MOScout Daily Update: Turner Antes into Senate 27 - Lotta GOP Primaries - AI Regs - MO Troublemakers and more...
Turner Antes for Senate Race
Jacob Turner, who is running in Senate 27 where Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder vacating for an LG bid, gave his campaign committee $20,000. Turner is a paramedic with a military background.
· Rep. Chris Dinkins is running hard for this seat. Reps. John Voss and Rick Francis have been mentioned as potential candidates as well.
1 Big Thing: No Free Passes for GOP
It’s not just open seats like Senate 27 that will have spirited Republican contests in 2024, it’s likely ALL Republican state senate seats.
With rumors that former Rep. Jeff Shawan will challenge Sen. Jason Bean, and the expectation that a “more reasonable” Republican from Christian County will emerge to run against Sen. Mike Moon, it looks like every incumbent Republican will be in a primary, every open Republican seat will have a primary, and even the swing districts that Republicans are trying to win will have Republican primaries.
By contrast, a look at the MOScout 2024 Watch also shows that there are no declared challengers to any of the Democratic incumbent state senators up for election.
What It Means
· The conventional wisdom would be that this will push the Republican legislative agenda to the right, as legislators try to show their party’s base that they’re “fighters.”
· That’ll mean more confrontations with the Democratic minority, and probably more grandstanding and more than the usual share of irresponsible lawmaking.
Buckle up…
Trouble-Making MO Delegation
Axios lists the freshmen legislators in DC who have bucked their party on votes the most. Missouri makes the list – twice. See it here.
States Start AI Regulations
In the absence of federal regulations, state have begun enacting their own limits on artificial intelligence. The Software Alliance summarizes Artificial Intelligence legislation at the state level. Read it here.
· Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Texas, Virginia, and Washington all passed AI legislation. California enacted legislation to conduct a survey of the state’s use of high-risk AI.
· Most enacted bills were related to deepfakes, government’s AI use, including law enforcement, and task forces/committees.
KFF Looks At BJC-St. Luke’s Merger
Kaiser Foundation Health News reports that the BJC-St. Luke’s merger is unlikely to draw anti-trust scrutiny. Read it here.
· St. Louis’ largest health system, BJC HealthCare, plans to merge with Kansas City’s second-largest, Saint Luke’s Health System, uniting more than 28 hospitals on both sides of Missouri by the end of this year.
· Cross-market deals accounted for more than half of all hospital mergers and acquisitions during the last decade…
· Not only are such deals more common, they can increase costs for patients. Merged hospitals in the same state but in different markets raised prices as much as 10% compared with other hospitals, researchers found…
· But for some 50 years, federal regulators have not stepped in to prevent hospitals from merging with systems in other markets, according to antitrust law experts… cross-market mergers aren’t quite a textbook case of a monopoly…
Clout Becoming AxAdvocacy
Politico’s Influence reports on restricting at Axiom Strategies. Read it here.
· Axiom Strategies, the GOP consulting juggernaut whose founder Jeff Roe leads the super PAC effectively in charge of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 field operation, is getting into the lobbying game. Axiom has formally launched AxAdvocacy, which will focus on government affairs and public relations. The new entity will fold in Axiom’s former public affairs arm Clout Public Affairs…
· An investor prospectus obtained by The Washington Post earlier this year showed Axiom’s roster of more than 1,200 clients included more than 170 corporate customers, some of whom have become AxAdvocacy’s first lobbying clients. Since April, the firm has registered to lobby for Charter Communications, Delta Air Lines, Comcast, W. W. Grainger and Southern Methodist University.
· “With Clout folding into AxAdvocacy, we are expanding our services by adding fresh talent, new capabilities with our government relations team…”
Parson Announces Trip
Press release: From October 7 - 12, Governor Mike Parson and First Lady Teresa Parson will travel to Japan for an international Trade Mission… Consistent with Governor Parson’s infrastructure and economic development priorities, the goal of the Trade Mission is to build relationships with key international figures to promote Missouri’s strong capacity for trade.
eMailbag on C4s
Consultants creating C4s to make more money for themselves is so on brand…
$5K+ Contributions
American Promise PAC (pro-Malek) - $25,000 from Penuel Raj Clement.
American Dream PAC (pro-Kehoe) - $12,500 from Mackenzie Smith.
Majority Forward (pro-Rowden) - $10,000 from Cheyenne International LLC (Grover, NC).
Committee to Elect Jacob Turner - $20,000 from Jacob Turner.
UAW Region 4 Midwest States PAC (MO) - $6,000 from Midwest State Cap Exchange.
Lobbyists Registrations
Gamble & Schlemeier deleted Home Run Financing.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, Rep. Betsy Fogle, Alix Cossette, Tommie Pierson Jr., Phil Arnzen, Michael Brown, Nathan Cooper, and Dana Loesch.