What Do You Suppose Jewell, Jillian And James Had To Hide?

When Governor Blunt's Appointments Director, James Harris, was listing who should be awarded fee offices, for the High Ridge office in Jefferson County, he handwrote that it should go to the "Indepdent Craftsmen Union (sic)," a "union" controlled by Fred Kelley of Cape Girardeau.

In Spring of 2005, when Jewell Patek and Jillian Lair signed up a new lobbying client from Cape Girardeau, a company formed by Fred Kelley of the Craftsman International Union, Patek went to great lengths to attempt to conceal who he was actually working for.

Patek's client set up an LLC and a political committee with the MO Ethics Commission with a name designed to create confusion with a unrelated Democratic PAC. In fact, Patek's client even amended the name of their PAC to make it more likely to be confused with the Democratic PAC. And when Patek registered to lobby for this group, he used the address of the Democratic PAC, not the LLC or the Political Committee that he was actually representing. Patek and Lair did not correct what appears to be an intentional effort to conceal their true client until they became the target of a front page story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. (There's a chart below the fold to help you follow along. Click here.)

In the meanwhile, the political committee associated with the Patek client became a very generous contributor to the 158th Legislative Committee which has paid consulting fees to a firm with close ties to Harris.

In fact, more than $10,000 of the approximately $11,000 in contributions that the Missourians for Good Goverment PAC has contributed have gone to either the 158th Legislative District Committee or to Senator Jason Crowell.

Here's a handy timeline:

In some last minute shuffling, the High Ridge office ended up going to Derrick Good, another generous contributor to the 158th Legislative District Committee. The ties between Good and the Craftsman Union, if any, are unknown.