Stem Cell

Jeff Roe could learn a thing or two from former client Mike Huckabee.

When asked earlier this year why he wouldn't quit his long shot presidential campaign, Huckabee replied that the only way to guarantee a loss would be to quit the race.

But that's just what Roe did with his rookie foray into statewide ballot measure campaigns.  Story Continued »

Spurred by first-brother and megalobbyist Andy Blunt on behalf of client Boehringer Ingelheim, GOP leaders are looking to revive old research tax credits...

Sen. Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, wants to bring back tax credits for qualified research expenses, including research and development of biotechnology, plant genomic products and prescription pharmaceuticals consumed by humans or animals...

Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica’s primary animal vaccine research facility is located in St. Joseph. Its products benefit livestock producers.

The company’s executive director of business development testified in support of the credit, saying the research climate in Missouri is important to Boehringer, since the company would like to add more world-class scientists to the organization.

Shields' bill would be a boon of about $10 million to Boehringer, according to the story.  Unfortunately for Shields, Blunt and their GOP legislative allies, they can't grease Boehringer without simultaneously tweaking their base in the anti-choice community:

The entire premise of haberdasher Jim Lembke's run for the south St. Louis 1st District Senate seat is that he will ride a wave of rabid "pro-life" support into office.  His plan is for anti-choice groups like Missouri Right to Life to beat the streets and pound the pulpits in favor of his candidacy, propelling him past better qualified Democratic opposition.

At each turn, he has painted himself as a crusader for the forced-childbirth cause, railing against the right of women to make determinations about their own lives and pointing to all who contradict him as "cloners" and murderers.  He has leveraged his every effort into concocting a mythology about his own status as King among the anti-rights, anti-research crowd.

The problem for Lembke?  The most important of the groups which he plans to rely on for support doesn't --by its own measure-- have a particularly high opinion of Lembke's recent history as a legislator.  Those he believes to be his base he has stood with only about half the time over the last year.

As noted this evening by Cole, the anti-research, anti-cures folks from the Missouri Roundtable for Life have filed anti-hope initiative petitions which will compete with the anti-hope measure filed by fellow anti-cures group, Cures Without Cloning.  But beyond competing with other anti-progress GOPers on the ballot initiative front, the Missouri Roundtable for Life may also jumping into the midst of a combative GOP legislative primary. 

Some are asking why the Missouri Roundtable threw a hefty $30,000 in "consulting" fees at the Legacy Group of Missouri last fall.  The Legacy Group of Missouri is owned by Gina Gentry Loudon, who'll be using that cash to bankroll her campaign for the 7th Senate District against GOP primary contenders Queen Jane Cunningham and Neal "Taxman" St. Onge. 

Last week, opponents of stem cell research and cures launched a campaign against... opponents of stem cell research and cures.

With a filing that was effectively a Declaration of War, a group calling itself the "Missouri Roundtable for Life" filed three initiative petitions with the Secretary of State to ban stem cell research, cures and the funding of both.

The proposals directly compete with one promoted by a rival group, deceptively calling itself "Cures Without Cloning."  Story Continued »

David Lieb of the Associated Press has an interesting analysis piece this weekend about pending legislation that would reform the initiative petition signature gathering process in Missouri.  Lieb describes the bill and also gets reaction from some professional signature gatherers.  

Most notably, Lieb tracks down top circulatrix Edee Baggett of National Ballot Access.  Baggett, as one would expect from someone with her track record, is less than completely forthcoming about her activity in the state.  Lieb reports information provided to him by Baggett this way:

Right now, for example, contractors with National Ballot Access are gathering signatures for three Missouri initiatives — a pair restricting the use of eminent domain to take private property, and another limiting affirmative action programs.

Conveniently, Baggett "forgets" to mention that she and her firm are prepared to begin circulating petitions in connection with another initiative --one which would roll back protections on those seeking cures through stem cell research.

Opponents of medical progress and hope are clucking angrily about the prospect of Republican gubernatorial candidates who claim to be against stem cell research receiving stealth campaign funding from pro-research interest groups.  Political leaders from Missouri Right to Life and the Catholic Conference are reportedly considering withholding support from a GOP nominee who accepts money from groups funded by stem cell research interests.  

This stems from a story yesterday by the Post-Dispatch's Jo Mannies about the possible fate of a quarter-million dollars given by a pro-research to Matt Blunt, who later rerouted the money to the Republican Governors Association, which still possesses the money.  Story Continued »

Matt Blunt was in Kansas City on Friday for a summit with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius on the future of life sciences research.

Blunt had strong words for politicians who oppose stem cell research.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt on Friday urged the removal of stem-cell research politics as an obstacle for the region’s life sciences economy.

“Missourians have spoken,” Blunt said at the Governors’ Summit on Regional Economic Development at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City.

“They are supportive of responsible scientific research and allowing research that the federal government allows in our state,” Blunt said. “I am hopeful we will get to a sense of stability and it will be clear that this sort of early stem-cell research is indeed protected in our state.”

