Tom Schweich

Politico's Dave Catanese, today: "Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich is seriously considering entering the race for governor, following Friday's decision by Lt.  Gov. Peter Kinder to step aside for the good of the party. Two Republican sources close to Schweich tell POLITICO that he is weighing the prospect of taking on Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon but wants to explore initial support and fundraising capability before a final decision is reached. One source said Schweich has already been approached by a group of "relevant, credible" GOP players in Missouri."

Faithful Fired Up! readers will no doubt recall this 2009 interview with Schweich, conducted by Catanese when he was still at KY3: 

Missourians for Fair Taxation today filed suit in Cole County Circuit Court against the State Auditor for a fiscal note that “does nothing to inform voters of the risky high-stakes gamble they would be asked to take,” and against the Secretary of State for a summary statement that “does not sufficiently advise Missouri voters of the uncertainty and chaos that will be caused by adoption of this amendment to our Constitution.” 

The full petition and the associated press release from the Realtors’ committee formed to defeat Rex Sinquefield’s tax scheme may be read below the jump.

It is not just the Post-Dispatch questioning State Audtior Tom Schweich's lawsuit against Governor Jay Nixon for withholding funds to pay for disaster relief efforts in Joplin and other areas. Today, the Joplin Globe has expressed doubts about Schweich's timing and motives. 

(Schweich) told the Globe that his lawsuit will not hurt Joplin. He said the money is there and available through other avenues. In fact, he doesn’t think withholding money for other needs in the state will even be necessary.

Now it will be up to the courts to decide if Nixon has overstepped the authority that comes with being governor.

We doubt the people who lived in the 7,000 homes destroyed by the tornado are going to care. We doubt the 545 business owners who are trying to get up and running are going to care.

It may turn out that Schweich is right about the process the governor used to find money to pay for Joplin’s disaster relief.

But his timing couldn’t be more wrong.

UPDATE: Tony Messenger did issue an apology...to first year law students coming off of benders. 

So, it seems State Auditor Tom Schweich called a press conference to demand an apology from the Post-Dispatch for today's editorial about his lawsuit to slow down recovery funds for Joplin. 

Here is St. Louis Post Dispatch Editorial Writer Tony Messenger's reaction:

And here is exsclusive footage of Tom Schweich upon hearing about his chances for getting a retraction: 

You know an editorial is going to be worth the read when it describes State Auditor Tom Schweich’s lawsuit against Governor Jay Nixon as “a typical attempt at blatant partisanship wrapped up in legal arguments weaker than a first-year law student's paper written after an all-night bender.” 

The Post-Dispatch didn’t pull any punches in its assessment of Tom Schweich’s lawsuit against Jay Nixon. Schweich is arguing that the budget withholds, intended to aid Joplin’s tornado recovery, are damaging to his office’s own budget.

The editorial also notes that Schweich was the only statewide elected official to get increased funding for his office – a $300,000 increase to be specific.

State funding for disaster recovery has become much more important because of Republicans like Eric Cantor with stubborn stances on federal funds for recovery and the fact that FEMA is now really spread thin. This move by Schweich risks putting Joplin’s recovery efforts in the unstable hands of the United States Congress.

If you take a look at State Auditor Tom Schweich’s fiscal note for a ballot measure capping the APR that Payday Loan stores can charge in Missouri, you will see that the University of Missouri's Ken Lay Chair (no joke) in Economics  and Show-Me Institute (funded by Rex Sinquefield) Scholar Joseph Haslag contributed the most information about costs to the state.

Interestingly enough, Haslag finds that, if passed, the proposal would decrease state revenues by $2.98 million the first year and $3.01 million the second year, which is pretty close to Schweich’s estimate that the State of Missouri would lose between $2.5 – $3.5 million in revenue each year. 

Haslag has penned pieces for the Show-Me Institute such as “Eliminating Missouri’s Income Tax Is One Road to Greater Prosperity.” However, Missouri’s State Office of Budget and Planning has said that such proposals, promoted by Rex Sinquefield and the Show-Me Institute, could cost the state $1 billion dollars in lost revenue.

$1 billion dollars in lost revenue would mean drastic cuts to our already ailing state budget, and it raises questions about just how prosperous our state would be if Sinquefield got his way.

Obviously, Schweich should think twice before using privately-funded, agenda-driven think tanks to do the work of the State Auditor’s office.

It seems that Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer is so worried about Tom Schweich’s cost estimate for the Photo ID Constitutional amendment, that he considered filing a lawsuit. When one Republican is thinking about suing another, you know things are not good for them:

State Auditor Tom Schweich's surprisingly hefty estimate of the annual government cost of Missouri's proposed photo ID requirement for voters has some Republican legislative leaders now fearing that the proposal could be a tougher sell when it hits ballots in 2012.

