High Street Project

You're right Tina, they are always here. 

Ever since Matt Blunt became Governor, anyway.  

From a column by Ryan Cooper (whose writings the Springfield News-Leader publishes, inexplicably) come bons mots like this one: 

"Corrupt politicians eventually lose."

Yes, Ryan.  Or they get shuffled off to the federal penitentiary before they get the chance to lose. 

Readers may remember that Ryan Cooper is the brother of disgraced GOP Representative Nathan Cooper, also known as prisoner #34350-044.

Earlier this month we highlighted press coverage of legislators angry over proposed changes to driving record fees by the Department of Revenue and demonstrated that the fee increases were attributable to a contract awarded by the state to a client of Andy Blunt's lobbying firm.  

Coverage of the issue continues today in a strong story by the AP's David Lieb which points out that the Blunt administration went even further than we knew in pushing a fee increase that benefited a client of the first-brother's firm, actually disregarding state records law in order to complete the deal:

A sharp fee increase for state vehicle and driver's license records appears to have been set to pay for the cost of a new computer system — a justification not allowed under Missouri's open-records law....

Missouri's open-records law limits fees for computerized public records to the costs of the copies and the staff time needed to retrieve and duplicate them.

But documents provided to The Associated Press suggest the Department of Revenue picked the $7 fee to cover the cost of a new computer database for the records.

Yesterday saw a couple news stories about how GOP legislators have grown livid about the increase in fees for driving records charged by the Blunt Department of Revenue.  From the KC Star:

A new fee structure for Missouri motor vehicle and driver records has insurance companies enraged and a lawmaker promising action in the waning days of the legislative session.

The state Department of Revenue on May 1 raised the fee to $7 per record and has said it would not provide a bulk discount to companies that use the data for things such as calculating insurance rates. That means companies now must pay about $28 million for the entire database.

The story notes that the fee increase pushed through by the Blunt Department of Revenue represents a 300,000% increase in the fee previously charged.  We get more clues about why from the AP's story:

SHOT:

"You see, Alanco Technologies --as it happens-- is already engaged with the state of Missouri as a contractor for the provision of electronic offender tracking services. And Alanco offers GPS tracking among its handful of products. Here's betting that Alanco, with the assistance of Blunt-favored lobbyists Carter and Alcorn, will be high in the running to grab the new bags of cash that the Governor throws at the electronic offender tracking program."

-- Fired Up Missouri, April 13, 2007

CHASER*:

The Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) has awarded a contract valued at up to $750,000 to Alanco Technologies' Alanco/TSI PRISM subsidiary, a Scottsdale, Ariz., manufacturer of RFID tracking systems for the corrections industry. The contract calls for Alanco/TSI PRISM to provide its RFID systems for up to an additional five probation/parole early-release facilities (the MDOC previously purchased two TSI PRISM systems in 2006, which have been operational in similar facilities located in Farmington and St. Joseph). Two new contract installations, valued at approximately $300,000, will commence immediately at facilities in Hannibal and Kennett, with additional sites to be scheduled in Kansas City, Fulton and Poplar Bluff.

-- RFID Journal, May 1, 2008

Even as as it became clear that his quest for a second term would never fully materialize, Matt Blunt's campaign continued to pay vast sums for "services" to former appointments director and Nathan Cooper associate, James Harris.  Team Blunt reported paying more money to Harris in consulting fees after Blunt had announced that he wouldn't seek a second term than they paid to him in the previous quarter, when the campaign was still live.

Missourians for Matt Blunt Inc. reports making the following payments to James Harris's consulting firm over the first quarter.  All but one of these payments came after Blunt announced on January 22 that he would not be seeking another term in office. 

In an email release plugging "Women for Hulshof," Team Kenny announced today that GOP consultant Tony Feather has joined the campaign in a "volunteer" capacity.  (Ed. note: Do any of the GOP gubernatorial camps use paid advisors?  Steelman borrows hers from the State and Hulshof's are all "volunteers.")

The email points out that Feather was a consultant to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004.  

In other news, the President who Feather helped elect (twice) has recently achieved the highest disapproval rating in the history of Gallup's measuring such things, at 69%.

Part of the reason why the GOP rationale for eliminating campaign finance contribution limits ("We need to do away with limits so we can have transparency!") is so transparently bogus is that the High Priests of GOP campaign hackery go to such great lengths to avoid what few opportunities for transparency the current laws provide.

Consider the subject of a post which I just unpublished from the site, which was about payments by the GOP's Majority Fund Inc. to a consulting outfit run by Weston McKee for "grassroots development."  The payments wound up in the coffers of a consulting firm called "Laurus LLC."

But the Majority Fund's April Ethics Commission report says it paid $12,000 to "Larrus LLC."  And of course, anyone looking to learn anything about "Larrus LLC" --e.g., to find out who, precisely, is getting that money-- would be frustrated in that task since searches of the State's corporation database reveal nothing, because no such LLC exists under that name.