The two Republicans seeking to succeed Blunt, Kenny Hulshof and Sarah Steelman, oppose stem cell research and have embraced a ballot measure to repeal state protections for such research.  Story Continued »

The Associated Press is reporting that Kenny Hulshof will enter the crowded GOP field for Governor.

Missourians will recall that the vocation confused Hulshof recently applied for another job--- President of the University of Missouri.

As Hulshof applies for a new job, he owes it to Missourians to release all documents from his failed bid and direct the University of Missouri to do the same.

No doubt the GOP base will be curious as to how Hulshof explained his right wing, anti-science record to the University community.  

Only time will tell if Hulshof embraces sunshine or darkness.  Story Continued »

This just in from the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures:

Join us in Kansas City, Missouri November 30 - December 1, 2007 or St.Louis, Missouri December 7-8, 2007!

We invite those interested to join us for one of the upcoming Missouri Cures Campaign Training programs. We are looking for folks who feel deeply about our issue and want to be an important part of our efforts to protect lifesaving research in Missouri. Whether it’s making phone calls, going door to door in your neighborhood, or speaking to civic groups, our campaign training will make you more effective by teaching the most up to date techniques in campaign communication and organization.­

The group promoting a ballot measure criminalizing stem cell research and cures has gotten off to a rough start.

First they drafted their initiative petition to deny "human" status to Missourians with Down Syndrome.

Then they botched their refiled petition by requiring signers to publicly disclose their private email addresses to the government.

Next they failed to file required campaign finance reports until ordered to do so by the Ethics Commission.  But those reports only showed $20.34 raised, nothing spent and were described as purposefully false by the group's Illinois politician spokesman.  Story Continued »

Until a few years ago, Colleen Carroll Campbell made a living as a presidential speechwriter, putting words in the mouth of the unbearably dishonest George W. Bush and helping him reach the 24% approval level he enjoys today. 

Now Campbell's writing is supported by the "Ethics & Public Policy Center" --a right-wing, religious think tank run by political conservatives.  Campbell also has a St. Louis Post-Dispatch column which will not be linked or excerpted on this site.  She uses her column today to sully the reputation of the Post-Dispatch for ethical journalism.

Suffice it to say that Campbell chastises Missouri's Secretary of State over ballot summary language drafted by the opponents of stem cell research who --unhappy about having lost the battle about how "human cloning" should be defined-- are pushing a ballot initiative that would restrict research and for which they have very specific language that they'd like to see appear on the ballot.  Campbell intones on the subject like a detached observer, passing judgment on the ballot summary language as though she were an impartial third-party arbiter.  

Of course, she's not. 

In our state there are plenty of awful people who do terrible things in the service of achieving regressive, backwards policy.  But at least --at very least-- these people are, on the whole, actual Missourians who live here, work here, and have to exist here even after their idiotic ideas become reality.  Not so for Cures Without Cloning clown Curt Mercadante.  

Mercadante is the mouthpiece for the foundering effort to undo constitutional protections on stem cell research in Missouri --protections that were approved by an undisputed majority of Missouri voters last year.  Mercadante's effort has been underwhelming thus far, generating sufficient public support to find itself about $10,000 in debt, as the Kansas City Star notes today.

But Mercadante, ever ambitious, isn't satisfied with trying to undo what Missourians themselves have added to the state constitution.  In addition to stripping out protections on lifesaving research, Mercadante has also begun suggesting that he wants to impeach one of Missouri's duly elected and most popular elected officials.  From a dreadful Missourinet piece about Mercadante's dissatisfaction about ballot summary language:

He says all options, including an effort to impeach the Secretary of State, will be considered.

One can't help but wonder where Curt Mercadante will find the time to impeach Robin Carnahan while simultaneously running for the County Board of Grundy County.  Where's Grundy County, you may be asking?  No, it's not down there near Lawrence County, or up there next to DeKalb County. It's not over by Ste. Genevieve County.  It's in Illinois.

 Story Continued »

As has been widely reported, Blunt took $250,000 from the supporters of embryonic stem cell research and lifesaving cures during the third quarter of 2007. 

But remember what the MOGOP --of which Matt Blunt is the symbolic leader-- had to say about supporters of stem cell research just last autumn:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this means that --in the eyes of the Missouri GOP-- Matt Blunt's support for stem cell research means he seeks to "destroy life." 

The Springfield News-Leader's Sunday editorial must've been written by someone completely unfamiliar with the Missouri legislature.  Only by laboring under fantastic notions of how that body has consistently operated over the past three sessions could the author issue this sort of suggestion:

What we'd like to see is the debate returned to the legislative arena, where elected representatives can take the time to debate the issue, and where various protections such as the filibuster and a governor's veto help keep power in check.

This "legislative arena" the News-Leader describes may well comport with the one envisioned by the creators of tripartite government but is foreign to Missouri state government today.  I'm certain that if there existed an example of a positive policy outcome attributable to the reasoned "debate" of the legislature during the Jetton-Gibbons era the News-Leader board would have mentioned it.  You won't find one in the editorial.