Tom Smith

Show Me Progress' Michael Bersin reports that thirteen members of the Missouri House are working to ban the practice of caller identification spoofing.  Oddly, none of the sponsors or cosponsors of this effort happen to be Republicans.

This may or may not be related to the fact that the House Republican Campaign Committee hired a consulting firm run by Tom Smith that used the called ID information for St. Luke's hospitals and the Adair County Ambulance District when it was spamming them with offensive and homophobic robocalls in November.  Smith and his company say they have no idea how that happened all over the state, but they're paying the legal bills for St. Luke's to make a lawsuit against them go away anyway. 

Did I mention that Smith was a top aide in Speaker Ron Richard's office while providing campaign services for members of the House, and now moonlights in Birther Rep. Tim Jones' official office?  During the 2009-2010 cycle, Smith's Survey Saint Louis company pulled in more than $990,000 from Republican campaigns in Missouri. 

These may or may not be a relevant details as well.  

The Associated Press reports that everyone thinks it was a terrible idea for the House Republican Campaign Committee's robocalls to look like they were coming from St. Luke's hospitals or the Adair County Ambulance District, but no one has any idea how voters across the state received such garbage.  Tom Smith, the owner of the company hired by the HRCC to blast the calls (and who also happens to be a staffer for outgoing Speaker Ron Richard), said he had no idea that his company was lying to voters until he learned about it from the media.  HRCC chairman Steve Tilley says "we think that is not a correct tactic." 

These denials from the Party of Personal Responsibility leave only one remaining possibility: elves (or possibly leprechauns ).  Since it's clear that the caller ID data in at least two separate instances was magically inputted without the knowledge of human beings, we are left to conclude that it was magical creatures who did the deed.

Did I mention that Smith's company, Survey Saint Louis, is paying St. Luke's legal bills to make the case go away?   Oh yeah:

Four days before the election, St. Luke's Health System went to court and obtained a temporary restraining order against Display Stuff LLC, doing business as Survey Saint Louis LLC, which it alleged was the source of the automated calls displaying fake caller IDs. That order expired after the election and the lawsuit is being dismissed after Survey Saint Louis agreed to pay the attorneys' fees for St. Luke's, said the health center's attorney, Bernard Rhodes.

Smith must just be cutting that check because he's a charitable man, and not because he or his firm are guilty in any way.  I repeat: Smith and his company are not responsible for anything their firm does, and they're just paying for St. Luke's bills because they're very nice people. 

On the Friday before Election Day, within hours of Speaker-elect Steve Tilley's announcement that his  Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) would stop running offensive and homophobic robocalls accusing Democratic candidates of not having "our Christian families values," St. Luke's Hospital filed a civil suit and temporary restraining order against the HRCC's vendor.   According to St. Luke's filings (see them in full below the jump) voters in House District 5 complained that their called ID information said the robocalls were coming from St. Luke's facilities in Lee's Summit and Kansas City. 

KHQA reported that same week that the Republican calls in Northeast Missouri told voters they were coming from the Adair County Ambulance District.

The HRCC vendor in question is Survey Saint Louis, which happens to be run by Tom Smith, Speaker Ron Richard's legislative director.  All told, Smith's company was paid more than $865,000 by Republican committees this cycle, including $28,000 by the HRCC for robocalls in the month of October alone.

Smith has also run a host of campaign committees out of his St. Charles same office that houses the company. When asked last year the conflict of interest between Smith's campaign work and his official work in the Speaker's office, political scientist George Connor said "I can't imagine how this doesn't look wrong."

St. Luke's filings can be seen below the jump.

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.

In today's Post-Dispatch:

State Rep. Allen Icet, R-Wildwood, says he sees no problem serving as chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee while he runs for statewide office next year. Of course he doesn’t.

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Why won't the Republican leadership stand by their promises to clean up the Capitol?

Eighteen bills in the House and Senate this year propose campaign finance or ethics reform. Thirteen haven’t even gotten a preliminary hearing, making chances slim they’ll get through the legislative process.

Meanwhile, an FBI investigation continues to probe “pay for play” allegations in the General Assembly, and news stories continue to chronicle ethical concerns involving lawmakers or their staff....

House Speaker Ron Richard, a Joplin Republican, said Thursday he wasn’t interested in additional ethics reform. A bill passed last year removing campaign contribution limits achieved all the goals he had set.

Money can flow without limits --- problem solved!?  And, Richard says, he isn't interested in passing any bills that won't pass the Senate (that hasn't stopped the GOP leadership from passing anything else on its narrow ideological agenda, but that's neither here nor there).

I guess Richard feels some reluctance to make a stand on ethics reform, fearful that voters might think he cares about ethics reform. Or maybe it's +because any sort of reform would shut down the game that put Richard in power and lines the pockets of his benefactors.  I can't decide which.

Steve Kraske reports in today's Star about the curious financial arrangement of Speaker Ron Richard's legislative director, Tom Smith.  Smith is a "key player" in the assigning of bills to House committees, and also happens to run a business that collected $500k last year from Republican candidates last year:

A top aide to the speaker of the Missouri House runs a political consulting business on the side that generated nearly $500,000 last year, records examined by The Kansas City Star show.

In his public job as legislative director, Tom Smith holds significant influence over the life or death of bills moving through the General Assembly. Critics said his political consulting business raises questions about the potential for a conflict of interest in one of the most powerful offices in state government.

Previous Fired Up! coverage of Smith's self-dealing can be found here.

Of course, Smith denies any hint of wrongdoing, and no Republican legislators remember an explicit demand from Smith.  “I think it’s absurd that someone could buy 1,000 pieces (of mail) and somehow have a level of influence,” Smith says. 

I think it's absurd to think that Smith's clients are only buying 1,000 pieces of mail.

O.K. all you insomniac oppo research wannabes.  Here's today's challenge.

Last week, the First Capitol News of St. Charles kicked over some rocks to take a closer look at the intricate system of money-shuffling and pocket-lining going on in St. Charles GOP circles. The First Capitol piece draws a bead on Republican House floor leader Tom Dempsey's aide Thomas Smith, who also serves as treasurer for quite a few St. Charles area legislative district and campaign finance committees. In relevant part, the News writes:

To circumvent political contribution limits, Legislative Party Committees have been formed. Unlimited contributions are given to these Legislative District Committees and are then funneled through backdoors making it almost impossible for the public to know who is giving and who is receiving. ...

The First Capitol News has discovered TEN of those back door funding Legislative Committees being operated out of a home at 320 Monroe Street in St. Charles with the only treasurer for each committee listed as Thomas W. Smith, Jr. We have also discovered several fictitious registered companies, apparently unlicensed, owned and operated by Smith, receiving funds from these same committees.

While the story does well to point out the fact that Smith draws an annual salary of more than $53,000 from the public till as legislative aide to Dempsey, it's possible that the piece actually understates the financial benefit to Smith of the current arrangement.