{"id":9138,"date":"2023-03-16T19:30:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T00:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mosunshine.org\/?p=9138"},"modified":"2023-03-18T12:18:27","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T17:18:27","slug":"it-forces-you-to-be-more-creative-how-lobbyists-kept-their-grip-on-missouri-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/news\/local\/govt-and-politics\/it-forces-you-to-be-more-creative-how-lobbyists-kept-their-grip-on-missouri-politics\/article_c64bfa0b-daab-560a-b023-ede49f81ba1c.html","title":{"rendered":"‘It forces you to be more creative’: How lobbyists kept their grip on Missouri politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n By Jonathan Shorman and Kacen Bayless
\nThe Kansas City Star
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JEFFERSON CITY \u2014 The big, fat steak dinners are gone. No more tickets to the game. Forget about resigning to quickly take a plum lobbying job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Voters approved Clean Missouri in 2018, an amendment to the state constitution that effectively eliminated lobbyist gifts to state legislators, tightened campaign contribution limits and further restricted the revolving door of legislators turned lobbyists. It was a stunning achievement for good government advocates, who had voiced outrage for years over the excesses of the state\u2019s cozy Capitol scene.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But as the fifth anniversary of the Clean Missouri vote approaches later this year, a strong lobbying culture remains as Jefferson City has learned to adapt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Star spoke with 17 current and former lawmakers, lobbyists, transparency advocates and ethics experts. They collectively painted a portrait of a Capitol where the most egregious conduct has been curbed but the grip of lobbyists and special interests remains strong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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People are also reading\u2026<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t think the relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers has changed quite a bit to be honest, if much at all,\u201d one current lobbyist said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. \u201cI would just say that since Clean Missouri, there is less transparency in what lobbyists and lawmakers are doing \u2014 particularly lawmakers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the most part, lobbyists are not eager to discuss their craft. In addition to the sources who spoke to The Star, 10 lobbyists either didn\u2019t respond or declined to be interviewed on the record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In one illustrative example, Strategic Capitol Consulting, a lobbying firm founded by former Missouri House Speaker turned lobbyist Steve Tilley, declined an interview but in email said that \u201cthe only impact Clean Missouri has had is on small businesses in Jefferson City and it\u2019s been for the worse \u2014 not better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lobbyists may no longer pick up the check at the end of a long evening of cocktails, but restaurants near the Capitol still fill up with a who\u2019s who of legislators, officials and lobbyists. Instead of meals or other gifts, those who want to sway legislators can instead write unlimited checks to political action committees, which have a wide leash to promote their favored candidates and lawmakers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And lawmakers remain able to raise funds from lobbyists during session.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Crucially, term limits continue to ensure that pesky legislators who won\u2019t go along eventually depart, but lobbyists \u2014 and more importantly, the interests they represent \u2014 can hang around for decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And the open records requirements of Clean Missouri, which brought the General Assembly under the Missouri Sunshine Law, are still being fought over. An ongoing lawsuit risks gutting the provision and allowing legislators to once again all but ignore rules requiring them to turn over public records.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhatever the ethics reform is, campaign finance, you pick it \u2014 all it does is it forces you to be more creative to do the stuff you want to do,\u201d said John Hancock, a political consultant who is a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSometimes that creativity runs up against the line of legality. And occasionally, it crosses that line of legality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hancock said restrictions on lobbyists and other ethics reforms may be popular with the public, but he\u2019s unconvinced it makes much difference. If people are unethical to begin with, laws aren\u2019t going to change anything, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve never been somebody that believes you can make someone ethical from the outside in by passing laws, putting up roadblocks. Ethics comes from the inside out,\u201d Hancock said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat, said Clean Missouri did not result in significant changes in the way business is conducted in Jefferson City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While the measure banned lobbyist gifts, there are still workarounds, she said. And term limits mean that lobbyists still hold remarkable sway in the Capitol.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t feel like there\u2019s any difference in terms of how much influence a lobbyist has on a member,\u201d she said. \u201cThe reality of term limits makes it so that all institutional knowledge and, quite frankly, influence that comes with expertise lies with lobbyists because they\u2019re the only ones who\u2019ve been here for 20 or 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sean Nicholson, who was the campaign manager of Clean Missouri, said the initiative was successful in eliminating an \u201cobscene\u201d amount of lobbyist gifts. Citing a colorful example of how things worked before the amendment was approved, Nicholson noted that carts of booze are no longer delivered to legislative offices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOver time, it was just a corrosive and corrupting influence, and I think it\u2019s objectively good that that part has changed,\u201d Nicholson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Still, Nicholson acknowledges the General Assembly remains \u201cweird in different ways now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe lobbyist gift culture has been dramatically reduced,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cThere are still ways that some politicians try to get around it by using campaign funds to do stuff, but I heard from registered lobbyists from across the political spectrum and they like that politicians aren\u2019t asking them for free stuff.