Rex Sinquefield

Editor's note: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified Kent Gaines as a lobbyist for Sinquefield. Gaines used to lobby with Travis Brown, but the two are no longer partners; only Brown is a registered lobbyist for Sinquefield. We regret the error.

Over 100 Missouri taxpayers and activists marched on the south Capitol steps this morning to make their voice heard and to form a battle cry against Rex Sinquefield's attempts to "buy" decision makers & initiative petitions.

The Riverfront Times has the scoop: Grand Jury Investigating Fraud at Show-Me Institute, 'Substantial Misuse of Funds'"

UPDATE: Dave Roland, an analyst at Sinquefield's Show-Me Insitutute, has responded to this post in the comments.

I see that David Stokes at Rex Sinquefield's Show-Me Institute blog is criticizing Oregonians' use of a ballot initiative to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.  It passed by a wide margin,  but Stokes isn't digging the voters' decision-- the Oregon vote, he says, is an example of "why I prefer a representative republic to direct democracy."

Stokes disdain for ballot initiatives is ironic (to say the least) considering Sinquefield's sponsorship of at least five initiatives to end the 1% earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City. Sinquefield has even put $500,000 of his personal fortune into a brand new campaign account called "Let Voters Decide."

The Post-Dispatch has a long editorial about ethics reform legislation and recent transgressions by state legislators of both parties.  The whole thing is worth the read, but these final two paragraphs need to be highlighted.

All of these [minor 2010 ethics reform proposals] would be nice, but they clearly don’t address the fundamental problem: Campaign money from special interests drives the public’s business. It employs a bunch of oxpeckers whose interests lie in perpetuating the system, not reforming it.

Unless and until Missouri restores limits on campaign contributions, the abuses will continue. Anything else simply is masquerading as ethics reform and is bogus.

Implicit in the debate about whether legislators should end their practice of accepting meals and gifts from lobbyists are the assumptions that (1) it gives lobbyists unfair access to legislators (2) lawmakers could be tempted to return the favor with an official action of some kind.

I think these are fair concerns, and would vote to limit lobbyist gifts and meals if I could. At the same time, I don't understand the logic behind limiting such relatively small bits of support while ignoring enormous shows of support that come in the form of campaign checks.

Majority Leader Steve Tilley – who's pushing a lobbyist gift ban at no real cost to himself, and hoping this whole discussion distracts attention from his own questionable actions – says he was inspired to stop taking free meals after talking with his dad and deciding that taking lobbyist meals "sure looks bad." 

If enjoying a lobbyist-purchased hamburger "sure looks bad" – then what does a $100,000 check from Rex Sinquefield or $100,000 check from a Tom Burcham-controlled PAC look like?  Or what does it look like when a legislator co-owns an airplane and business with Rex Sinquefield's lobbyist, with undisclosed profit- and resource-sharing agreements? 

The Turner Report has the scoop on Majority Leader Steve Tilley's ethics reform legislation to be officially announced today. As outlined by Turner, Tilley says he wants to stop:

• Lobbyist gifts and meals for legislatures
• Political consulting while serving in the legislature
• Becoming a lobbyist within 180 days of leaving office
• Prohibition on accepting political contributions for any compensated appointment made by the governor, speaker of the House, or speaker pro tempore of the Senate that requires Senate approval for a period before and after the appointment
• The appointment of legislators to executive department positions within 180 days of leaving office
• Any political donations being made to the governor by any entity that has a pending decision before an executive department or decision making body

And wants "full disclosure" of:

• All members, spouses, and staff of any political employment
• Any financial interest of any general assembly, executive, or statewide offices, including staff and contract agents (though it's not really clear what that means yet)

Tilley is the subject of scrutiny for the way he raises money and runs the House, his very close ties to Rod Jetton, his huge special interest campaign contributions, his ownership of an airplane and business with Rex Sinquefield lobbyist Travis Brown, and questionable actions that benefited friend and financier Tom Burcham.

The Show Me Institute has a new study concluding that Missouri "ranks Missouri high on a list of states with big government," and Missourinet has dutifly reprinted their main findings in a piece titled "Show me big government." To back up their claim of "big government" the Institute mainly points to the fact that Missouri has a lot of counties and school districts, and a big House of Representatives, which contribute to a high number of "government units."

