MOScout Daily Update: Schatz Names Interim Committees - Abortion's Middle Ground - Haffner QB-ed CAFO in House and more...

Senate’s Interim Committees

Senate Pro Tem Dave Schatz established three interim committees. 

·         These committees will hold hearings, collect testimony and act as working groups for issues potentially facing legislative action next session.  It gives the Senate a running start at issues of complexity.

·         Interesting to note the heavy representation from the Conservative Caucus.  They snagged the chair and vice-chair positions of the retirement system study committee; and comprise four of the eight members of the tax credit study committee.

·         I haven’t heard this from anyone, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was a carrot thrown in by leadership during the negotiations to end the GM filibuster.

·         On Facebook, Tax Credit Chairwoman Cindy O’Laughlin writes… “I'd like to be sure we have accountability and substantiated methods of measuring efficacy of these. Not ALL tax credits are meant to provide a financial return but in reading past audit reports I see that some return far less than they invest. In many cases this doesn't make sense…”

MODOT and Patrol Employee’s Retirement System Study Committee. This committee shall study and make recommendations regarding the MODOT and Patrol Employee’s Retirement System.

Sen. Eric Burlison, Chair

Sen. Bob Onder, Vice Chair

Sen. Mike Bernskoetter

Sen. Lauren Arthur

Sen. Gina Walsh

Prescription Drug Transparency.  This committee shall study and make recommendations regarding the transparency of prescription drug costs.

Sen. Jason Holsman, Chair

Sen. David Sater, Vice Chair

Sen. Paul Wieland

Sen. Bill White

Sen. Jill Schupp

Interim Committee on Tax Credit Efficiency and Reform. This committee shall study and make recommendations regarding tax credits issued by the state of Missouri.

Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, Chair

Sen. Andrew Koenig

Sen. Bill Eigel

Sen. Denny Hoskins

Sen. Dan Hegeman

Sen. Mike Cierpiot

Sen. Brian Williams

Sen. John Rizzo

All the committees are to issue a report as to their findings and recommendations to the president pro tem by December 31.

Follow-Up on MOScout Poll

Last weekend’s Senate 15 poll was interesting for a few reasons. 

·         Remington is using a +18 GOP weighting on that district (48% GOP; 30% Dem; 22% Non-partisan).  That’s a sign that despite Dem talk of targeting it, this really was drawn as a Republican district.

·         Even so, incumbent Sen. Andrew Koenig was just at 50% against Rep. Deb Lavender.

·         There’s a big middle ground on abortion in a suburban district like this.  The majority oppose a ban on abortions with no exceptions (57% opposed, 31% in favor); yet they are much less likely (67%) to support a candidate who favors allowing abortions after the 14th week of pregnancy.

·         However, it looks like neither party’s nominee will be a middle-of-the-roader on the issue

Follow-Up on CAFO Blurb

One building denizen writes that I missed a critical part of the CAFO Freedom bill’s road to success… “Nice write up on CAFOs but would add one point missing.  Rep. Mike Haffner carried the bill in the House.  He is proving to be the go-to freshman on big issues.  Calm and collected on the floor.  On the CAFO issue, he wrote a battle plan for the House as though he was back in his days of commanding a F18 squadron.  He had his lieutenants (his floor team and mini whip team) then met with probably 95% of the caucus personally on the issue to address any concerns ahead of time.  The lobby team needed only to sit back and let Rep. Haffner do what a good Representative that cares about an issue should do.”

Murphey Spins

Last month Bayer saw a jury award against it of $2 billion stemming from cancer claims.  Amid the lawsuits, various documents have surfaced.  The Guardian reports on Monsanto’s efforts to shape media and academic coverage of their products.  See it here.  Former Nixon-ite, Sam Murphey gets a cameo.

The emails show that a controversial story published in June 2017 by Reuters, raising questions about the integrity of the IARC’s review of glyphosate, was secretly fed to the news agency by Monsanto executive Sam Murphey. Murphey gave the reporter documents that had not yet been filed publicly in court along with a desired story narrative and a slide deck of suggested points to make in the story. The story, which did not disclose Monsanto as the initial source, closely followed Monsanto’s suggestions, the emails show.

KCStar Stories

Just catching up on some of these…

From last week: Eric Greitens’ application to return to service has Navy re-evaluating how to handle folks with allegations of misconduct.   See it here.  “Several prominent critics of the military’s response to sexual assault in its ranks have publicly questioned why Greitens was allowed to return at all. They also asked why he was not prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) after his admission in 2015 of an extramarital affair, which is a crime under the UCMJ.”

From the weekend: 2018’s mystery bags of money reprise.  See it here.  “[Scott] Faughn personally delivered $50,000 in cash to Al Watkins, the ex-husband’s lawyer, before the audio became public. He told a Missouri House panel last year that one of his employees delivered an additional $50,000 payment to the ex-husband but that he could not remember the employee’s name, a claim lawmakers called mind-boggling… Watkins has speculated that the cash came from a GOP donor who wanted to oust Greitens…” 

From this morning: a profile of Jolie Justus.  See it here.  “She points to a history of collaborating and building coalitions to shape policy, a skill set needed to govern effectively in Kansas City’s form of government, where the mayor has few executive powers and needs a majority council vote to push through legislation. Those traits won praise from her Jefferson City allies and opponents alike, who described her as pleasant and gracious — but also formidable.  ‘All the skills that made my life difficult, she has,’ said Sam Lee, a Missouri anti-abortion activist and director of Campaign Life Missouri. ‘And I say that with the greatest respect.’”

New Committees

Lisa Kalp formed a candidate committee (Citizens for Lisa Kalp) to run for House 158 as a Democrat in the special election this November.

Merck & Co., Inc. Employees Missouri PAC Federal Committee was formed.  Its treasurer is Thomas Schad.

Lobbyists Registrations

Elizabeth Dumm deleted Empire District - Liberty Utilities Central.

Jeffrey Altmann deleted Kingdom Principles Inc.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Ward Franz, Ray Weter, Abe Rakov, and Lynda Brotherton.