For your reading pleasure, I offer the text of the latest press release from Claire McCaskill’s senatorial campaign below. For a little context, note that McCaskill isn’t a Johnny-come-lately to the issue of campaign financial disclosure; as her press release notes, she was an early supporter of legislation, such as the failed Disclose Act, that would have required corporations to disclose their political donations, and has consistently decried the effects of the Citizens United decision.  

Nor is McCaskill alone in her concern about the efforts of anonymous corporate entities to buy the election in 2012. Yesterday, the Obama re-election campaign entered the fray against Carl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, asking the Federal Election Commission to require the Rove organization to register as a political entity and disclose its donors. For the record, Crossroads, along with the Chamber of Commerce, mounted early, intense and patently dishonest attacks on McCaskill. We’ve written about the nasty situation here and here.

McCaskill Calls on New SuperPAC to Disclose Its Donors

McCaskill has consistently called for greater transparency, disclosure in campaign finance



St. Louis, Mo.-The McCaskill for Missouri campaign released the following statement today in response to news reports about a new SuperPAC called “Heart of America” PAC.

“Claire is adamant – outside groups need to disclose their donors and the same goes for groups looking to support her, if not more so,” said Erik Dorey, McCaskill for Missouri spokesman. “Whether they’re secret money groups that are never required to disclose, or a group like this one that has quarterly reporting requirements, Claire is making herself crystal clear: disclose your donors.”

Claire has consistently called on outside groups to disclose their donors and has repeatedly decried the Citizens United ruling that allowed some groups, such as Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, Americans for Prosperity, the Chamber of Commerce and 60+, to raise unlimited funds without ever disclosing their donors.

In January, Claire sent a letter to all three of her opponents asking them to join her in calling on any outside group that spends money in this race to disclose their donors and she stands by that today.

Unfortunately, none of her opponents ever responded to Claire’s letter, or her challenge to outside groups.

According to the News-Leader, this new group indicated it is planning to disclose its donors when quarterly reporters are due July 15.

I assume that none of you missed the part of McCaskill’s missive about the failure of all of her opponents to respond to her invitation to stand up for honest and transparent election funding? Of course, we all know that integrity is in short supply in the political world – but when did it become okay to just ignore a challenge to one’s supply of same and hope nobody notices?

Previously:

Campaign Finance: sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t really have a choice (June 16, 2012)

Campaign Finance: throwing down the crazy gauntlet (April 23, 2012)

Campaign Finance: throwing down the crazy gauntlet – the prequel (April 24, 2012

Signs on Missouri Highway 291 south of Lee’s Summit on the way to Harrisonville – we kid you not:

If he wins the republican primary they’re gonna have to rewrite the campaign how to manuals.

“….And so, for me, it is about working for the middle class. And as I look around I know the folks in this room, whether they are part of a union, whether they are part of a small business, we know what that means to have a small middle class. And so, for us, this year, we say this every year, this is a critical year. But for us this year this is a critical year….”

Yesterday evening Teresa Hensley’s (D) campaign held an open house celebrating the opening of her campaign headquarters in Harrisonville. Over one hundred people attended the event. Teresa Hensley spoke about the consequences of this election for the middle class.

Cass County Prosecutor Teresa Hensley (D), the Democratic Party candidate in the 4th Congressional District,

speaking to the crowd at the opening of her campaign headquarters in Harrisonville on Tuesday evening, June 19, 2012.

Show Me Progress: So, as, as a constituent in the Fourth Congressional District what does this election mean to you?

Don Long: This election is huge. It, it gives us the opportunity to take the Fourth District back for the working class people. Uh, right now our representation in Washington is dead set on cutting Medicare, Social Security, programs the middle class depend upon….

Volunteers signed up.

Show Me Progress: Uh, what, what does the Fourth Congressional District race mean to you?

Chris Benjamin: Well, I think it’s a very important race for the people of this state and, frankly, for the people of this country. I think there’s a lot of people here in the Fourth District that have buyer’s remorse after being served so well by Congressman Ike Skelton [D] and after he lost they’ve seen over the last two years that we have a representative [Vicky Hartzler] that just hasn’t been representing the working people of this district. Or, frankly, any of the families of this district. She just kind of goes and, and, uh, does what she’s told, uh, by her party bosses in D.C.

And I personally know Teresa Hensley, she’s a good friend, and I think she’s going to work very, well, she’s obviously working very hard in this campaign. I’ve never seen anybody work harder than she has. Uh, but she’s a very, she’s very independent, she’s a fighter, she’s gonna fight for the working families down in D.C., so, I think it’s very important, particularly, uh, in a year where the Republicans,  they believe that they have a stranglehold in the State of Missouri, I don’t know why they believe that, we got a democrat governor that’s gonna win reelection by large margins, we got a Democrat attorney general, Democrat treasurer that’s gonna win by large margins. And we got a lot of independent minded, a lot of people that are upset that Vicky Hartzler [r], you know, hasn’t been representing the last two years in the Fourth District, so I believe that it’s a, I think that it’s prime, uh, area for us, uh, to pick up. And I think Teresa’s the candidate to do it….

Show Me Progress: What does the Fourth Congressional, Congressional District race mean to you?

Luke Scavuzzo: Well, it’s very important, uh, that we get somebody in there that actually will represent the people that live in this district. Uh, right now I think the representative that we have, uh, is a little bit, I don’t want to say self-centered, but, uh, seems to have a certain ideology and thought pattern of, of how she wants to do things and it doesn’t, it doesn’t, uh, work for all the people in this district. We really need somebody that will be out there and, and, uh, work hard for the people of, of the Fourth Congressional District….

