Are Missouri Republicans More Willing To Stand Up To Sinquefield Than St. Louis Democrats?

Fired Up Missouri posted audio earlier in the week of Republican Senate appropriations chair Kurt Schaefer saying that Rex Sinquefield's disastrous Everything Tax "scares the bejesus" out of him while Sinquefield was sitting in front of him:

“It scares the bejesus out of me what's going to happen if we phase into this and we have a substantial dip in general revenue,” said Senator Schaefer, who also said he was “intrigued” by the concept of a higher sales tax, in general. But “I'm very concerned about what happens when it phases in, especially during the phase in, and whether or not we have a substantial dip in general revenue because we cannot take it right now.”

Which makes me wonder: why are statewide Republicans so much more willing to publicly criticize crazy right-wing ideas from Sinquefield than many (but not all) St. Louis Democrats? They're all getting "donations" from Rex, but shouldn't Rex's St. Louis Democrats be able to, you know, actually stand up for Democratic values on financial issues every now and then?

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.

Momentum!

Question: if you are an organization created by a multimillionaire for the sole purpose of doing that multimillionaire's bidding, does it really count as "momentum" when that guy gives you more money? Apparently it does according the the Let Voters Decide "coalition", who received a donation from Rex Sinquefield, the only guy in the state who actually believes it'd be a good idea to gut state government and shift the tax burden to the poor and middle class by eliminating income tax and shifting exclusively to a sales tax. Check out this hilarious headline from the "coalition" referring to Rex's new donations of $1.2 million dollars:


In light of this genius idea, I've decided to start off every day with some extra "momentum" by giving myself $20. Look out world! I've got momentum!

Local Control Activists Thrown Under the Bus

This was an amazing story in the Political Eye that I had not seen before (but see the update):

As for the activists, they had been on the side of local control all along. Not because they love and trust this mayor, which they do even less than the coppers love and trust him, but because they see city control of the city police as a stepping stone towards citizen overview of a police force that has done much to test public trust in its authority to impound, confiscate, arrest and use lethal force. Whether this is reasonable thinking or not, activists have believed that mayoral control of the city police would be a meaningful step towards a Civilian Review Board. Activists believe civilian review is needed because the police department has a proven, poor track record of cracking down on its own. Even federal investigators, who were expected to bring down a host of white shirts along with the petty operator Greg Shepard in the towing scam, have let down the public where there seemed to be obvious, widespread corruption in the department.

This incredible, tentative coalition is officially quitsville. The POA and Mayor Slay have sided with Sinquefield on his local control ballot initiative, and the activists have turned against them. On the face of it, it would be difficult to imagine local control activists siding with any group that includes Slay, the coppers and Sinquefield, but they have specific reasons for their opposition that were outlined in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

Please read the whole thing if you haven't already. It offers some important insights into St. Louis City politics.

One thing not mentioned in this article is that several St. Louis City Democrats were paid substantial sums of money by Rex Sinquefield to work on this issue. These same Democrats are supportive of Rex's plans to inch ever closer towards privatizing education, and turn a blind eye to his insane policy suggestions (backed by millions of dollars) like the everything tax.

Update: There was a nice op-ed in the Post-Dispatch about this by Brenda Jones of the ACLU.

Today In Interesting Twitter Exchanges

I had an Twitter exchange just now after casually mentioning that I was glad that newspaper editorial boards apparently can't be bought off quite as easily in Missouri as politicians. My comment was in relation to the fact that multimillionaire-warrior-for-the-1% Rex Sinquefield is throwing around boatloads of cash trying to get people to pretend that they really really like his disastrous Everything Tax that would bankrupt the state and many municipalities in addition to shifting the current tax burden away from the wealthy and onto the backs of the poor and middle class.

Anyway, here's how it went. Me:

State Representative Mark Parkinson (whom I don't think I've ever interacted with before):

Me:

State Representative Mark Parkinson:


Goodness, this guy is sensitive. To be honest, with the unlimited campaign contributions, frequent wining and dining by sketchy lobbyists, and the fact that many Missouri Republicans' legislation was actuallly written by corporations, I just kinda assumed that there wasn't even any reason for them to take illegal bribes. But now that Representative Parkinson mentions it, I guess the current legislature is both corrupt and incompetent enough it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did.

Parkinson does, by the way, receive donations from Rex (not that there's anything illegal with that).