Thursday, October 17, 2013
Maryville Prosecutor Yields
Robert Rice, the Nodaway County Prosecutor at the middle of the Maryville outrage, yielded a bit yesterday. He’ll ask “a judge to appoint a special prosecutor who can determine whether any charges will be filed in connection with an alleged sexual assault in the county in 2012.” See the Kansas City Star article here.
One reader texted a skeptical reading of the situation: “Nodaway prosecutor asking a PARTISAN judge for an answer… Who would’ve had influence over his nomination etc? They’re all on the same team… You get it? Judge Roger Prokes probably has the same political ties as the prosecutor…”
Opening for Hanaway?
Is there an opening for Republican gubernatorial aspirations here with Attorney General Chris Koster waving off any desire to get involved?
Senate 2: Proxy War?
From Bob Onder’s latest email blast: “And while we continue to dominate in grassroots and individual donor fundraising, the report of one of our opponents raises some eyebrows. Our Lake St. Louis opponent received 5 checks from labor unions,1 check from a Democrat former State Representative and, amazingly, close to $8,000.00 from HIS OWN CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT/LOBBYIST. Yes, you read that correctly: Our opponent's paid consultant put cash into his client's account (see chart below). We don't think that conservative Republicans of the 2nd Senatorial District will be easily fooled by labor bosses, progressives and well-heeled consultants.”
That’s a not-too-subtle reference to former speaker Steve Tilley. And it reinforces what’s been the talk about this race for a while… a proxy war for the split within the House GOP. On Onder’s side is Tom Smith, chief of staff to Speaker Tim Jones. And on the other are Tilley and those generally close to Speaker-designate John Diehl.
To the extent that they can keep the flame-throwing from igniting a forest fire, the damage to next session’s majority cohesiveness may be minimized. But obviously emails like this portend a potentially nasty turn. We’ll see…
Boyer: Compliance is Un-American
Jefferson County Councilman Bob Boyer raised some eyebrows in his recent spirited defense against a grant to help pay overtime for sheriffs running sobriety and seatbelt check points.
"The word compliance is un-American, I just, I don't think there's a big issue with seat belts or licenses to warrant this kind of checkpoint," said Bob Boyer… "Obviously there's an issue with the fourth amendment for illegal search and seizure, obviously people don't want to be harassed trying to go to work," said the councilman… "If anybody ever tells you that grant money is free, they are lying to you," said the councilman. He adds that grant dollars are come from federal and state taxes.
Boyer is a Republican running for House 113 where Rep. Jeff Roorda is vacating to run for state senate.
MOWonk Details Freshmen GOP Fundraising
With term limits, the lobbyist class finds maintaining 163 relationships in the House to be an unwieldy task. From that comes the impulse to divine the future leaders and work on those representatives.
This morning MOWonk (Brian Schmidt and Linda Rallo) have listed the October quarters for Republican freshmen legislators. See it here. The top of the class: Holly Rehder, Elijah Haahr, Kathy Swan, Caleb Rowden, Robert Cornejo, Scott Fitzpatrick, and Warren Love.
MO GOP Committee October Quarter
The Missouri Republican State Party raised $98,270; spent $104,378 and finished with $46,499. There’s been dissatisfaction with Ed Martin’s tenure, especially on the fundraising end of things.
That’s up significantly from the July quarter which showed only $7K raised. But the cash on-hand still lagged where the campaign committee was four years ago – at this point in the cycle. In 2009, it had $309K on-hand.
Miller Recovering from Stoke
The Missouri Times reports that Rep. Rocky Miller is recovering from a stroke he suffered last week. Read it here.
After several days of severe headaches, vomiting and vertigo, which was originally misdiagnosed as an inner ear infection, Miller checked into the Capital Region Medical Center in Jefferson City. The doctors found a “severe” cerebellum stroke and immediately put Miller on a number of medications… Miller says he currently feels “fantastic,” and other than the occasional dizziness, his symptoms have subsided. He doesn’t anticipate missing any work and has already visited his offices in Jefferson City and in Osage Beach since the incident.
Shutdown Fallout
This Stu Rothenberg piece in Roll Call (see it here), linked from Axiom’s Morning News makes the case that Republicans did considerable damage to themselves with this episode.
“The political fallout from the confrontation is very real. Republicans got almost nothing out of the deal to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling except, of course, that they lost another 10 percentage points in their favorable rating and looked less like an organized political party and more like a disorganized, confused rabble… Small donors will be disenchanted that Republican officeholders caved on both the shutdown and debt ceiling, while the larger donors, who tend to be more pragmatic, are likely to sit on their cash for fear that the GOP will do something else crazy to threaten the economy and the party’s electoral prospects.
“GOP insiders point out that while the party clearly has lost some ground in recent years among swing voters because of its position on cultural issues, the party’s great strength — at least up until now — was that it was generally seen by independents as fiscally responsible and prudent on economic matters. Now that argument may be more difficult for Republicans to make.
“Ironically, the House Republicans’ suicide mission came at exactly the right time for President Barack Obama and the wrong time for the GOP… Of course, polls have also shown that Obamacare has become more popular over the past few weeks, in spite of the inept rollout of the program. Instead of being able to capitalize on the snafus, Republicans have talked about the legislative deadlock, robbing themselves of a potentially useful talking point.
“As I have previously noted, we won’t know for a while what long-term effects the confrontation will have on the fight for Congress next year. But as one GOP strategist observed, the damage to the Republican brand could hurt the party in 2014 or 2016.”
$5K+Contributions
SEIU Missouri State Council PAC - $12,500 from SEIU Missouri/Kansas State Council.
Laborers Local 660-PAC - $6,182 from Laborers’ Local 660.
Committee for Research Treatments and Cures - $25,000 from Mariner Holdings LLC.
Missouri Roundtable for Life - $48,647 from Fred Sauer.
Lobbyist Registrations
From the Pelopidas website:
Nike L. Thompson added Schneider Properties.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Sens. Jamilah Nasheed (41) and Scott Rupp (40), and Ray Hefner.
And
Sen. Nasheed will do what any politician does on their birthday… throw a fundraiser! Show your love and join her tonight at The Element.