Friday, February 12, 2016
Next Round from Accountability Committee
The Humphreys’ Committee for Accountable Government in Missouri will announce its second round of advertising targeting Republican members of the Missouri House who voted against right to work.
From the press release: The advertising, constituting a significant buy on both cable television and digital outlets, will ask voters – specifically Republican primary voters - whether their representative is on their side or just a labor union lackey?
“Hillary Clinton praised them for siding with Labor Unions. They have all taken labor’s money. And last week, Big Labor donated $30,000 to liberal Democrat Chris Koster’s gubernatorial bid. So voters really should ask themselves if they can trust a Republican Representative who has those kinds of close friends,” said Brandon Moody a spokesman for the Committee.
Moody noted that the timing of the ads was significant leading up to the February filing deadline as the Committee has previously encouraged pro-growth, pro-jobs candidates to run against these members and hold them accountable….
The Committee also announced that it would expand its reach beyond right to work to include pro-growth policies like judicial retention, judicial appointments and lawsuit reform in future efforts.
Here’s a list that the Accountability Committee says that they’re targeting: Becky Ruth, Shane Roden, Jeanie Lauer, Bill Kidd, Kevin Engler, Kevin Corlew, Nick King, Bart Korman, Anne Zerr, Chrissy Sommer, Kathie Conway, and Sheila Solon.
And here are two sample ads. Anti-Anne Zerr (see it here); Anti-Becky Ruth and Shane Roden (see it here).
PDMP Failure Symptom of Larger GOP Failure?
One Dem donor thinks that the stalling of Rep. Holly Rehder’s prescription drug monitoring program represents the dysfunctionality of the Republican majority – something upon which Dems can capitalize: Democrats will use the drug monitoring failure against Rs in November elections. If they can't even get that through the House we will certainly make sure the folks know they're failing our state on something that is common sense. This is a growing epidemic and everybody outside of Jefferson City understands that. Democrats will make sure people know they're out of touch…
Follow-Up on Utilities’ Agenda: Cybersecurity
One observer sees the proposed utilities legislation as an important step in greater cybersecurity for the grid…. Legislators should be thinking seriously about cybersecurity when considering the legislation proposed by the investor owned utilities (IOUs) this session. Reports of cyberattacks taking out electric infrastructure have grown increasingly frequent over the last year, and Missouri's electric utilities should have the resources to strengthen the grid against these threats. A regulatory framework that encourages grid modernization would provide utilities the resources they need to protect the grid and customer data from cyberattacks.
The current 100-year-old regulatory process for investor owned electric utilities does not provide consumer protections like rate caps and annual rate reviews. The consumer protections being considered for inclusion in new energy legislation would go a long way towards providing a more transparent process and ensuring that Missourians rates are stable and predictable.
Tweet of the Day
Rep. Jeremy LaFaver… @jeremylafaver: I'm now officially a member of ALEC. This should be interesting.
@jeremylafaver: Yep. Now I get to go to all of their meetings and learn about their issues. I bet they'll love me.
Greitens Rebuts SwiftBoaters
Eric Greitens addressed the Youtube video that I wrote about yesterday…
Earlier today a video surfaced making several false statements about my military service as a Navy SEAL. I knew politics was hardball, but I never expected a nameless, faceless person would upload a video to YouTube attacking my patriotism, questioning my service, and insinuating that somehow I skirted responsibilities to my country. The great comfort I find in this video is how horribly false, incorrect, and flat out cowardly the whole thing is.
Correcting the record of this video and setting the record straight has little to do with my campaign, and everything to do with not allowing a coward to distort an honorable military record. This shouldn’t happen to any veteran. These kinds of acts are exactly why many good people choose not to participate in the political process. I welcome this fight because it is an important one. Good people have to be able to participate in politics.
Insiders have a lot to lose, and so they set out to assassinate the personal lives and reputations of good people who want to serve. If they believe that some internet video full of lies and innuendos will intimidate me, well, it’s further proof they don’t know me.
So let me be clear. I’m proud of every day I served, and I will release every page of my military record. Every fitness report, every award citation, and people will be able to judge the record for themselves. It is more than 200 pages of documents and we will release them all. In the meantime here are a few of the pertinent records and documents. View it at http://ericgreitens.com/record.pdf
In the next 24 hours, we are also releasing a video with independent citations from my military record of everything that is false — which is literally almost everything stated in the video. Their video is a total distortion of reality. But I will not ask people to take my word for it — we are compiling the documents to discredit this failed attack, line by line…
One reader adds: I never signed up for Greitens email and this is an old email address… Mostly likely, Greitens rented a GOP list…
Bits
Fingers pointing in South Carolina, some at Jeff Roe’s Remington Research. See the Washington Post article here.
For the associate circuit judge vacancy created by the appointment of Judge Nancy Watkins to circuit judge, here are the applicants: Michael A. Becker, Amy Bender-Levy, Sreenivasa R. Dandamudi, Jason D. Dodson, Ellen W. Dunne, Jay D. Fisk, Mondonna L. Ghasedi, Mary W. Greaves, Joseph L. Green, Peter E. Gullborg, Paul F. Horgan, Heather S. Heffner, B. Joyce Kelley, Alan M. Key, Jr., David C. Knieriem, Gary J. Krautmann, Jacqueline Kutnik-Bauder, Julia P. Lasater, Henry F. Luepke, Amanda B. McNelley, Brandi Miller, Diane M. Monahan, Mary C. Parker, Susan M. Petersen, Kenneth R. Schwartz, Dean A. Stark, Richard M. Stewart, Jennifer L. Szczucinski, Gretchen R. Szydlowski, Dana W. Tucker, Colleen J. Vetter, and D. Kimberly Whittle.
Rep. Rocky Miller has filed the vehicle for the investor owned utilities regulatory reform. See it here.
Rep. Jeff Messenger was removed from the Select Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations and Rep. Jered Taylor was added.
eMailbag: Wrong Message?
With the renewal election for the KC earnings tax less than eight weeks away, I question Kansas City leaders' strategy in bragging about how much revenue they're hauling into their treasury. From the story: "Earnings tax, sales tax, property tax and business license collections are all up in ways that make Schulte think the local economy is finally recovering. The city manager conceded the budget plan assumes city voters will renew the 1 percent earnings tax in the April 5 election. Schulte and James remain confident that voters will approve the tax renewal as they did five years ago, since it raises more than $230 million for police, fire, trash collection and other services."
$5K+ Contributions
Returning Government to the People - $92,000 from Fred N Sauer.
UAW Region 5 Midwest States Political Action Committee (PAC) - $6,000 from UAW Region 5 Exchange Account.
Greitens for Missouri - $5,001 from John R Miller.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Governor Jay Nixon (the big 6-0) on Saturday.
Sunday: Kathryn Jamboretz, and Michael Moorefield.
MOScout News
No Weekly Poll this weekend.