John Loudon

Originally posted at St. Louis Activist Hub.

Shortly after the recent Tea Party convention in Nashville Tennessee, a new group emerged in St. Louis dedicated to fighting against funding for public transportation in the St. Louis region. The misleadingly titled "Citizens for Better Transit" (CBT) was publicly represented by spokesperson John Burns, a relative newcomer to St. Louis politics. Despite the fact that Burns had no particular credibility and was using wildly misleading talking points (which I'll have to discuss at a different time), the local media has been quite willing to treat him as the spokesperson for a legitimate group and to provide him with equal airtime to the pro-transit campaign. In this post and the following, I want to examine the recent political activities of John Burns characterized by the blatant use of misinformation, sketchy connections, and contempt for the LGBT community.

It's the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which means it's an especially good day day to talk about why Barack Obama is a terrible person.  Former state Sen. John Loudon explains:

To Our Friends in Europe, We Apologize for Our President
by John Loudon

The America in which I was raised always stood for freedom, and not just freedom for Americans but freedom for suffering people around the World...

Now we have a new face of America.  We elected Barak Obama, and he does not feel that moral duty to you as Reagan did, at least not enough to stand up to the shrill American voices that hate the American military.  So he will not be there on November 9th to Celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall.  I do not think he sees it the way you do.  He will also not participate in the festivities on the campus of my College.  Westminster College, in my State of Missouri, is where the great Allied leader Winston Churchill gave the Iron Curtain Speech...

Karl Rove, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder and former state Sen. John Loudon are all pounding the pavement luxuriously carpeted hotel ballrooms this week to rally the corporate class against basic workers' rights. Loudon is the head of the Orwellian-named Save Our Secret Ballot organization, which is trying to put a question on the ballot to preempt the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

Karl Rove's sins are well known and well documented.  His involvement in Missouri on behalf of corporate interests should be all a person needs to know that the so-called Save Our Secret Ballot effort is bad news.

More locally, John Loudon has kicked off the SOS Ballot campaign with offensive and manifestly false statements about EFCA. Yesterday, for example, Dave Catanese reported via Twitter:

It's more than a little ironic that former GOP Sen. John Loudon invokes George Orwell in a dishonest opinion piece printed in last week's St. Louis Business Journal (via JohnCombest.com).

Let’s save our secret ballot in Missouri

Most of us assume voting by secret ballot in America is a constitutional right, a God-given right. Surprisingly, it isn’t guaranteed either in our federal or state constitution.

And right now, Missourians’ right to a secret ballot is in jeopardy as the U.S. Senate is within a vote or two from passing an Orwellian-named bill called EFCA – the Employee Free Choice Act. This bill would do away with secret ballot elections where employees decide who will represent them. Instead, unions could be formed in companies with as few as 10 employees through what’s known as “card check.” 

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As I mentioned before, roughly a third of the Missouri House will be term limited out in 2010.  The following is what I have heard so far about who is running for the House.  Has anyone heard about others running for the MO House?

Possible candidates:

The 84th district will likely see Gina Loudon run for the Republican nomination in this Republican leaning district. She lost the Republican primary in 2008 for the state Senate seat her husband, former Sen. John Loudon, occupied when he was term limited. See the Arch City Chronicle for their take.

The 152nd District is a Democratic leaning district in southeast Missouri and word is that Don Barzowski (D) is considering running for the seat. Barzowski is currently an Alderman in Ironton and a social studies teacher extraordinaire at Arcadia Valley High School.

Announced candidates:

In the 10th district Linda Witte is running to replace her husband, Rep. Terry Witte (D), who is term limited in 2010. She has already announced her candidacy and started a Facebook group.

The 35th district is one in which the incumbent, Rep. Doug Ervin (R) is term limited and Jim Baldwin (D) will be running for the seat. Baldwin ran in 2008 and lost to Ervin, but this time will not face an incumbant. Baldwin has a website and Facebook group.

Col. Jack Jackson had a watershed 2008.

After briefly running for Lt. Governor against Peter Kinder, the former Marine served as the lead surrogate for John McCain in Missouri.

No doubt, 2008 left Jackson with two competing smells in his nostrils: the smell of humiliation as he withdrew from the Lt. Governor's race out of deference to party leaders who were supporting a lesser stag... and the smell of big-time, flag-waving politics.

Those stark experiences (and the track record of a competitive Auditor's race in 2006), lead some to speculate that Jackson will turn his sights on the recently open US Senate seat, even if the party establishment backs someone else.

So in the coming days, watch for the former test pilot to begin testing the waters on a US Senate bid.

