Kelly Owens Involved in Signature Controversy

Kelly Owens of the Campaign for Liberty, who was present (though arriving after the fight ended) at the aftermath of the McCowan/Gladney altercation, is in the middle of a signature gathering controversy involving the Show Me Better Courts petition, a right-wing supported ballot initiative to get rid of the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan. Here's the relevant passage from today's post by Tony Messenger on the Post-Dispatch Political Fix blog:

Johnson and Perkins said they were recruited to the petition drive by another Republican, Kelly Owens, who said petitioners would earn $5 per signature. But when they turned in their petitions, Owens said she wasn’t sure where the money was coming from. Owens, Johnson told a group of St. Louis Republicans in an e-mail, was working with Cooper, who is a longtime friend and political ally of Harris.

“And if you happen to run in to James, Chris Cain, Nathan Cooper, or anyone else who helped Kelly, please asked them to pay the petitioners,” Johnson wrote in his plea to St. Louis Republicans.

I spoke to one of the petitioners last week, and she was very angry at Owens in particular. However, in the article, a message on Owen's voicemail implies that she also was not getting paid:

Owens couldn’t be reached for comment. But on her cell phone voice mail, she’s left a long message for petitioners calling her to be paid.

“He has to pay us,” she says of Harris. “He just keeps giving us the runaround. … If the checks are not sent out today, we’re taking action.”

Obviously, it's hard to know at this point what's going on, but definitely worth keeping an eye on.