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Big money flows to PACs<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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When an initiative petition placed Clean Missouri on the November 2018 ballot, the vote followed years of failed efforts by some legislators to impose campaign finance and ethics reforms on themselves. At the same time, stories circulated of eye-popping gifts and campaign contributions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Voters in 2016 reimposed campaign contribution limits after Missouri spent a decade as one of a very small number of states without limits. In the past, the state\u2019s richest donors gave vast amounts directly to candidates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Illustrating the kind of money flying around, St. Louis megadonor Rex Sinquefield in 2014 made a $1 million donation to Bev Randles, a potential candidate for lieutenant governor. At the time, it was considered the largest single donation to a candidate in state history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Those kinds of massive contributions to candidates are no longer allowed. While voters have approved various limits in recent years, in 2020, they set a cap of $2,400 per contributor per election for each state Senate candidate and $2,000 for each state representative candidate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Far from taking money out of politics, the past six years of contribution limits have instead funneled money around campaigns and into political action committees, which often operate as the political arms of major business groups, trade associations and other special interests that regularly lobby legislators and state officials. PACs can accept unlimited donations, and a federal court order also allows PACs to contribute to other PACs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Companies and organizations that have registered lobbyists often also donate large sums to PACs. For example, Clayton-based Centene last year wrote checks totaling $120,000 to PACs that aid state legislators in both parties. The company also has 14 lobbyists currently registered to work on its behalf. Centene\u2019s subsidiary, Home State Health, contracts with Missouri to provide managed care services, including for the state\u2019s Medicaid expansion population, and health services for children in foster care. Its contract was renewed last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While PACs can\u2019t be controlled by a candidate, the committees are allowed to support or oppose ballot measures and candidates. They can also exist beyond a single election cycle, allowing them to amass large war chests they can reach into when the right candidate or issue comes along. Dark money groups are also active in Missouri elections but unlike PACs don\u2019t have to disclose donors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In just a few years, PACs have become the primary vehicles by which corporations, advocacy groups and other special interests boost legislators and other officials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou can have unlimited amounts of campaign dollars going to a PAC and so that\u2019s what we see now is they just go to PACs,\u201d said Missouri House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Lee\u2019s Summit Republican.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAnd so you have less transparency with those,\u201d Patterson said, \u201cbecause they\u2019re independent, whereas before if someone wanted to give a campaign committee $25,000 directly to that campaign committee \u2014 it is what it is \u2014 but at least you knew who it came from and where it was going to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now that the big money flows to PACs, candidates and their campaigns have more difficulty driving their message. Jonathan Ratliff, a political consultant and former political director for the Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee, described the outsize role of PACs as an unintended but unfortunate consequence of recent reforms.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019ve given a greater voice to PACs and less of a voice to candidates, which I think does a disservice to Missouri voters,\u201d Ratliff said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Missouri term limits despised<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Adding to fears about outside influence in politics is the fact that lobbyists are allowed to stick around the Capitol building much longer than lawmakers. Missouri\u2019s strict term limits, approved by voters in 1992, cap legislators at eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Supporters say this arrangement allows fresh voices to get a seat at the table. In theory, term limits require the Missouri General Assembly to evolve with the citizens of the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But many lawmakers, political consultants and others argue it creates an atmosphere where lobbyists and outside groups are more knowledgeable about issues than the lawmakers actually passing laws.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Term limits can also encourage a revolving door of lawmakers turned lobbyists by ensuring constant new classes of ex-lawmakers. Clean Missouri cracked down on but didn\u2019t entirely eliminate the phenomenon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The amendment requires legislators to wait two years after leaving office before lobbying. They previously only had to wait six months \u2014 allowing an individual to serve as a lawmaker one session and lobby their former colleagues the next.