Wouldn't high tax burdens be a better measure of big government?  That seems to be the underlying concern -- that bloated, inefficient government costs us money.

The Tax Foundation -- hardly a left-wing outfit -- ranks Missouri 47th in state tax collections per capita.  And 46th in state spending per capita. When one adds in local governments, the tax burden on Missourians ranks 32nd.  Some of this data is actually included in the Show Me Institute study -- which actually describes Missouri as a "comparatively low-tax state." 

Unfortunately, there's no way to tell what was included in the original Political Fix blogpost, but a subsequent comment and explanation by Jo Mannies suggests some disturbing journalistic practices.  This comment was posted less than an hour after the initial post (emphasis added):

No. Through a technical mess-up on my part, the sentence was garbled. It has now been fixed.

We also have had to delete the audio of the meeting, because we had
jumped the gun without checking with all of the participants as to
whether they were comfortable with posting it on the blog. Some were
not, in part because some of the comments may have been considered
off-the-record, or off-the-cuff discussion not expected to be made
public.

Jake and I apologize for any misunderstanding. But we will try to use this technology again. Live and learn.

Comment by Jo Mannies --
March 13th, 2008 at 11:48 am

Think about what this means, in the context of what Mannies and Wagman were reporting on.  Mannies herself described the nature of the event she was covering in the very first graf of the blogpost:

Multi-millionaire Rex Sinquefield, joined by aides and
two professors who’ve done studies for his Show-Me Institute, stopped
by the Post-Dispatch this morning to lay out some of his views to
members of the paper’s Editorial Page.

So, if we believe what Jo Mannies has written in both her blogpost and in her subsequent comment, a person (well, at least a multi-millionaire) can come before the Post-Dispatch editorial board "to lay out some of his views" and then determine after the fact that some of the things he said "may have been considered off-the-record." 

Does anyone else think that a meeting with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page is hardly the appropriate place for an off-the-record conversation? 

A story posted by Steve Walsh to the MissouriNet website yesterday evening does a tremendous disservice to readers.  Walsh reports on a "study" by the Show-Me Institute that --surprise, surprise!-- shows educational tuition tax-credits (or vouchers) would supposedly benefit the state:

The Show-Me Institute, a St. Louis-based research and educational institute, has released a study on the fiscal effects of a tuition tax credit program in Missouri. The study finds such a program would benefit the state by providing low-income families with additional education choices.

But criminally, Walsh fails to mention that the Show-Me Institute's primary funder and President is Rex Sinquefield, who has spent much of the last three years throwing large amounts of money at legislators who promise to support tuition tax-credit (or voucher) legislation. 

While it served mostly to show that if you're a crackpot with lots of money you can get the media to write an uncritical story about you, Jo Mannies' Sunday profile on millionaire conservative Rex Sinquefield also provided us a narrow sliver of unspun truth.

With uncharacteristic analytical precision, Mannies writes in her story's third graf (emphasis added):

After making a fortune as an investment banker, Sinquefield is prepared to spend millions in the next few years to influence the Missouri public and help elect state and local officials who share his disdain for income taxes and troubled urban public schools.

Exactly.

The man behind the slanderous anti-Kerry "Swift Boat" ads rears his head in Missouri politics.  Bob Perry (aka "Swift Boat" Bob), a Texan homebuilder, apparently is looking to bring his brand of politics to Missouri.  On March 4, Perry and his wife, Doylene, EACH contributed $100,000 ($200,000 total) to Matt Blunt's re-election (?) campaign.

It might be easy to get lost in the field of candidates for the Kansas City mayor's race, and I think that is exactly what Becky Nace was hoping for. Lucky for us, we have the facts. There are three things that pop up upon an initial glance at her campaign finance reports, three supporters that could end up costing the city an incredible amount of money should she take office:

1) Vouchers- Rex Sinquefield, the voucher king, has given over $1,200 dollars to the Nace for Mayor Campaign. Not a surprise, since his pockets run deep and he often contributes to Republican candidates. Nevertheless, he is a kingpin of the anti-public school movement and always gives his money accordingly.