MOScout Daily Update: Jones Evens $$$ With Brown - Missouri's Missing Workers - Giuliani for Greitens - Clay for South Korea and more...

Jones Antes Up For Senate Bid

Robert Jones, running for Senate 26, contributed about $80,000 to his campaign over the weekend.  His January report showed that he raised a quick $18,200 in the final weeks of the year.  Perhaps the personal check over the weekend was to get his campaign account to a square $100K.

Jones entered the race just weeks before the end of the year as Rep. Aaron Griesheimer announced that he was resigning and wouldn’t be running for state senate.

Business interests in Franklin County are said to be interested to have a “chamber of commerce” type senator in the mold of Dave Schatz and John Griesheimer.

Jones’ report had a couple big business names on it: Greg Hoberock, and Bank of Washington’s LB Eckelkamp and Robert Tobben.

Jones’ primary opponent, Ben Brown, made a name for himself defying St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s health orders.  Brown’s January quarter showed $32,250 raised with $80,812 on-hand. 

·         This puts them even on money.  But Brown has been building a grassroots presence for over a year.

January Quarters Coming

Today is the deadline for pols to file their latest campaign finance reports.  I’ll have a full rundown tomorrow morning.

Some have filed early…

·         For example, in the St. Charles state senate race Rep. Nick Schroer raised $33K and has $104K on-hand; while Rep. John Wiemann raised $11K and has $145K on-hand.  These low totals from a hot state senate primary indicate that fundraising may be muted this quarter – as donor wait for district lines to be drawn.  We’ll see….

·         Interesting to see Rex Sinquefield show up on Sen. Bob Onder’s report.  Onder is running for St. Charles County Executive.  Sinquefield’s contribution was a relatively small check (for him) $2,400.  Worth keeping an eye on to see if this race garners more attention from the GOP mega-donor.

Federal candidates’ reports aren’t due until January 31.

1 Big Thing: Working the Labor Shortage Problem

We should be seeing a new month jobs report from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center this week.  But last month’s report showed what we’ve been seeing since the beginning of the COVID two years ago: missing workers.

In March of 2020 when we had a large-scale shutdown across a swath of industries.  But some folks never returned to work – even after reopening, and even accounting for shifts among industries.

Missouri’s civilian labor pool is about 40,000 lower than it was before COVID.  It’s really hard to grow the economy with fewer people working.

Some of the eye-popping headlines you see on a daily basis are the result of shortages because of COVID illnesses – like a Republic district principal working on his bus driving license to help out the district.  But they’re exacerbated by an underlying shortage of workers: there’s no one to help out in a pinch.

Axios reports that economists see the labor shortage outlasting the pandemic.  And there seems to be agreement coalescing on three root causes…

·         Early retirees who took a break during COVID and decided that to transition to the next phase of their life.

·         Working mothers who lack reliable and affordable child care.

·         Fewer immigrants.

Governor Mike Parson’s team released their “Show Me Strong Recovery Task Force” report yesterday.  See it here.  It recommends making childcare more accessible and affordable though how that will be achieved isn’t specified. 

·         We could see some announcement on this front in the governor’s State of the State speech tomorrow.

Giuliani for Greitens

Fox reports that Rudy Giuliani was in St. Louis over the weekend for a fundraiser for Eric Greitens.

When asked to respond to some republican concerns that a Greitens victory in August could give democrats a better chance of winning in November, Giuliani laughed.  He said, “You’re going to tell me Eric Greitens isn’t going to win this state?” Giuliani pointed to the 2020 election.  President Trump won Missouri by more than a 15% margin.

Thompson Sits on Report

Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson has, for about three weeks, had in his hands the report of a Missouri Highway Patrol investigation commanded by Governor Mike Parson into what the governor calls hacking of a state computer by a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Computer experts and others have dismissed Parson’s assertion of hacking as technologically dumb or baselessly attacking the news media, or both. Thompson has declined comment. The Patrol’s investigation is a closed record while active.

So as the clock ticks, what is going through Thompson’s mind as he ponders an investigation it took the Patrol about 75 days to complete?

Clay for South Korea

Politico reports last week that “Former Congressman Lacy Clay, who represented St. Louis in the House for two decades before his primary defeat in 2020, has registered as a foreign agent for the first time, documents filed with the Justice Department show. The Missouri Democrat, who joined the law and lobbying firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman last year, will work on the firm’s account for the Corporate Association of the Gaesong Industrial Complex, a coalition of member companies operating at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. The complex provided more than 100 South Korean companies with inexpensive labor while allowing North Korea to earn foreign money, in an effort to promote economic cooperation between the two countries… Pillsbury signed its roughly yearlong, $675,000 contract with the association in July to “provide information to CAGIC and advocate on its behalf to” the U.S. government…”

Lobbyists Registrations

Doug Nelson, Kurt Schaefer, and Heath Clarkston added LS Power Midcontinent LLC, and Southwest Transmission LLC.

Maya Ingram added SD USA.

Shauna Gardner added Pharmaceutical Research And Manufacturers of America.

Michael Smith added Gainwell Holding Corp.

Scott Penman added Missouri 911 Service Board.

Andy Arbeitman added Jerry Hobbs.           

Trent Watson and Jeffrey Michael Kipping added Missouri Retailers For Fair Competition, Inc., and Kansas City Chiefs Football Club.

Doug Nelson, and Kurt Schaefer deleted Tria Health, and All Pro Monitoring.

Kurt Schaefer deleted REP WR Holdings, LLC.

$5K+ Contributions

Bob Jones for Senate - $78,868 from Robert Jones.

House Republican Campaign Committee, Inc - $10,000 from Missouri United.

House Republican Campaign Committee, Inc - $20,000 from Charter Communications.

KC Forward Progress - $176,000 from Together KC.

Birthdays

Happy birthday to Robert Knodell, Carl Bearden, Shawn Rhoads, and Bill Lant.