A spokeswoman for state Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, said he even briefly considered filing suit by today's 5 p.m. deadline in a last-ditch attempt to get the estimate changed.

Mayer (right) has dropped the idea of filing suit himself. But his spokeswoman notes that any Missouri resident can go to court to challenge the cost estimate -- which ranges from $3 million to $6.5 million a year.

The Southeast Missourian discovered an interesting bit of information. It seems that State Senator Jason Crowell has filed paperwork to run for a statewide office in 2014, and the only statewide office up for election is held by a Republican: 

Crowell, a Republican, has changed his campaign committee paperwork to Missourians for Crowell and to reflect a bid for an unspecified statewide office. The report, filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, lists the election date as the Aug. 5, 2014 primary. The only statewide office that would have a primary that date would be for state auditor, a position currently held by Crowell's fellow Republican and lawyer Tom Schweich.

There has been no comment from Crowell on this so far, but it will be interesting to see if he is really eyeing a run against Republican State Auditor Tom Schweich (who is still fairly new to Jeff City). Stay tuned...

Mitt Romney, to put it mildly, is struggling to articulate a consitent message on President Obama's handling of the economy, and he has definitely backed away from his initial claim that the president has made the economy worse. 

Maybe his prominent Missouri supporters like State Auditor Tom Schweich and State Rep. Tim Jones can do some investigating and uncover his actual position.

However, the L.A. Times noted that it has become so bad that he seemed to contradict himself in the same sentence yesterday: 

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has struggled to craft a consistent economic message in recent weeks — first blaming President Obama for driving the country deeper into recession and then backing off that charge during a visit to Pennsylvania. On Monday in southern New Hampshire, he appeared to offer those conflicting messages within one sentence.

And the DNC has been having a field day with his verbal gymnastics on the economy. Here was his stated position yesterday:

It's good to see Republicans like Birther Tim Jones, Auditor Tom Schweich, Sen. Tom Dempsey and richperson Sam Fox finally come out in support of a health insurance mandates.  

Tax incentives to increase health coverage used to be pretty standard fare for conservative politicians -- former Sen. Kit Bond cosponsored legislation in the 1990s with a health insurance mandate.But intellectual honesty isn't exactly in vogue in GOP circles these days. 

See, for example, candidate Mitt Romney on just about any issue that matters. 

The clock is ticking on Thomas Schweich's half-hearted audit of Peter Kinder's travel reimbursement calculations. 

Since Schweich refused to conduct a substantive review of Kinder's travel (can't upset the guy who gave you $220k to get you elected!), it's hard to imagine much time will be needed for Schweich's team to perform their illusion of oversight. 

Consistent with Schweich's promise to primary voters that he would look out for the interests of every "loyal Republican" in office, it would not be shocking to see the Auditor dump his review of his major campaign donor today or tomorrow, knowing it will probably be buried in the coverage of the end of the legislative session. 

NEWS ALERT! 
From:  Situation Room, State Auditor’s Office

Reported at this hour, a Schweich Swat team will be parachuting into the St. Louis area at 2300 hours, where they will proceed to conduct a Schweich Strike on city schools after receiving a anonymous tip of miscalculation of school attendance for devious purposes.

A backup team composed of the Green Eye Shade Brigade will amass under the Arch should more fire power be necessary.  Auditor Schweich will observe the raid in real time from the Situation Room set up in Peter Kinder’s secret suite at the Chase.  (FYI: Light refreshments will be served; dancing and arm wrestling at 11 p.m.  Non-audited event)

It is unclear at this time just who is being targeted.  However, area sources claim that Peter Kinder has been a conspicuous drone, hovering about the city in recent months and possibly a courier for the Auditor’s office in his spare time.

This is not the first hit on the St. Louis Public Schools, but it is the first precision strike, announced, staged and conducted for live television.  More on Fox at 10.

In today's Post-Dispatch: "There's a fine line between transparency in government and questionable self-promotion. Missouri Auditor Thomas A. Schweich crossed it this week."

What a bunch of junk: "Deputy Auditor Harry Otto said the review will focus primarily on Kinder's math and methodology in determining his payment — not on whether each reimbursement Kinder had received for lodging, meals or travel was appropriate based on the breakdown of official, political or personal functions he attended."

One week after he told taxpayers that he had no intention of looking at the obvious misuse of taxpayer dollars by major campaign donor Peter Kinder, Tom Schweich somehow found it within himself to trot out tired criticisms of Kinder's 2012 opponent.  How 'bout that?

