JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The fight for ethics reform in the Missouri Senate may run into a larger wall, due to ongoing battles in the Senate.
Sen. Rob Schaaf again figures to be an important player on whether or not Senate Majority Leader Mike Kehoe’s SB 305, a bill banning lobbyist gifts, gets through the Senate. Tuesday morning on the floor of the Senate, he said the Senate should not pass any bills, aside from the constitutionally-mandated budget bills, until a bill bringing transparency to dark money organizations and donations comes up for debate in the Senate.
He called A New Missouri, Inc., a nonprofit explicitly created to support Gov. Eric Greitens’ agenda, “public enemy number one” on the Senate floor.
“The only way it can be stopped, and we can move forward, is to pass ethics legislation that discloses the dark money that’s being used against us,” Schaaf said. “Else, every single one of us will be under the threat of the governor using his newfound power and stopping us from having a fair discussion that we have to be able to have.”
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Last week, the nonprofit sent promoted tweets urging supporters of Greitens’ agenda to call Schaaf with their concerns. The ads contained his personal cell phone number.
Yet Kehoe still sees a reason for optimism, even though Schaaf seems intent on making sure discussion on dark money comes before all other priorities of the Senate.
“One senator, including me, doesn’t get to run the floor out there,” Kehoe said. “That’s up to the will of the body. He’ll be able to talk about what he wants to talk about as he normally does and we’ll see where it goes.”
Sen. Paul Wieland said in his discussions with leadership he did not believe bringing up the lobbyist gift ban bill would be wise this year because the question of dark money would come up and some senators would harp on Greitens for taking donations from such groups and having a nonprofit in Jefferson City backing him without needing to disclose its donors.
“It would just devolve into a week of bipartisan bashing on the governor,” he said.
Democrats in both chambers have been vocal in their criticism of Greitens’ dark money workings and some Republicans, like Schaaf and Sens. Ryan Silvey and Gary Romine, have also spoken out against such interests.
Wieland himself said the dark money issue mattered to him. He favors the transparency school of thought when it comes to campaign donations. If a lobbyist buys him a meal and he discloses it, then he would happily answer to his constituents for it. The same applies to donations he receives.
However, he added no constituent has ever called him to discuss individual donations to his campaign.
In addition, Wieland argues dark money donations could obscure political realities, i.e. a supposedly conservative Republican could actually be funded by liberal megadonor George Soros, or a supposedly liberal Democrat could be funded by the conservative coffers of the Koch brothers.
Greitens campaigned on ethics reform and made it a center point of his wildly successful dark horse, populist campaign for governor of the Show-Me State. He pledged to toss corrupt politicians and lobbyists and special interest groups off the steps of the capitol himself in the speech where he announced his gubernatorial campaign. He essentially called Jefferson City a cesspool in a blog post he made in Feb. 2016 on his campaign website.
Even in the brief time that I’ve been running for Governor, I’ve been exposed to some of the worst people I’ve ever known. Liars, cowards, sociopaths. They are often deeply broken and disturbed people, who—like criminals who prey on the innocent—take their pleasure and make their living by victimizing honest people. They are drawn to politics as vultures flock to rotting meat—and they feed off the carcasses of vice. Every lie makes them money. Every fake website, fake Facebook account that spouts falsehoods makes them cash. They pay kids to follow you (and your spouse) around with a camera, and they often pay those same kids to shout questions at you—and in this they profit. They engage in the lowest of tactics, the most slanderous lies—and all the while their bank balances rise.
They stand in such stark contrast to the honest people who make up most of Missouri, that it takes a leap of imagination for normal people to even understand how crooked many people in the business of politics are. They are corrupt in ways that I didn’t know people could be corrupt.
Despite the strongly-worded statement and explicit calls for lobbyist gift ban legislation, ethics reform measures from the General Assembly has yet to reach Greitens’ desk.
On top of the concerns regarding a potential dark money discussion clouding the debate on that bill, the typical roadblocks to its passage could remain in place.
The part of the bill dealing with expenditure limits lobbyists from giving public officials or their staff and families $10 on any one calendar day – not a full ban as many legislators, like Rep. Justin Alferman who sponsored a bill completely banning lobbyist gifts in the House, have wanted.
Sen. Dave Schatz was one senator who stood as an impediment to last year’s effort on a lobbyist gift ban. While not perfectly familiar with SB 305, his concerns regarding a total ban would still apply.
“The parts I’ve had a problem with from last year was the expenditures made by people who come to this Capitol – the fish fry from co-ops, the Cattlemans – that interact with the Legislature, and a total gift ban would eliminate their ability to interact with the Legislature,” Schatz said.
He also said that a total gift ban could bar legislators from attending local events in their own districts, such as chamber of commerce and associational dinners. He joined with Wieland in supporting the current system of transparency.
However, Schatz said there was room for compromise and he would like to hash out details on whatever legislation is offered. On that front, Kehoe again sounds optimistic the bill will get out of the Senate, even as time winds down on the session.
“I haven’t totally given up on it,” Kehoe said. “We’ve combined the House and the Senate bill… and we’re still trying to find a path to go forward with that. Once it gets on the floor, if someone wants to offer an amendment, obviously that’s up to them.”
“I don’t think anything’s ever dead or done in this building.”
