MOScout Daily Update: Pro-Choice Divisions - School Board Battle - Marijuana Drama and more...

Pro-Choice Camps Still Not Coalescing

Pro-life advocate Sam Lee highlighted the continued chasm between various pro-choice advocates with regard to an acceptable 2024 ballot initiative.

On the left, some advocates want a robust right to reproductive healthcare which goes beyond the rights granted by Roe v Wade.  Closer to the middle, advocates are trying to calculate what proposal can win the approval of the majority of Missouri voters.

From Lee’s Twitterfeed: It’s another big blow to efforts by two competing pro-abortion groups to put an abortion measure on the ballot in 2024. @MOAbortionFund  now opposes at least 16 – if not all 17 – of the proposed initiative petitions to add abortion to the Missouri Constitution.

·       The assumption has been that pro-choice advocates would coalesce around a single IP at some point.  But that hasn’t happened.  Can a divided movement will be capable for raising enough money and gathering enough signatures to put the issue before voters next year?

And

Missouri Right to Life added a new lobbyist (see Lobbyist Registrations below), Edward Grewach.  It appears that Grewach is the recently retired general counsel from the Missouri Gaming Association.

1 Big Thing: School Board Battles

School boards are an arena for some of the hottest cultural battles – what qualifies as an obscene book, how to teach the value of diversity.  Last night the Springfield School Board continued its tussling over adding gender identity to their discrimination policy.  Read it here.

·       In a tense meeting Tuesday, the Springfield school board voted to add "gender identity and sexual orientation" to a pair of anti-discrimination policies governing school lunches. The votes were 4-3 in favor of making the change requested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

·       In three meetings, starting in late September, the proposed revision to policy AC and a related policy were put on the agenda for a vote. Each time the outcome was different: The change was rejected with a 3-3 vote — while board president Danielle Kincaid was in Nepal — on Sept. 26; At Kincaid's request, the issue was placed on the Oct. 24 agenda. A letter from the Missouri Attorney General arrived shortly before the meeting and the board voted 4-3 to postpone the vote indefinitely.

Why It Matters

·       School boards obviously affect education policy.  But more and more they’re in the middle of hot-button issues.

·       But they also act as a farm system for future state legislators.  School board candidates learn the basics of running a campaign and establish a voter base as a donor base for future races.

Tobacco Tax IP

Deirdre Hirner (see her LinkedIn profile here) filed two initiative petitions.  They would amend the state constitution to create a section for “Local Voters’ Right and Option to Set Tobacco Tax Initiative.”  See the filing here.

·       We’re nearing the end of the window to start the initiative petition process and reasonably expect to land it on the November ballot.  The machinations of getting the petition approved and the effort to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures will soon make new IP filings moot for 2024.

Marijuana Drama

MOIndy’s Rebebba Rivas is back with another article about the drama in Missouri’s burgeoning marijuana industry.  Lobbyists marketing their political pull, and investors aiming to making a killing.  Read it here.

Smith and Christofanelli Fundy

Republican state representatives Cody Smith and Phil Christofanelli will be collecting checks in St. Louis tonight.  There are some heavy hitters on the invite list.

The two are seeking higher office.  Budget Chair Smith is running for state treasurer while Christofanelli is trying to leap across the building to the Senate side.

·       Smith and Christofanelli share a small government philosophy, decidedly more Reaganesque in their outlook instead of the current vogue of populism.

·       This fundraising quarter is traditionally hard with the holidays interrupting donor calendars.  After Thanksgiving, there’ll be a mini-sprint before everything slows ahead of Christmas.

Lobbyist Registrations

Edward Grewach added Missouri Right To Life.

$5K+ Contributions

Association of MO Electric Cooperatives (AMEC PAC) - $10,000 from Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative.

MO Drive Fund - $75,000 from IBT Missouri PAC Federal Committee.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to St. Louis County Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway.