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Curtis gets $50,000 in donations from Humphreys

ST. LOUIS – The Humphreys family donated $50,000 over the weekend to Rep. Courtney Allen Curtis, D-St. Louis, one of just two Democrats this cycle to whom they have given the power of their purse.*

The Missouri Ethics Commission shows two separate $25,000 donations deposited to Curtis’ campaign, Curtis for MO, June 2, 2016 and filed two days later. One donation was made by David Humphreys himself, and the other was from his sister Sarah Atkins (misspelled in the filing as Sarah Atkinis).

The donations to Curtis were part of a donation spree of sorts for Humphreys and Atkins. The pair gave a combined $125,000 to Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, $75,000 each to Reps. Shamed Dogan, and Holly Rehder,$25,000 to Reps. Bryan Spencer and Justin Hill, $25,000 each to state House candidates Christopher Dale, Dan Stacy, Mary West and Sean Pouche, and $50,000 to candidate Mary Hill.

Rep. Courtney Allen Curtis
Rep. Courtney Allen Curtis

The Joplin-based Humphreys have fought at the forefront to promote politicians that vote in favor of anti-labor measures like right-to-work and paycheck protection. In the past seven months, Humphreys has funded the Committee for Accountable Government in Missouri PAC which has gone after labor unions and especially pro-labor Republicans. Pouche, Stacy, Hill, West and Dale are running against sitting Republican representatives who voted against 2015’s right to work bill.

Humphreys also regularly funds Republican candidates for statewide office and contested legislative districts, but in May he also donated $25,000 to the Democratic opponent of Sen. Ryan Silvey, J. Ranen Bechthold.

Like the Humphreys, Curtis has also been sour on unions, but his reasoning is due to a perceived lack of racial inclusivity within the organized labor community – a view he shares with supporter Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal. He voted in favor of 2015’s right-to-work measure and this session’s paycheck protection bill. These votes, and his outspoken criticism of labor, has put him at odds with the state’s Democrats, who seem eager to have his seat filled with a Democrat with ideas more in line with the party, especially on labor issues. Curtis and fellow Rep. Michael Butler even came to blows after an AFL-CIO reception in January where Butler confronted Curtis about his anti-labor views.

The representative, a Ferguson resident, has also been highly vocal about his displeasure with the racial turmoil at the University of Missouri and in the Ferguson protests and riots from nearly two years ago after the death of Michael Brown.

Curtis will face three Democratic contenders in the 73rd District Primary in August: Union member Daniel Wibracht, former state Rep. Eileen Grant McGeoghegan, and Lee Smith. As of the April Quarterly Reports, Smith had received $10,000, Wibracht had $4,531, and McGeoghegan had limited campaign activity. Prior to the donations from Humphreys, Curtis had just over $10,000 in total donations as of April.

Curtis did not immediately return requests for comment.

*UPDATED – 9:40 a.m., June 7, 2016: A previous version of the article stated that Curtis was the first Democrat to receive money from the Humphreys, but Democratic state Senate candidate J. Ranen Bechthold has also received a donation from Humphreys. The story has been changed to reflect this discovery, and The Missouri Times regrets the error.