St. Louis — Secretary of State candidate Will Kraus joined host Scott Faughn ahead of the opinion maker panel to discuss the 2016 cycle, voter ID and more.
Kraus, a Kansas City state senator, also sits on the recently formed Sanctity of Life Committee, charged by senate leaders to investigate Missouri’s Planned Parenthood operation. Kraus and the committee had a set of lengthy hearings last week with Department of Health and Senior Service officials as well as with University of Missouri representatives. UM officials revealed last week ties between the Columbia-area Planned Parenthood clinic and the UM system.
“There’s emails from people actually recruiting on their state-funded email system to recruit [a physician] to come and do those abortions in Columbia,” Kraus said. “”They just don’t want to give us information, it’s like prying teeth out to try to get this information. We have to ask twenty questions to get a tid bit and that takes us down another path. To get the answers we need, we’re going to continue to do it. Missourians deserve the truth.”
Joining Faughn on the opinion maker panel: former House Speaker Tim Jones; former state senator and current IBEW Director of Governmental Affairs Tim Green; Sean Nicholson of Progress Missouri; and Tishaura Jones, Treasurer of the City of St. Louis.
Some highlights from the panel:
“When Tim Jones, Antonio French and Jane Dueker all agree on an issue – look out, there’s a lightning strike incoming. All three of us agree that would be devastating to the City of St. Louis to raise it’s minimum wage and set itself further apart from the rest of the state.” – Tim Jones on STL raising the minimum wage.
“What the University needs to do and should always have on the forefront is affordable higher education,” Green, on UM’s recent bad press.
“Democrats will come together and try to pass [minimum wage in 2016] if it becomes a ballot issue,” Tishaura Jones on the minimum wage.
“My take is that these hearings are almost entirely about Sen. Kurt Schaefer shoring up his right flank in his Attorney General’s primary.” – Nicholson on the SOL Committee.
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