McKee has worked for the Fund for the last year and a decision was made in January to stop paying fees directly to McKee and instead begin paying them to an LLC he controls.  What do you suppose the odds are that Majority Fund treasurer Buddy Hardin and mastermind David Barklage really didn't know what the name of McKee's firm are?  I'd handicap the chances at slim to none.

Just released today by the Governor's office is a new Blunt appointee to the Missouri Ethics Commission.  Blunt's office had this to say of Michael Schmid:

“I am pleased that Michael Schmid has agreed to serve the citizens of Missouri as the newest member of the Missouri’s Ethics Commission,” Gov. Blunt said.

Mr. Schmid, 30 of Jefferson City, is a local attorney.  He previously served as an assistant attorney general in the Missouri Attorney General’s office. Mr. Schmid holds a bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross and a juris doctorate from William and Mary School of Law. His appointment is subject to Senate confirmation for a term ending on March 15, 2012. He will replace Michael Dunard whose term expired.

Unsurprisingly, Blunt's office neglects to mention that "local attorney" Schmid is actually an associate at first-brother Andy Blunt's law firm, Schreimann, Rackers, Francka & Blunt.

In case the implications aren't clear enough, I'll go ahead and make them explicit: there is now an Andy Blunt employee on the Missouri Ethics Commission.  Lovely. 

ThinkProgress had a remarkable blog post yesterday on a report written by elements of the United States military about how they should deal with the fact that people hate the war in Iraq and were writing about it critically online.  The report suggested:

Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence…to pass the U.S. message. …

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however...

This is, of course, precisely the strategy undertaken by Matt Blunt's (and now Kenny Hulshof's) political team.  Blunt recognized a while back that everything being written in the blogosphere about his failed governorship was overwhelmingly negative, so he went ahead and hired a prominent spokesperson to make a blog which would then lavish praise on him.

Lost in the torrent of stories that emerged during the first days of candidate filing in late February was the official entry of Mike Lair into the Republican primary for the 7th District House seat.

Lair, aside from being one of the board members of an organization created by Team Blunt to scrap the non-partisan Missouri Court Plan in favor of a hyper-political alternative, is also a family member to some of the key players in the cabal responsible for the Blunt Administration's cash-and-carry appointment policy.  It is those players who are fully engaged in helping push Lair's candidacy for the general assembly seat formerly held by ally Jewell Patek. 

Instead of keeping his head down for the next seven months and maintaining whatever small measure of dignity remained, Matt Blunt went ahead today and released this gem:

Gov. Matt Blunt’s office today issued a Sunshine request to Attorney General Jay Nixon’s office seeking e-mail records from current and former employees of the Attorney General’s office. The Governor’s office also stated it will consider a lawsuit against the Attorney General’s office and the staff members included in the open records request if they do not comply with this open records request. ...

Additionally, the governor’s office is concerned that the Attorney General’s office is not retaining every e-mail as Gov. Blunt’s office is doing, and that they have failed to participate in the permanent e-mail retrieval system the governor has created.

We are now experiencing governance according to the "I'm rubber and you're glue" theory of political dynamics.  It's hard to imagine, frankly, that today's Blunt release was intended in seriousness and not a tongue-in-cheek jest.

November 5, 2005:

"The governor will continue the policy of not using taxpayer dollars to travel," she said.

"He does not believe that it's appropriate to bill taxpayers for his air travel while the state is facing such a challenging budget situation and while gas prices are at an all-time high," added Jackson.

July 15, 2006:

Republicans had criticized Nixon for using a state airplane at taxpayers' expense to make the trip, especially since he had answered journalists' questions about his candidacy for governor. The governor has made a point of not using state planes or tax dollars for travel.

September 10, 2007:

Blunt pays for even his official-duty flights with money raised from the individuals, businesses and interest groups that fund his campaign.

"I think the way we do it is a responsible way to respect taxpayers and ensure that their resources aren't spent on any sort of political activity," Blunt said.

Gubernatorial appointments are nothing more than baubles to be given away to keep Republicans from losing legislative seats.  

Just thought you should know.

Apparently uncertain that he'll be able to compete in the fundraising race against Sarah Steelman or Jay Nixon, Kenny Hulshof has decided to pull out all the stops by engaging an operative whose reputation has made him persona non-grata among even the most ethically challenged Republicans.  

Word in the capitol is that Kenny Hulshof has begun or will shortly begin making use of the money-shuffling services of Tom Smith, a former aide to Tom Dempsey and current aide to Rep. Steve Tilley.

In addition to being the target of a First Capitol News investigation regarding the more than ten legislative district committees that Smith ran from his St. Charles home and used to spread money among GOP candidates and his own businesses, Smith has also come under scrutiny for doing his political work on state time while serving as an aide to then-House leader Tom Dempsey.  Smith reportedly falsified timesheets during his tenure with Dempsey, leading the St. Charles legislator to decline to bring Smith with him as a staffer when he joined the Senate last year.