While frustrating to anyone doesn't self-identify as a "loyal Republican," Schweich's two-pronged approach is completely consistent with his primary campaign promises:

There's an important policy reason that this auditor's race is so important, and there's also a very significant reason from a political standpoint if you're a loyal Republican.

UPDATE: Leader Mike Talboy has issued a statement about Schweich's new standard for how his 'rapid response' team will investigate waste and fraud in government.
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Consistent with his primary campaign promise to be a partisan Auditor, Tom Schweich announced yesterday that he will not be conducting any sort of review of Lt. Governor Peter Kinder's obviously inappropriate habit of billing taxpayers for his campaign and personal travel.  As reported in the Daily Star-Journal:

Concerns about Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder's spending do not rise to the standard required to invoke use of State Auditor Tom Schweich's rapid response team, Schweich spokesman Gary McElyea said Wednesday.

"There has to be a theft or fraud, and then an ongoing waste, and we immediately have to step in," McElyea said.

There is no evidence of ongoing waste in revelations by newspapers about Kinder's spending on hotels in Kansas City and St. Louis, McElyea said.

Emphasis added. The misuse taxpayer dollars -- and charging taxpayers more than the allowable rates -- aren't of interest to the Auditor because they're not "ongoing?"  Since the waste, theft and fraud allegedly ended with Kinder's Capitol press conference, there's nothing to audit?

You may also recall that Schweich promised to recuse himself from any examination of Kinder's practices, on account of Kinder's huge support for Schweich's 2010 campaign.

Asked how he would audit political allies such as Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who donated $220,000 to his campaign, Schweich promised to recuse himself from handling audits "directly involving my contributors."

But since there's no "ongoing waste," there's nothing from which Schweich needs to recuse himself. How nice!

Left unmentioned in the Daily Star-Journal story is the fact that McElyea was Kinder's communications staffer until very recently.  

Leader Mike Talboy's response to Schweich's punt is below the fold. 

Auditor Tom Schweich "isn't one to take criticism lightly."

At the Jasper-Newton County Lincoln Day dinner this weekend, Lt. Governor and GOP gubernatorial candidate Peter Kinder promised that new Tom Schweich will focus on "the other side" as State Auditor.  Given the audience, it's abundantly clear what Kinder is talking about.  

It certainly isn't surprising that Kinder views the Auditor's office in purely political terms. After all, what isn't political for #PDK? But it is jarring to hear him talk so bluntly about "tak[ing] the game to the other side as we need to have it done" without even a hint of concern for fulfilling the actual responsibilities of the job or protecting taxpayers.  Here's video of Kinder's remarks as posted by PoliticMo:

Fortunately for Schweich, executing a hyper-partisan agenda is exactly what he promised he'd do when he was running against Allen Icet in the GOP Auditor's primary. "There's an important policy reason that this auditor's race is so important, and there's also a very significant reason from a political standpoint if you're a loyal Republican," he told wealthy donors in September 2009. 

Dave Drebes teases the idea of a Tom Schweich for Senate run in 2012, three days after Schweich demonstrated his lack of interest in conducting the duties of a State Auditor.  Here's an excerpt from Drebes' trial balloon:

Schweich apparently saw himself as a realistic contender in 2010 before he’d held any elective office, (similar to Ann Wagner now).Since then he’s took down an incumbent state-wide office-holder, which might have even enhanced his self-esteem in such matters.

Auditor has been a stepping stone to Senate before. Sens. Kit Bond, John Ashcroft and McCaskill all had State Auditor on their resume...

Furthermore if Schweich doesn’t go in 2012, he has to wait another six years...

What Drebes doesn't mention is that Schweich made it clear that he would consider a run for higher office in 2012 if he felt that he was not the "consensus" candidate in his 2010 run for Auditor.  (The race he was assigned after signing on the back-room politics of the sedentary, uncreative Republican leadership in this state.)   Here's footage of Schweich talking with Dave Catanese, then a reporter for KY3, refusing to commit to serving a full term as Auditor.  

The Star is right on with this bit from their weekly Capitol Watch editorial:

Missouri’s auditor: Who me?

The Missouri Constitution gives the state auditor an assignment: In 50 words or less, explain the fiscal impact of a statewide ballot initiative.

St. Louis multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield has put into motion nine petitions seeking a constitutional amendment to eliminate the state income tax and replace it with a greatly increased sales tax. And so it fell to the new Missouri auditor, Tom Schweich, to calculate the impact.

Except he didn’t.