 million illegal votes” cast in his election. (It’s a number he arrived at when it popped into his head one day.)

Kobach “penned a letter to all 50 states requesting their full voter-roll data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state.”  See it here.

In the past Missouri legislators have torn off their clothes in rage at the notion of a government sanctioned Real ID, or the Department of Revenue sharing permit information.

So, of course, one MOScouter writes: I anxiously await the conservative outrage that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is going to give the Feds a wholesale data dump of every voter file in the state of MO, including address, SSN, voting history, military service & felony history.

Closing the Books

Today is the last day of the fundraising quarter, and also the last day of the fiscal year – so it’s probably time to sign those budget bills.   As Springfield News-Leader Will Schmitt tweeted… ‏The last day of the 2017 fiscal year is tomorrow. The budget bills still await Greitens' autograph. #moleg

And

We should be seeing the final draft from Greitens tax commission today...

Ayers Gets Pence COS Gig

Nick Ayers – whose firm is “Target Enterprises, a California company that provides campaign consulting services to Republican candidates. Greitens paid the firm more than $17 million in 2016 as part of his successful run as an outsider candidate for governor. – will be Vice President Mike Pence’s new chief of staff. See it here.

Hanaway to Lead New Government Solutions Team

The press release: Husch Blackwell is pleased to announce the creation of its Government Solutions team, a group of lawyers and professionals who have experience working inside federal, state and local government agencies, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Congress and state legislatures, and statehouses… The Government Solutions team will be led by Catherine Hanaway of the firm’s St. Louis office…. "Each of our firm's six industry units has amassed a great deal of government-facing skill and experience - some of it industry-specific and some of it not," said Greg Smith, Husch Blackwell's CEO and Managing Partner. "This effort seeks to leverage the entire breadth of our experience and the aggregate value of our relationships across the platform so every client has access to all of our resources. The Government Solutions group is a natural extension of the industry structure we have in place."

Greitens Bits

Governor Eric Greitens signed four bills.  Three are transportation hodge podge bills (SB 8, SB 222, SB 225).  The fourth was Sen. Dave Schatz’ SB 240 that created a statewide licensing for electrical contractors.

Greitens also EO’ed a new task force into existence.  This one is called the Missouri State Justice Reinvestment Taskforce.  It will make recommendations to “maintain a safe and effective correctional system; maintain capacity for our most violent offenders; provide evidence-based interventions to reduce recidivism and deter crime; achieve justice for victims; ensure accountability and set clear performance measures for our criminal justice system; minimize the need to increase prison capacity; and increase public safety through a reinvestment of a portion of any identified savings resulting from these recommendations into other areas of the criminal justice system, or other public systems, which have been proven to reduce recidivism.”

And Greitens appointed Dean Waldemer to a St. Louis County judgeship.

eMailbag on Lincoln PAC

The PAC paperwork says the PAC supports Lincoln Hough and he's asking for the donations as well. That means it is really just a candidate committee that is called a PAC in name only.

Lobbyists Registrations

John Bardgett Jr deleted Terra-gen Development Company.

$5K+ Contributions

Lincoln PAC - $10,000 from SRC Electrical.

We Are Missouri - $16,942 from UFCW Local 655.

Birthdays

Happy birthday to former Sen. Pat Dougherty.

Saturday: PSC Commissioner Maida Coleman, Rep. Charlie Norr, former Reps. John Bowman and Connie Johnson.
Sunday: Derek Coats, former Rep. TJ McKenna, and Bruce Wylie.