MOScout Daily Update: Budget Blues - COVID Dashboard - Gregory Sues STL County - Ballot Timing Talk and more....
COVID Dashboard
The governor’s office unveiled a new COVID dashboard. See it here. This has been reported for weeks, but the one inescapable fact in the data is that the virus has hit African Americans in disproportionally hard. Black Missourians account for 33% of all COVID cases, and 38% of the deaths.
Budget Blues
The daily revenues numbers (which bounce around and can be volatile) have continued to show a terrible trend this month. As of close of business May 19, monthly state revenues are down 41% compared to this point in the month in 2019.
· Fiscal year-to-date revenues have deteriorated to -8%, $686 million less than last year.
· Governor Mike Parson announced there will be another round of withholds coming.
Gregory Sues STL County
Rep. David Gregory is the attorney for Church of Words lawsuit against St. Louis County. Fox News reports: A new lawsuit filed today accuses St. Louis County of violating churches and churchgoers’ constitutional rights. Right now churches in St. Louis County are not allowed to fill their houses of worship. That’s under the current St. Louis County executive order. Attorney and Missouri Representative David Gregory says it’s a violation of the first amendment. He filed a lawsuit on behalf of Fenton based Church of the Word…
“St. Louis County is restricting church gatherings to 25 percent capacity of people, while at the same time, giving 100% capacity to all other non-fundamental rights locations like hardware stores, Home Depot and storage units,” said Missouri Representative David Gregory.
Ballot Timing Talk
There is talk that the governor’s office is weighing whether to place the CLEANer Missouri ballot proposal on the August ballot, instead of the high turnout November ballot.
Their thinking, according to one lobbyist, is that Auditor Nicole Galloway could use the issue in her campaign. If it’s on the same ballot as the governor’s race, opponents of the plan (now dubbing it “Dirty Missouri”) will make it look like an “insider” ploy to keep power, hurting the governor.
However… I’m told that the timing of putting it on the August ballot could get sticky. That deadline is coming up next week. But first, the auditor, Galloway, must write a fiscal note. There’s thinking that she will not hurry that process because by waiting until after the deadline it would force the issue to the November ballot.
As always: we’ll see…
Graham Passes
Former Sen. Chuck Graham died of a heart attack Tuesday. Rudi Keller reports on the death here.
Graham, 55, was the chairman of the Columbia Disabilities Commission and co-director of the Great Plains ADA Center. Since leaving elective office in 2009, Graham has remained involved in politics, working as campaign treasurer for Columbia Mayor Brian Treece in two campaigns as well as mentoring and advising numerous other candidates.
Graham won his first office, a seat in the Missouri House, in 1996, winning a hard-fought primary by 73 votes and the general election by 640 votes out of more than 14,000 cast….
Graham’s arrival in the Missouri House forced legislative leaders to confront the fact that the House floor was not accessible to someone using a wheelchair. The chamber still has dozens of offices that cannot be reached by constituents using wheelchairs who wish to visit with their lawmakers…
Rex Gives Another $250K to Schmitt PAC
Rex Sinquefield contributed another $250,000 to the pro-Eric Schmitt PAC, MO Opportunity PAC. This brings Sinquefield overall contribution to the PAC to an even million dollars. MO Opportunity had $1.6 million in cash on its April report, with another $720,000 in CDs.
Meanwhile
Democratic AG candidate Elad Gross ($24,626 cash on-hand in April with $2,975 in debt) announced that his campaign had created a web portal, VoteMissouri.org, to help Missourians apply for an absentee ballot. “The system also allows us to identify Missourians who started the process of applying for an absentee ballot but were unable to complete it. Using that feature, we sent a reminder email to dozens of Missourians and helped troubleshoot folks confused about the state's ballot request form, enabling even more Missourians to vote….”
Lobbyist Registrations
Nexus Group added DoorDash Inc.
Chris Miller added Uber Technologies Inc.
Hannah Beers deleted Independent Colleges & Universities of Missouri.
Andy Blunt deleted The Healing Center of KC LLC, and The Healing Center of STL LLC.
Andy Blunt, Jay Reichard, and Angela Schulte deleted Tri County Lodging Association.
Andy Blunt, Ginger Steinmetz, Noel Torpey, and Angela Schulte deleted Barkley Inc.
Andy Blunt and Angela Schulte deleted Paraquad, and RS Partners LLC.
Andy Blunt, Noel Torpey and Angela Schulte deleted Columbia Care.
$5K+ Contributions
Spirit of Missouri - $100,000 from RightCHOICE Managed Care, Inc.
Spirit of Missouri - $7,500 from Missouri Soybean Association.
UFCW Local 655 Elect Club - $5,624 from UFCW Local 655.
MO Opportunity PAC - $250,000 from Rex A Sinquefield.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Jessica Pabst, and MO McCullough.
MOScout Schedule
This will be my last long weekend for a while. But no Weekender this Saturday, and I’m taking Monday (Memorial Day) off.