MOScout Daily Update: More on Messy Senate Session - Greitens Gets Flynn Endorsement - Audit on Sales Tax Reform - Atlantic on Schmitt and more...
More on Messy Senate Session
Fallout continues over the messy Senate Veto Session that played like an episode of “The Real Housewives of the Missouri Senate.”
Sen. Cindy O'Laughlin on Facebook explains her viewpoint. (She’s no longer caucusing with the Conservative Caucus). From my perspective and acknowledging I am a relatively new senator I didn’t like the idea of one senator taking over another senator’s legislation. This could lead to all kinds of skullduggery...
One lobbyist believes that the Conservative Caucus is engaged in a “movement to weaken leadership and flatten the power structure. This is leading toward their attempt to capture one or both leadership positions for the 2023 session. Their problem is that each one of these episodes further isolates them from the rest of the caucus, preventing them from assembling the 13 votes needed to win a leadership race. With a looming departure from Sen. Bob Onder and possibly Sen. Mike Moon or Sen. Eric Burlison there’s no way they can gain enough new members next election to clear that hurdle. They would be better served by aligning with Sen. Caleb Rowden and the more credible leadership candidates and bartering chairmanships and policy priorities.”
But another observer thinks that leadership should eschew any accommodations with the Conservative Caucus. “The ‘establishment’ rank and file Republicans should understand that they should never feed the beast that is the Conservative Caucus. No matter their votes on Medicaid expansion or SAPA, the CC will primary them. Ideally, that realization translates to a moderate coalition willing to say no and push for reasonable stuff to get done — but it requires strong leadership and so far we’ve only see leadership cave to the conservatives. One of the only consistent things we’ve seen in the last few years.”
Greitens Gets Flynn Endorsement
Press release: Former National Security Advisor to President Donald J. Trump and retired U.S. Army Lt. General Michael Flynn released the following statement announcing his endorsement of former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens for the United States Senate in 2022: “It’s clear that now more than ever, America needs fighters. Worse than the radical leftists, the corrupt Deep State, the mainstream media, and Big Tech are the feckless and spineless Republicans who have utterly surrendered. The people of Missouri recognize that those who betrayed President Trump the most were not the leftists but the cowardly Republicans in Name Only. That’s why I’m endorsing Governor Eric Greitens for the United States Senate. We don’t need any more insiders or career politicians in Washington, especially not those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party…”
What It Means
While Congressman Billy Long – and Jason Smith – hope to land the big Trump endorsement, Greitens work to collect as many Trump-like endorsement he can. Flynn joins other high profile MAGA-worlders like Rudy Giuliani and Kimberly Guilfoyle. If Trump ultimately doesn’t endorse, then Greitens might have the highest claim to his imprimatur.
Getting Passed Around: Atlantic on Schmitt
An Atlantic piece about Attorney General Eric Schmitt highlights his “evolution from a personable, aisle-crossing state legislator who once voted for a vaccine mandate to a firebrand partisan primary candidate who now says that public-health mandates show only that ‘the Left is obsessed with power & control.’”
· “This guy totally changed,” says Jamilah Nasheed, who served alongside Schmitt in the legislature as a Democratic state senator from St. Louis.
· “I always found him to be of the highest moral character and integrity,” says Robert Schaaf, a former Republican state senator who also served with Schmitt… in Schaaf’s view, Schmitt was an expert at listening to the other side and finding compromise—“as bipartisan as anyone can be.”
· “I knew Eric—where did he go?” says Gerry Welch, the mayor of Webster Groves, Missouri, who saw him all the time at church and would occasionally grab coffee with him.
· Others who have served with Schmitt don’t think he’s really changed. Tom Dempsey, a Republican from St. Charles County, who also served with Schmitt in the state Senate, told me that he found Schmitt’s voting record to be generally conservative, including a vote to bar employers from requiring union membership.
· Putting aside both hyperbole and the merits of the debate over masking in schools or anywhere else, Schmitt’s stark evolution tracks with both his changing constituency and his growing ambition. He no longer represents moderate St. Louis suburbanites, but all the voters of a state Trump won by 15 points in 2020. He undoubtedly has his eye on the further-right subset destined to turn out for the GOP Senate primary next August.
Audit Suggests Sales Tax Reform
Press release: Missouri retailers kept $129 million in sales and use tax in fiscal year 2020 just for paying their sales taxes on time, by taking advantage of the most generous discount of its kind in the nation. State Auditor Nicole Galloway highlighted the corporate handout in an audit released today on the collection of sales and use tax by the Missouri Department of Revenue (DOR). The finding is contained in similar audits from her office for the past several years….
The audit found the 2% discount given to retailers for timely paying the sales and use tax they owe is the most generous such discount in the country. In fiscal year 2020, approximately $129 million in sales and use tax was paid by taxpayers, but then retained by businesses due to the discount.
Unlike most of the other 26 states that offer a discount for timely payment, Missouri has no cap on the discount it gives. The audit said if Missouri had applied a cap of $1,000 per month (the highest cap used by any contiguous state) for fiscal year 2020, it would have only impacted businesses with monthly sales of approximately $611,000 or more, and resulted in approximately $76 million in additional state and local sales tax revenue.
LA Move
TC Farrar entered into an LA Share with Rep. Kurtis Gregory (House 51) and Rep. Aaron Griesheimer (House 61). TC will serve as the primary LA to both offices
Lobbyists Registrations
Jewell Patek added Northpoint Development, and Rosen Law Firm.
Caroline Hoover and Jewell Patek added Cass County.
Cassandra Allana Grewing deleted Michael G Winter Consultants, Scherr Winter LLC, The Giddens Group, and Eli Lilly & Company.
Jeffrey Michael Kipping deleted Composting and Organics Association of Missouri, Missouri Asphalt Pavement Association, Missouri County Collectors Association, Prestige Powers, St. Louis Apartment Association, and St. Louis Composting.
$5K+ Contributions
POL PAC - $60,000 from Polsinelli.
Majority Forward - $10,000 from Southwestern Bell Telephone LP d/b/a AT&T Missouri.
Majority Forward - $10,000 from Ameren Missouri.
House Democratic Campaign Committee - $10,000 from AT&T.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Governor Mike Parson, Tim Van Zandt, Bill Webster, Margaret Kelly, Tom McDonald, and Ryan Burke.