MOScout Daily Update: Eyes on SCOMO - House Budget Succession Talk - 20% to Kill IPs? - Thomas Gets Primary - House of Roe and more…
Situational Awareness… If you’re headed to the capitol today, wear a dash of red in honor of Heart Health Awareness Day.
Joint Sesh
· Today, the legislature will convene a joint session to hear an address from Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, the Israeli Consul General in Florida.
· And then tomorrow, they’ll gather again as Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Russell gives the State of the Judiciary address.
After today’s address by Starinsky, the Senate will reconvene at 2PM, and presumably starting working on its perfection calendar. At the top of the list is the FRA tax renewal. But the Freedom Caucus issued a press release yesterday saying they understand FRA will be laid over. “Last week, Senate Leadership agreed that the very next two bills that would be brought up, before anything else, for full perfection and debate on the Senate Floor this week would be IP Reform: SJRs 74, 48, 59, 61 & 83 (Coleman), and Education Reform: SB 727 (Koenig).”
Eyes on SCOMO
Last week the Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Clara Faatz, et al. v. John Ashcroft, the case about the validity of the state senate redistricting map.
One court-watcher was surprised at the “sharp questioning” from Judge W. Brent Powell. “I’m not wild about how that oral argument went. There may be four votes to toss the senate map.”
If there are, that will likely send the case back to Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem to redraw the map once again.
The timeline at this point is pretty crunched. Candidate filing opens in three weeks. And the next regularly scheduled hand-down date for the Supreme Court isn’t until March 5 – the week after filing opens.
· A change in the map would likely upend the Senate 21 primary, perhaps leading to some candidates dropping and others jumping in depending where the lines fall.
IP Reform’s Message Nightmare
Missouri Independent did a math analysis of Missouri’s House districts and came up with the least number of voters necessary to kill an initiative petition according to the House concurrent majority method. Basically, if the least populated House districts all barely defeated a proposal, 20.2% of the voters could sink an IP. Read it here.
“Those 20% of the people are essentially getting two votes each and they can defeat my one vote,” [Chuck] Hatfield said. “If you happen to live in your smallest House district, you get two votes and you can defeat my one vote. That's the problem.”
· As Hatfield implies, there could be a constitutional challenge to this method, but the more immediate problem for proponents is the message problem. Try explaining this to the average Missourian in thirty seconds.
House Budget Succession Talk
The lobbying corps is always looking around the corner and planning a few steps ahead. Among the current talk traffic is speculation about who will become the House Budget vice-chair next year when the current vice-chair, Rep. Dirk Deaton, ascends to the chairmanship.
Rep. John Voss had been mentioned as having ambitions, but the assumption is that his backing of Rep. Jamie Burger for leadership against Rep. Alex Riley may hurt his chances.
Rep. Darin Chappell is said to be interested in the vice-chairmanship. But I’m told reliably that early favorite is Rep. Wendy Hausmann. We’ll see!
· All three are freshmen, which means they’d be set up for four-years as chair of the powerful committee.
A Tale from the House of Axiom
Getting passed around is this account of the doomed DeSantis campaign. It’s a must-read
for Roe-philes or Roe-phobics…
House Axiom, in turn, believed that the Florida crew was out of its depth and had no clue about presidential politics. “These aren’t serious people,” said [Jeff] Roe, swiping at [Scott] Wagner [a DeSantis political appointee and a friend from Yale] for only knowing about politics from TV shows. “Wagner watches The West Wing. He thinks politics is like House of Cards. In reality, he turns it into an episode of Veep. He thinks that everybody has some sort of nefarious angle,” Roe said.
Thomas Gets Primary
Rep. Lisa Thomas will face a primary challenger in House 123. Jeff Vernetti formed a candidate committee. See it here.
Vernetti had promised to run last year. Read it here.
· Jeff Vernetti, the general manager of Ballparks National, said he will run in the 123rd House District. That will likely put him up against incumbent Lisa Thomas, who has formed a committee and raised money for the August 2024 Republican primary election.
· Vernetti says he had a career in St. Louis radio before moving to the Lake of the Ozarks area.
Thomas had $28,442 COH (with $14,700 in debt) as of her January filing.
Lincoln Days Coming
The Republicans’ Lincoln Days always has a big election year turnout full of gladhanding and gossiping.
This year’s event is next week (February 16-18) in Kansas City. And I’m told that “the Trump campaign secured [South Dakota Governor] Kristi Noem” as the keynote speaker.
State Going to Pot
Press release: Since Missouri started adult use cannabis sales on Feb. 3, 2023, dispensaries have sold more than $1.4 billion of legal, taxed and tested marijuana in the state of Missouri. The tax revenues from these sales have helped fund more than 100,000 automatic expungements for past, nonviolent cannabis offenses from Missourians’ records. Today, 19,029 Missourians work directly in the legal cannabis industry, compared to only 9,838 jobs the month before the November 2022 legalization vote.
eMailbag on FRA Doomsday
There is exactly 0% chance that “defund Planned Parenthood” language jeopardizes the FRA. At worst, courts enjoin the offending language. At last count, 23 states have passed various “defund” language, and none have lost a penny of Medicaid money.
Dohrman Passes
Rep. Brad Pollitt gave a tribute to former Rep. Dean Dohrman on the House floor yesterday. “This past Friday around noon. God sent some angels to take our friend Dean Dohrman’s soul to his final resting place. I talked to Dean a couple of days before his passing, and we discussed several things, going to the Super Bowl, issues at the southern border, and as always, he wanted to know what was going on in Jefferson City. We talked about some other things, and then he said to me, ‘I'm not well.’ Which I responded, ‘I know, my friend, I know.’ Jesus said, ‘I will go prepare a place for you and a good time. I will come again and receive you upon myself, and that where I am, there you may also be.’ Dean was given time to make sure he was right with his Savior. Painful time, but he was given time. None of us are promised tomorrow or that opportunity. Dean was proud to be a state representative. He represented the people of Leon County as well as parts of Pettis and Johnson. And he did it well. He worked tirelessly to support veterans, military, and law enforcement. They have never known a truer friend. He also enjoyed teaching government and history at the collegiate level… He will be missed by many. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask a moment of silence for our friend and colleague, Doctor Dean Dohrman.”
Funeral services will be held at 1PM on Friday at Rea Funeral Chapel, 3510 W. 16th St., Sedalia.
New PACs
Three new political action committees were formed – all with Linda Ragsdale as their treasurer. Ragsdale is a Republican activist and O’Fallon Councilmember. See her website here.
· Back the Blue Missouri
· Children Aren't For Sale Missouri
· Parents Right to Know Missouri
$5K+ Contributions
Missouri C PAC - $20,000 from American Democracy Alliance - Ridgely PAC.
Lobbyist Registrations
Rachel Geilenfeld added Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
Jeremy LaFaver and Salvatore Panettiere added KC Scholars / Great Jobs KC.
Mark Maassen added Missouri Press Association.
Strategic Capitol Consulting added Zoellner Construction Company Inc.
Yancy Williams added Pfizer Inc.
Justin Alferman deleted Wellfirst Health.
Birthdays
Happy birthdays to Rep. Doyle Justus.