Ron Richard

Sen. Ron Richard, former Most Powerful Man in Missouri, explains why he's not running for lieutenant governor’s race to the Joplin Globe's Susan Redden: 

I’m pretty good at job creation and tax policy, and getting more jobs in the state certainly is on everyone’s mind...The last jobs bill that was passed was mine; I’m going to go with that I’m good at.

The Beacon's Jo Mannies reports that Ron Richard and John Brunner shant be running for governor in 2012.  

In a new opinion piece published by The Star, former Rep. Kevin Wilson (R-Neosho) criticizes his GOP colleagues for thwarting the bipartisan push for real ethics reform in 2010.

"They set about to derail our efforts and they were most successful – the work of the committee was set aside and the bill was scuttled," he writes. 

Wilson earned bipartisan praise for his work to craft a meaningful ethics and campaign finance reform legislation last year as chair of a special committee created by Speaker Ron Richard for that purpose, before Richard and then-Majority Leader Steve Tilley shut down any talk of real reform. 

The Senate's Jobs, Economic Development and Local Government Committee heard testimony on the Missouri Science and Innovation Reinvestment Act (SB79), sponsored this year by Sen. Jolie Justus (D-Kansas City).  The idea was sponsored by Sen. Tom Dempsey (R-St. Peters) last year, and enjoys strong bipartisan support again this year. 

According to tweeps in attendance, the only opposition to the bill came from Missouri Right to Life, and Sen. Ron Richard (R-Joplin) wasn't too happy about that.

At the 2010 Lincoln Days event, House Speaker Ron Richard declared and then denied a desire to be on a "short list" of Republican candidates for Governor in 2016.  Such plans were obviously not welcomed by Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, who still fancies himself a viable challenger to Jay Nixon in 2012. 

To refresh you memory, here's a first-person account of what happened from the Post-Dispatch's Tony Messenger, who first broke the news of Richard's too-honest opinion of Kinder's 2012 viability.

Speaker Steve Tilley continues to blame his shameless support for predatory lenders and the outrageous actions of Republican leaders like Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) on Mary Still:

When the conversation turned to payday loan reforms, Tilley blamed the lack of progress personally on State Rep. Mary Still, a Columbia Democrat who worked for Jay Nixon in the Attorney General's Office. Still has sponsored a payday loan every year since she was elected in 2008

"Mary is not the easiest person to work with on either side of the aisle,"Tilley said. "She's had no luck getting anything achieved."

If Tilley, the previous Most Powerful Man in Missouri or any of the other leaders who control what bills pass or don't pass in the House cared about their constituents, they'd change the law.  But they care about the profits of the lenders like Wells, so they don't.  It's very simple.

In an interview with PoliticMo, Speaker-elect Steve Tilley says that "whatever the legislature does" with a massive sales tax hike pushed by Rex Sinquefield (who just happens to have given Tilley $200,000 in campaign cash for the 2010 cycle, even though Tilley didn't have an opponent in his primary or general elections), "a final plan would be placed on the ballot for voters to decide."

Tilley's support for a big sales tax increase while junking the state income tax (he'd call it a "fair tax" system) is a departure from Speaker Ron Richard's position on the matter.  In September Richard said that a large sales tax increase would have a detrimental impact on businesses in "Springfield, Kansas City, Joplin, Cape Girardeau, Sikeston [and] St. Louis," and said that plan supporters have not given clear answers on what the new sales tax will need to be. 

Late in yesterday's on-air conversation between Speaker Ron Richard and Sarah Steelman on KWTO, Richard attempted to explain how the today's tea party activity is simply another iteration of what freedom-loving patriots did in the American Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II. 

(Equating public policy debates about health care and economic stimulus legislation to actual wars trivializes the enormous human costs of those wars and tells us almost nothing about the actual character of the tea party movement, but let's set those concerns aside for a minute.)

Here is Ron Richard's history of Freedom Fighting:  

The Tea Party is just a group of people that are are frustrated with sovereignty and rights and personal freedoms. But, you know this hasn't [has] happened before. If you look at 1776, when the United States was forming and we were breaking away from Great Britain, the reason we did that is for sovereignty, rights, the states' rights and personal freedoms. And if you go seventy five years after that, you go to the Civil War.  And the Civil War was fought over personal freedoms, state rights, sovereignty. And then you go seventy five years after that, you go to World War II, and it was fought over freedom, sovereignty of the U.S. and the freedom of the world actually.  You go seventy five years after that, and you go to today.  Now, people are frustrated with the same thing.  And what are we fighting today?  We're fighting states' rights, personal freedoms and whatever you put, whatever manacle, monocle [moniker] you put on the people, you name them the tea party, or patriot or whatever, the same group of people from 1776, it's the frustration with the federal government and the frustration of the bureaucracy and personal freedom.  So, I try to look at the big picture, and I -- that's kind of where we're I'm from, and what I try to talk to my House members, and apparently it's worked because it looks like we may be gaining the largest numbers in the Missouri history of the Missouri House.

Listen:

Speaking this morning on KWTO's "Sarah Steelman Hour,"Speaker Ron Richard was asked to share his opinion on the poorly-named "Fair Tax," which would eliminate the state's income and property taxes and replace part of the lost revenue with a much higher sales tax, which would be applied to goods and services currently exempt from sales taxes.

The response is somwhat disjointed, as you might expect, but Richard properly highlights two important points: (1) supporters of the sales tax increase use fuzzy numbers to promise an unrealistically low rate, and (2) a big sales tax increase is a big deal for Missouri's many communities on or near the state border. Missouri's population centers would have a strong incentive to cross over into Kansas or Illinois, especially for relatively expensive goods and services, further exacerbating the economic struggles for Missouri businesses.

Listen to the exchange between Richard and Steelman:

Transcript below the break.

