MOScout Daily Update: Realtors Kickoff Anti-4 Campaign - Other Targets Loom - S&T Applications Dip and What It Means and more…

Here Come the Realtors

Last week, the Missouri Realtors launched their campaign against Amendment 4 with a large rally at their spring business conference in Columbia.

Amendment 4 would raise the threshold for passage of future amendments. The standard is currently passage by a simple majority. Under Amendment 4, a citizen-initiated amendment would have to receive majority approval in all eight congressional districts.  Critics note it would doom nearly every proposal because failure by the slimmest margin in a single district would amount to defeat.

Their theme is “Protect MOjority Rule.”  With hundreds of realtors assembled, President Brian Jared of Springfield declared: “You toss a pebble into a pond, and it ripples. Think of the pond as your local community and association – and I am asking you to help create the ripples. When enough of us create ripples, they turn into waves and that turns into victory on Election Day.”

The Realtors bring great strengths to the campaign…

·       With 26,000 members, Missouri Realtors is the state's largest professional association.  They even have their own statewide political fundraising and organizational program called the Missouri Realtors Party.

·       They have experience, having run two successful statewide ballot initiative campaigns in recent years. Their 2010 amendment barring transfer taxes on property sales passed with 83%.  And in 2016, their amendment prohibiting new sales taxes on services passed with 57%.

·       They’ve shown the ability – and willingness – to throw millions of dollars into a campaign they’re behind.

One veteran political player noted: “The 2010 and 2016 campaigns were asking famously skeptical Show-Me State voters to say Yes… A No campaign is a different animal, centered on raising voter doubts.”

The Realtors’ lead consultants are veterans David Barklage and Jon Ratliff and communications guru Scott Charton. Those three have a combined 45 years of consulting successful Realtors political campaigns.

But…

Amendment 4 is just one of their concerns this year.  The looming question – as yet unanswered – is how the Realtors essentially fight two wars at once.  The Kehoe tax plan is also slated for the ballot box this year.  And they’ve been outspoken that without constitutional protections, they’ll fight that measure as well.

So far, no campaign announcement has been made on that front.

And

The same landscape confronts organized labor.  We Are Missouri was the campaign committee that famously funded the successful referendum undoing the right to work in 2018.

We Are Missouri showed over $800,000 cash on-hand in their April report, and has since brought in another $700,000.

They’ve been part of the coalition to fight the redistricting plan, but they’ll also need to determine if they’re going to broaden their resistance and fight additional ballot questions this year as well.

Budget Week

The House and Senate conferees are scheduled to meet today at 1PM.  The constitutional deadline for passage is Friday 5PM.

·       In the hallways, the word is that House Budget Chair Dirk Deaton and Senate Appropriations Chair Rusty Black have similar temperaments, have been in contact all session long, and we’ll see a smooth finish to the budget.

eMailbag: Vet Lobbyist’s Reminder

I feel like every year it would be good for people to remember that here at the end people get desperate. We are all tired. We are all frustrated. Don’t do something you’ll regret. Passing a bill isn’t worth your integrity. And damaging a relationship permanently isn’t worth some minor success professionally.

S&T Sees Dip in Interest

Fox2Now reports that “Application rates at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) have declined, a shift university officials say is tied in part to shifts in international student enrollment, and the rise of artificial intelligence.”

·       A spokesperson for the university said institutions across the country are having similar trends with international students, as well as academic fields being changed by new technology. Despite the dip in applications, the university said overall student demand remains solid.

What It Means

This bit of news should give pause to policymakers considering the “Deaton plan” of funding colleges exclusively based on the single metric of student enrollment.

Deaton’s argument that state funding should follow enrollment because students are “voting with their feet” misses the real-world complexity that applications can fall for reasons that have little to do with institutional quality.

Furthermore, there’s an argument to be made that Missouri’s workforce development needs to protect specialized capacity even when demand gets temporarily choppy.  In this case, it’s the STEM-focused school with volatile applications.  But the state may still badly need that institution.  And the same can be said of other schools targeted by the “money follows students” model.

$5K+ Contributions

American Dream PAC (pro-Kehoe) - $10,000 from John Youngblood.

Stop the Ban - $40,000 from Mary Lamar Reilly.

Stop the Ban - $30,000 from Wendell Gray Reilly (Athens, GA).

Stop the Ban - $30,000 from James Reilly (Atlanta, GA).

Lobbyist Registrations

Jay Reichard added ModivCare Solutions, LLC.

Gamble & Schlemeier deleted Lion Health System.

Happy Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Jason Kander and Ryan Clearwater.