JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, released a blog post on his campaign website Tuesday criticizing one of the candidates in the Republican primary for attorney general.
Barnes writes that he believes University of Missouri law professor Josh Hawley has misstated his own experiences as a litigator when Barnes says he has actually spent little time in a courtroom.
“You claim to have argued the Hobby Lobby case in front of the Supreme Court,” Barnes writes in the open letter. “The public record reflects otherwise: you sat in the gallery, not at counsel’s table. Missourians understand that candidates often exaggerate, so they’ll probably forgive it.”
Barnes continues and states that he has heard “rumors” that Hawley has never served as a counsel of record in a Missouri courtroom for any case representing any client.
“I figure this cannot possibly be true,” Barnes continues. “As a candidate for Attorney General, you must have some real-world case you can point to show Missourians that you have experience in the types of cases that the Attorney General is charged with handling on their behalf.”
This editorial is not the first time Barnes has poked at Hawley, but it is a far more direct prod. In February, Barnes filed a bill that would establish qualifications and duties for the attorney general’s office. The qualifications included a mandate that a candidate must have tried cases in a court of law in Missouri. Hawley’s opponent, Sen. Kurt Schaefer, and the two Democratic candidates, former Cass County prosecutor Teresa Hensley and St. Louis County Assessor Jake Zimmerman, all fulfill that criterion.
However, Hawley’s ability to meet that standard was more in doubt. After working in Washington D.C. as a constitutional lawyer for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Hawley moved to Missouri to become a professor at Mizzou with a speciality in Constitutional law.
The Hawley campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and it remains unclear if he has practiced a case in Missouri.
Regardless, the bill did not even elicit a hearing, but it was thought to be pointed at Hawley for his lack of real-world case experience.
“The attorney general’s office is no place to learn on the job,” Barnes said in February. “A legal rookie should not be entrusted with death penalty cases, protecting Missouri consumers or fighting against the federal government.”
In Tuesday’s open letter, Barnes reinforced that comment, stating that the attorney general’s office “is not the place for on-the-job training for a person who has never tried a case or argued an appeal.”
The past few weeks have not been especially kind to Hawley in other regards to put it lightly. In late May, former state Rep. Kevin Elmer filed a lawsuit alleging that Hawley and his employer, the University of Missouri, had violated the state’s Sunshine Law and conspired to hide information about Hawley’s use of state property to further his political career. Just over a week ago, an ethics complaint was filed against Hawley by Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russell D. Oliver who alleged that Hawley used two nonprofits he created to campaign while employed by the university, and thus, the state.