Speaking this morning on KWTO's "Sarah Steelman Hour," Speaker Ron Richard was asked about being The Most Powerful Man in Missouri by Steelman's co-host. 

CO-HOST: I was trying to figure out, why would anyone want to leave the most powerful job in the state as the Speaker of the House to go serve in the State Senate where they move the previous question all the time and you don't have any power any more.

RICHARD: [Laughter] Yeah, yeah, right. Well, I don't think, I'm not sure the Speaker is the most powerful person, I know there's been some blogs out there that makes me sound like that. But actually, the House itself is a powerful institution just 'cause the budget starts with them.  And, uh,  so. 

Listen:

But as Richard knows (or should), this isn't some sort of bloggernet fabrication.  It's what he told KODE last May. From the horse's mouth:

It's the most powerful place in the state of Missouri. More powerful than governor or the president of the senate; not that I care about that, but that's just the nature of the job and the position and that's the way it has been built over the years.

Watch:

"We keep reminding institutions in this building that there is a third branch of government called the House of Representatives, and we think we're very important to the budget process, and we'll still flex our muscles when we have to."

Self-professed history buff and House Speaker Ron Richard re-imagines the Constitution in an interview with the Missourian

"Is there anything we shoulda-coulda done differently? Probably not. I think we made some tough decisions... I wouldn't change anything."

Ron Richard reflects on his time as The Most Powerful Man on Missouri with the Kansas City Star, including his work to "set a new bar for skulduggery and cynicism," "unethical scheming," hilariously inconsistent budgeting, blockage of autism insurance legislation for children, 24-hour campaign for Governor, horse trading that attracted attention from the FBI, dishonest grandstanding, complete failure to deliver on his promise to raise $350M to renovate the Capitol building, etc...

The incomparable Ron Richard press operation was in full force yesterday, and was as frustrating and hilarious as you might expect. The Speaker plans to attempt an override of HB 1903, intended to create a fund to manage federal stimulus funds.  Governor Jay Nixon vetoed the bill in July, saying the proposal was "unnecessary and duplicative of legislation passed during the 2009 session."  Nixon pointed to 2009's SB313 in his veto letter, which created the "Federal Budget Stabilization Fund" and the "Federal Stimulus Fund."

These basic facts are pretty clear.  But in interviews for the Associated Press and St. Louis Beacon, Richard gave contradictory responses about the true intent of the veto override attempt (Spoiler: it's all about a bank-shot political statement, and not about the policy), and contradictory statements about his overall philosophy regarding federal stimulus dollars.

Lt. Governor Peter Kinder and Speaker Ron Richard are accusing Gov. Jay Nixon of violating the law (or constitution) with an executive order signed this summer saying the State of Missouri should not discriminate against employees based on their sexual orientation. You can read Executive Order 10-24 here.

In a new article published yesterday on the Missouri Baptist Convention Pathway website, Kinder's spokesman says the executive order is "nothing more than a political statement" (pause for a moment to enjoy the irony of this criticism), but one Kinder believes "goes beyond the extent of the law."  Richard, also a esteemed legal scholar, says Nixon has "clearly overstepped his authority again."   Yet as Missouri Lawyers Media reported in July, "other governors - including Republican Govs. John Ashcroft and Matt Blunt - used executive orders to craft discrimination policies for the executive branch."

Curiously, Kinder appears to have only mustered the courage to express his outrage to the conservative MBC Pathway, but had no comment for the Associated Press, Post-Dispatch, Beacon or Star when they reported on the order in July.  Since that time, of course, he has tweeted about numerous other manufactured (and almost entirely federal) controversies.  But why is he not tweeting up a storm demanding that Nixon allow the state to discriminate against employees because of who they are?  

The Most Powerful Man in Missouri said the Special Session would be wrapped up in one week.

Since he's more powerful than the Governor and anyone in the Senate, maybe he could speed things up a bit? 

Yesterday afternoon, it was reported that Bryan Pratt was removed from the House Rules Committee by Speaker Ron Richard because Pratt would not commit to supporting the tax incentives bill in the ongoing special sessions. “It is frustrating that because I want to vote against giving Missouri taxpayer dollars to keep large corporations in business, I am no longer allowed to serve on that committee,” Pratt said in a press release.

More from KMBC's Micheal Mahoney: "Speaker Ron Richard continues to rule with an iron hand in the Special Session on the Claycomo Ford plant (see previous post). Jackson County St. Rep and Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt has been yanked off the important rules committee for opposing the bill. Pratt says it happened after he told Speaker Richard he thought the Claycomo measure was a “bail out bill”, and that he and his Eastern Jackson County constituents oppose it."

KMBC's Micheal Mahoney: "Republican St. Rep. Will Kraus of Lee’s Summit says he was 'replaced' on an important committee for refusing to promise to vote for the Claycomo jobs bill. Rep. Kraus says he was asked today by the Economic Development and Jobs Creation Committee Chair Tim Flook to promise to vote for the bill. Kraus says he told Flook he couldn’t do that. Kraus says he wanted to listen to both sides in the committee hearing. Flook told him to go see House Speaker Ron Richard. Kraus says that was where he learned he was being 'replaced' on the committee. A statement for Speaker Ron Richard confirms the move."

House Majority Floor Leader Steve Tilley tells Missourinet that he's "optimistic" about the upcoming special session, but says Governor Jay Nixon "is the key to success."   That's fair enough -- Nixon is the governor -- but what happened to Ron Richard, the Most Powerful Man In Missouri? 

There are a lot of moving parts in the upcoming special session, but if Richard is "more powerful than governor and the president of the senate," doesn't he have a big role to play?

I'd post an excerpt, but it's best if you just go read his whole post on the Missourinet Blog about last week's "ethics" "debate" in the House.