Perusing the second quarter finance report for the Senate campaign of Gina Loudon, one notices that two contributions stand together and stand out from the rest. 

Loudon took $100 from both Reverend Dale Norfolk (a former Senate chaplain) and St. Louis Archdiocese executive George Kerry.

Quite a shift for Sen. John Loudon's wife, who spent last quarter raising cash from the adult entertainment industry.  Amazing what an endorsement from Missouri Right to Life will allow some people to overlook.

Although there were many other worthy submissions of offensive quotes, the Heartless Quote of the Week goes to Senator John Loudon, hands down:

Republican Sen. John Loudon ridiculed concerns [voiced by nuns, elderly, disabled, student, poor and minority voters] that the photo ID requirement amounted to a tax on voters.

"The only thing taxing is you have to get off your duff and get an ID that's given away for free," Loudon said.

Yes, Loudon told that to Kathleen Weinschenk, who has cerebral palsy and doesn’t drive -  and who wouldn’t be able to vote without a government-issued photo ID if the heartless GOP has their way.

As we noted this morning, Gina Loudon --a GOP senate candidate and wife of sitting Senator John Loudon-- was the recipient of a campaign check late in the first quarter from Ann Michael, lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry's trade group, the Missouri Association of Club Executives.  To borrow a phrase from Paul Harvey - "now, for the rest of the story"...

According to insiders, the industry's contribution to Gina Loudon has quite an interesting pedigree. 

John Loudon sponsored a bill this session, SB714, that related to criminal sexual offenses.  As that bill moved through committee, Sen. Matt Bartle offered a committee substitute that added provisions to the bill that would place legal restrictions on lap dancing, and the substitute passed out of the committee.  But when Loudon brought the bill to the Senate floor, he reportedly brought a Senate substitute for Bartle's Senate Committee Substitute that stripped (pardon the pun) out Bartle's prohibitions on lap dancing.

We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't point out that GOP primary candidate Gina Loudon, who is running for the nomination against two others for her husband John's senate seat, took campaign cash in the past quarter from an adult entertainment industry lobbyist.

Ann Michael, who is lobbyist for the Missouri Association of Club Executives, and her husband gave a maximum $675 check to Gina Loudon's senate campaign on March 29th.

And frankly, I say bully for Loudon.  I'd much rather see the Republican nominee for the 7th Senate District be someone who recognizes the importance of free speech and expression than someone who has sold her soul (and her office) to private school voucher advocates.

Unfortunately for Loudon, I'm not sure whether the West County GOP primary electorate feels the same way.

Amongst the items prefiled for the 2008 legislative session is SB 716 by  Sen. John Loudon (R) 7th District with a rerun of a bill from last year:

 
SB 716 - This act provides that the official dating standard used by
the state of Missouri shall be A.D., or Anno Domini, and B.C., or
Before Christ. Neither the state, nor any political subdivision, shall
use any other designation.

Tocology...know what that is?  Well, it's another word for midwifery.  (Technically, Tocology is the "science of childbirth", but this word tends to be used when describing midwifery, not OB-GYN medical practice.)

Today's Kansas City Star reports today on the informal creation of a group of individuals who freely admit their belief 75.9% that of Missouri's voters are idiots whose involvement in the democratic process should be disregarded. To be known henceforth as "The Anti-democratic Loser Caucus", this group is so named because its members --having been on the wrong side of the landslide passage of a minimum wage initiative that will index the wage to inflation-- are losers. Those losers now seek to dissolve the results --by urging legislative repeal of inflation indexing-- of the democratic process through which their loss was suffered.

A lot has transpired since Fired Up Missouri last checked in with boy Guv Matt Blunt to get a feel for the ten individuals whom he most despises. Among the significant events which have passed since the posting of the previous Top Ten list are the primary election, the flight or forced departure of most of the governor's senior staff, and probably a dozen RGA fundraisers that Blunt has headlined. Lots of water under the bridge means lots of new names on the Matty B Top Ten Most Hated list, so let's get started...

Fired Up! has learned that on July 14, 2006, an ethics complaint was filed against the campaign of State Senator John Loudon. Fired Up! has obtained a copy of the 19 page complaint.

The complaint alleges that Loudon's campaign failed to disclose certain required information, used impermissibly vague descriptions for payments to "consultants," accepted contributions in excess of the legal limits, and other assorted allegations.

We render no judgment on the merits of the complaint. However, we can draw some political conclusions from it. When fellow Republicans start filing ethics complaints against one another, it's a sure sign that things are getting nasty in the stretch.