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe motivating factor for lobbyists is to gain access to lawmakers, and I don\u2019t think anything has changed in the last decade that alters that relationship or makes it less likely that lobbyists will be able to get time and access to lawmakers to any less degree than they would have before,\u201d said Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Quade, the House minority leader, recalled the first bill she ever filed \u2014 legislation in 2017 that would mitigate the child care \u201ccliff effect,\u201d where state financial assistance is cut off after a person gets an increase in income, such as a pay raise.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After months of research and meetings with staff, Quade said she eventually learned from a lobbyist that there was already a state program \u2014 called the Hand-up Program \u2014 that attempted to address what she was trying to fix but the program was largely ineffective and needed to be updated.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe way that we got the bill passed that I was working on was actually going back to that law and just adjusting what had already been done,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t just happened to run into that lobbyist who was working on that issue all those years before I got here, we would have never found the solution. Term limits take away that institutional knowledge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, said the good that came from Clean Missouri hasn\u2019t offset the problems with term limits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe biggest issue is that you have a transient legislature who by the time they figure out how to work through an issue are being pushed out the door,\u201d he said. \u201cYou show me another $40 billion company that has a new CFO every two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rizzo compared the knowledge and experience between lawmakers and lobbyists to a rookie quarterback competing against Tom Brady. He said this allows lobbyists to be extremely influential in the building.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThese people have been there,\u201d he said. \u201cThey know the rounds. They know the ins and outs and how it works. They have the history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Andy Arnold, who\u2019s worked as a lobbyist in Jefferson City since the early 1990s, pushed back on the argument that term limits give more power to lobbyists. While he considers himself \u201cone of the old guys in the building,\u201d the revolving door of lawmakers means that lobbyists have to constantly catch new lawmakers up to speed on issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI guess I can see how people think that, but I just don\u2019t agree with that,\u201d Arnold said. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m trying to educate somebody every year. Every two years, I\u2019ve got a new group of people to educate.\u201dThe culture in Jefferson City is certainly different nowadays, said Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican. He said during his first few years in office, lawmakers ate lobbyist-funded meals during committee hearings.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, Rowden said he does not think those lobbyist-funded meals swayed votes often.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIs the perception better? Yeah, probably. Do we talk about that stuff less? Yes, which I think is probably a good thing,\u201d Rowden said. \u201cWe get to talk about stuff that matters and not lobbyist-paid meals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But Missouri lawmakers are still trying to chip away at a key element of Clean Missouri. The voter-approved constitutional amendment made it clear that lawmakers had to adhere to the state\u2019s Sunshine Law, which protects citizens\u2019 rights to access public records and meetings and turns 50 years old this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The change gave the public more insight into lawmaker emails \u2014 including their communications with lobbyists.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While government transparency advocates have called for lawmakers to increase the scope of the state\u2019s open records laws, the only real push among lawmakers has been to exclude certain documents and communications from public view. A major bill this year to restrict access to records has so far not received a floor vote, however.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even without changing the Sunshine Law, Missouri courts may still empower lawmakers to sidestep the Clean Missouri requirements. In January, Cole County Judge Jon Beetem sided with the Missouri House in a lawsuit over access to legislative records, allowing lawmakers to keep some documents confidential.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Beetem ruled that the Sunshine Law allows some records to be protected, and only gives access to open and public records. A House rule that allows lawmakers to withhold correspondence with constituents and documents about caucus strategy doesn\u2019t violate the Missouri Constitution, he found.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The decision is under appeal and could ultimately be decided by the Missouri Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOne of the intentional choices that the coalition made in crafting the language was to say that the legislature needs to follow the same Sunshine Law that everyone else does\u2026we\u2019ve seen resistance to that,\u201d said Nicholson, the Clean Missouri campaign manager.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think a lot of good things were accomplished in spite of the legislature\u2019s attempt to roll back some of that,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cAnd I think reformers and citizens are going to have to keep working because these aren\u2019t partisan problems. These are people-in-power problems.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Missouri’s Legislature reflects the federal structure in many ways. Video by Beth O’Malley<\/p>\n

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