MOScout Daily Update: Trump = MO GOP Primary Gold - Anti-Immigration MO GOP Spear-Point? - Quade Ask for Medicaid Inquiry - New IP and more...
Trump = GOP Primary Gold
What stands out from last week’s MOScout poll on Senate 29 isn’t the relative numbers of the two largely unknown Republican candidates. It’s the towering approval number of President Donald Trump with Republican primary voters.
Q1: What is your opinion Donald Trump?
Favorable: 82%
Unfavorable: 14%
No opinion: 4%
Q2: What is your opinion Mike Parson?
Favorable: 51%
Unfavorable: 12%
No opinion: 37%
Q3: What is your opinion David Sater?
Favorable: 24%
Unfavorable: 12%
No opinion: 64%
When those candidates are considering whose image to put on the mailers that get sent to voters’ homes, it’s not going to be the incumbent their trying to replace. Sen. Sater’s endorsement will be less important than whether primary voters think the candidate is “with” Trump.
I expect that what’s true in this Republican primary will be true in primaries across the state. Republican candidates clamoring to be most ardently pro-Trump.
And
The centerpiece of Trump’s re-election campaign appears to be disparaging the contribution of immigration. Whether legal (“go back”) or illegal.
Missourians largely agree. See a recent MOScout poll on the issue here. It makes a lot of political sense for Republican politicians to follow Trump’s lead on this issue.
But
· Anti-immigrant policies are bad for our short-term economy. Our growth is presently constrained by a lack of labor.
· Anti-immigrant policies are bad for our long-term economy. Axios highlighted a report this morning showing the heft of entrepreneurial muscle that comes from immigrants. “[A]lmost 45 percent—of Fortune 500 companies, were founded by immigrants or their children….”
· Anti-immigrant policies are bad for our soul. We are a nation of immigrants. Lose our awe for the courageous who will risk everything to be one of us, and we forget who we are.
Voting IP
A new initiative petition (see it here) filed late last week would make a change to the Missouri constitution clarifying who is able to vote. It changes “all citizens” being eligible to vote to “only a citizen” being eligible.
A lawyer explains… “The current is written in the affirmative (citizens have the right to vote). The proposed language is written as a restriction (By saying ‘only’ citizens can vote, you’re also impliedly saying noncitizens can’t vote).”
Apparently, this is an issue. See this NPR article about non-citizens voting in a local school board election in San Francisco.
Assuming most Missourians aren’t presently aware and fearful of this West Coast experiment, the new IP could get them riled up about it.
The IP was filed by Charles Hurth. Here’s an article about Hurth’s previous political foray, from 2007 in the eMissourian.
Quade’s Calls for Inquiry into Medicaid Enrollment
Minority Leader Crystal Quade writes to Speaker Elijah Haahr about the drop in the number of children receiving healthcare from the Medicaid program.
From the letter (dated July 18)…
Yesterday afternoon I received the MO Medicaid caseload report for June 2019, which shows that another 11,500 individuals, including more than 9,000 children, have had their state healthcare rescinded. This brings the total number of people who have been removed from the state’s rolls since January 2018 to approximately 120,000. 79 percent of these, roughly 95,000, are children.
The decline stems from issues with the re-enrollment process, and is not simply the byproduct of an improving economy. Were that true, we would see a similar magnitude of decreases in the number of individuals receiving food stamps and TANF, and significant increases in Missourians’ personal income…
Reenrollment issues which have been consistently reported since last fall, which remain ongoing, include:
• MHD’s eligibility software is not checking for federal SNAP eligibility, though this has been a longstanding federal requirement;
• Mailed renewal notifications are not being timely distributed; and
• The wait times for call centers, to which individuals are directed should they experience any issues with re-enrollment, are prohibitive even for the most flexible of schedules to accommodate…
I am requesting that you charge the Special Committee on Government Oversight (SCOGO) with immediately beginning proceedings to investigate the causes of this situation and help develop solutions...
Cannabis Bits
· This week… MO Cannabis Expo, July 23-24 in downtown St. Louis. See it here.
· Town and Country, in St. Louis County, is another municipality that’s looking at zoning issues for MMJ businesses. See it here.
· News Tribune reports on how doctors won’t prescribe, only certify. See it here. To be clear, no doctors in Missouri will be prescribing medical marijuana. By federal law, that would be illegal. What doctors can do is certify their patient has a condition. And it may be difficult to find doctors in Jefferson City who are willing to certify their patients' conditions so they may seek out medical marijuana….
Lobbyist Spending on Legislators Drops 94%
From the News Tribune: Lobbyist spending on Missouri lawmakers has dropped by 94 percent since voters approved a $5 cap on gifts last year. A KCUR analysis of state data concludes that lobbyists spent less than $17,000 on lawmakers in this year's legislative session compared with last year's spending of about $300,000...
New Committees
MissouriValues was formed. It’s a PAC. Its Treasurer is Lisa Cagle.
Lobbyists Registrations
Kathryn Gamble and Jorgen Schlemeier added Surescripts.
Phillip Arnzen deleted Missouri Division of Professional Registration.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Jason Brown, Rick Brattin, and Eileen McGeoghegan.