Déjà Vu: Casas Confused About The Group He's Working For, Again

A long while back, I reported on how St. Louis "Democrats" were being paid off by extreme right-wing ideologue Rex Sinquefield to work on the ballot initiative restoring local control of the police department to St. Louis.  As I've said many times, I support local control, and in fact worked with the groups who had been pushing for local control long before it occurred to the St. Louis establishment that it might be a politically useful campaign. However, I had concerns about the way the campaign was being run as a PR campaign for Rex Sinquefield and anti-tax groups around the state.

Specifically, I was critical of one of Sinquefield's group's primary beneficiaries, Martin Casas, who repeatedly claimed to be clueless about the operation he was working on.  Casas wrote an article for Vital Voice asking people to sign a petition for United for Missouri, a right-wing group run by Sinquefield's employee Carl Bearden, who among many other things:

Voted to ban the existence of gay/straight student alliances in Missouri.

Was a co-sponsor of HB885 in 2004, which would "Prohibit public institutions or any entity receiving state funds from adopting discrimination policies that exceed state and federal protections against discrimination."

Voted in favor of placing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Missouri on the 2004 ballot.

So Casas wrote an article for St. Louis's premier LGBT news source asking people to hand their contact information over to a dude categorically opposed to equal rights.  And to make it worse, rather than just being honest about it, when I asked Casas about who was handling the emails from the petition, he responded by claiming: "I have no idea! I'm working on #LocalControl!" The idea that Casas, a failed candidate for state office, had been contracted to get signatures to an online petition without having any idea of what would be done with the signatures is pretty ridiculous, even for him.

So now we have a new Sinquefield-backed initiative, described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch way back in August, created to "study" various aspects of City and County services. Again, I personally think the City and County should be merged.  But like the Post-Dispatch editorial board, I think this discussion should be transparent and honest, rather than opaque and deceptive.  However, rather than being honest, the group, staffed by Rex's previous campaign operatives, is pretending to be unconnected to Rex Sinquefield.

So for starters, let's just be clear that the Twitter feed for the group, Better Together St. Louis, is run by Martin Casas.  With his usual stealth, Casas managed to tweet and post on facebook an identical post using his personal account and Better Together simultaneously, demonstrating that he's running both.

But what's really amazing is that Casas is again acting clueless about Rex Sinquefield's involvement in the group.  During a Twitter conversation, Casas initially said that Sinquefield wasn't involved in funding the group, then said he "didn't know" after it was pointed out that Sinquefeld was previously the only funder of the group, MCBE (Missouri Council for a Better Economy) that paid for "A Better St. Louis":

So Casas, for the second time, gets very confused when he's asked about whether he's working for a Sinquefield group and in what capacity. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, Casas is pretty irrelevant to whatever policy outcomes might occur.  Yet this whole approach is suggestive of a broader disdain for the public from the group.  Rather than simply being up front about Sinquefield's involvement, the effort so far has been designed, rather sloppily I might add, to act as though Rex has nothing to do with it, though he clearly has been involved in the planning and financing of the plan for a long time.  And if they can't just admit that he's a key part of the effort, what else are they trying to hide?  And more importantly, as the Kansas City Star's Yael Aboulhalkah asked, "What's in it for Rex?"

What's Worse Than a Democrat Paid By Sinquefield Keeping Quiet About Rex's Crazy Ideas?

As I documented yesterday, there are a lot of St. Louis "Democrats" being paid by Rex Sinquefield who are mysteriously keeping quiet about his crazy ideas, even those ideas that cut funding for Missouri schools. But you know what's even worse? Democrats being directly paid to advocate for his crazy ideas!

John Temporiti, the former chief of staff for Charlie Dooley who is still listed as Dooley's campaign Treasurer and getting reimbursed by his campaign on the latest finance reports, received $7,500 for "campaign expenses" from the Sinquefield funded-group designed to get rid of the income tax and increase sales taxes (which would have the effect of both gutting state government and shifting the tax burden overwhelmingly to the poor and middle class and away from the rich).

You might remember Temporiti from the fact that his son Mike Temporiti was awarded a $70,000 patronage job during a hiring freeze in St. Louis County:

In January, with St. Louis County in the third year of a hiring and pay freeze, Mike Temporiti landed a $70,000 county job.

Temporiti, 27, is now the county's abatement compliance officer. It's a brand new job, created just for him in the Revenue Department. His salary is the ninth highest of the 237 employees in the department.

The job was never posted, and Temporiti did not have to interview for it.

He is a lawyer and the son of John Temporiti, who is County Executive Charlie A. Dooley's longtime campaign treasurer and manager and former chief of staff.

Also in the same Post-Dispatch article:

Several county employees, including some in the Revenue Department, have complained to the Post-Dispatch about the hiring of Mike Temporiti. They asked to remain anonymous because they fear retribution from their supervisors.

They dispute Earls' contention that the job is essential or that it needs to be full time.

"It's a task that could easily have been relegated to a current employee without adding too much strain to their current job," one employee said. "It would have only entailed several extra hours a week."

Oh, and there's also this:

Katy Temporiti, who is married to John Temporiti's eldest son, John Jr., is also a patronage employee, as a part-time administrative assistant in the Parks and Recreation Department. Since hiring her six years ago this month, the county has paid her a total of about $178,000....

At the time she was hired, John Temporiti was serving as Dooley's chief of staff..

Katy Temporiti's supervisor, Chief Parks Ranger John Nesbit, said Temporiti primarily worked from home.

Just read the whole article (which has a lot more detail and nuance) and reach your own conclusions.

St. Louis County Executive Dooley, of course, is also a frequent recipient of Sinquefield's donations.

Follow Michael Bersin at Show Me Progress for more details about various campaign finance reports.