Teresa Hensley’s remarks to those in attendance:

Teresa Hensley (D): ….I am really thrilled at the turnout here. You guys are just so unbelievably wonderful. I have had the best support during this campaign and I can’t thank all of you enough….

….There’s so many of you here that have played such an important role in what we do every day. Um, as I look around I see folks, uh, that actually every day are calling saying we can do this or we’re gonna get that done. I really, I don’t know how to thank all of you, uh, for what we’ve done already.

You know, we have a long fight still. November will get here before we know it. And, in fact, this quarter has gone really quickly. Uh, June thirtieth is right around the quarter and we have, you know, obviously, the end of the second quarter deadline. So, I, if you don’t see me for another week it’s because these folks have me working really hard. [laughter] And it’s something that we have to do.

We have been really fortunate, I don’t know if any of you saw, I know we’ve had it on the web page and we e-mail you guys all the time, some of you are probably getting tired of the e-mails, in fact, I hope I still have friends by the time this is done because we bother you so much. [laughter] But, a few weeks ago, Washington Post did an article about the top ten races to be watching around the country and we were number five on that list. So, to have the Washington Post and those folks in D.C. paying attention to what we’re doing is a bog thing. I mean, this race matters. And it matters significantly, not only in Missouri, but it matters around the country. And so, to have the folks in D.C. paying attention to what we’re doing really happened because of all of you.

In the first quarter we were able to raise two hundred fifty thousand dollars. And we raised that in February and March because I really didn’t get started until near the end of January. That happened because of all of you. Fifty-five percent of that two hundred fifty thousand dollars came from folks who gave me two hundred dollars or less. And so, when I’m on the phone the next week, those fifty dollars, a hundred dollars, and two hundred dollars are actually what gets us to that goal of two hundred fifty thousand dollars for the second quarter. And so, your contributions matter and everyone in this room has played a significant part in this campaign. So to have you come out today and see our campaign headquarters and be a part of it, um, is, is very touching to me. It’s very meaningful to see the faces that I see that are just friends. And you’ve been friends for a long time. Uh, and I can’t thank you enough.

Uh, this campaign is, you know, about having to raise two point one million dollars in order to do the media. But it’s more than doing the media. It is about getting out to every county….and every county knows what we stand for and what we intend to accomplish. And so, this is about hard work, it’s gonna be about hard work until November. And we intend to do that very, very hard work.

Um, for me, as most of you know, where’s my Ironworker buddies, over here in the corner [inaudible], I have a brother who’s an Ironworker. Uh, my dad was a union plumber, My brother, in nine, in two thousand and twelve makes the same pay that my bro, my dad did in nineteen seventy-four. In thirty-eight years there’s been no increase in that income. But yet there’s been a huge increase in the cost of living as all of you know. So while my dad could build a house in nineteen seventy for nineteen thousand dollars we know now that a house costs a hundred and eighty-five thousand, a hundred ninety, two hundred thousand dollars. My dad could put gas in a car at fifty cents a gallon, my brother’s putting gas at three fifty a gallon.

And those folks are worried about whether
they have enough gas sometimes to get to work the next day, deciding whether or not they can make their mortgage payment if their wife has medical bills, or trying to send their child, uh, to the doctor or put food on the table that night. We’re losing our middle class and our middle class is dwindling so badly that it’s also affecting our small businesses. So, when we have a jewelry store in town or we have the dentist in town and they are complaining that business isn’t good, well, you know, it’s not billionaires and millionaires are coming to their business, it’s all of us. And it’s all of the folks who are the Ironworkers and the carpenters and the roofers. And so if the carpenter on his way home wants to buy a necklace for his wife for her birthday that night and he can’t afford to stop in that jewelry store that jeweler isn’t gonna make any money. And so it is about not only our middle class, but our small businesses. So when we hear the other side talk about what they want to do for small businesses, what they can do for small businesses is make sure that folks can afford to buy their goods and services. [voice: “Hear, hear.” voice: “That’s right.”] And that comes from having a strong middle class. And we know what that means, drastically. And we know that it means having a good salary. We know that it means having a job that they can rely on.

You know, as a child, with my dad as a plumber, we had this wonderful, uh, I had a wonderful childhood, we had this wonderful standard of living. My dad made a really good wage. And so as I was growing up I didn’t worry about whether my dad was gonna be able to pay his mortgage, whether he was gonna lose his job and not be able to find another one. And children know those things, children hear those things. So those very children today hear when their parents are worried about losing their house, they’re worried about putting gas in their car. So our children have this really unstable ground under them. They know that things are not good as well as their parents. And it’s unconscionable what we have done to the middle class.

And so, for me, it is about working for the middle class. And as I look around I know the folks in this room, whether they are part of a union, whether they are part of a small business, we know what that means to have a small middle class. And so, for us, this year, we say this every year, this is a critical year. But for us this year this is a critical year. It is a year that we have to work hard.

We have to remind folks, really, what we stand for. And we do stand for making sure that Medicare and Social Security are strong, that Pell Grants are available for our students to go to college. You know, when the [Republican, House Budget Committee Chair] Paul Ryan budget wants to cut food stamps, when it cuts food stamps it’s cutting not only children who are affected by that, but it also affects our farmers in the Fourth District. And so the Paul Ryan budget is just a mean spirited budget when it wants to do away with Medicare as we know it and Social Security and Pell Grants. Those are things that we rely on as middle class families and so very important to us.

So, this year, it is about us telling our friends and our families, it is about telling our uncle, uh, who just isn’t thinking right, what we all stand for. [laughter]  I know you all have those uncles. [laughter]  And so it is about making sure that folks are listening this year, about what it is is important to the pe, the very people we know, to our families. And it’s the reason I’m running, because again, I have parents who are seventy-six years old. Medicare and Social Security matter. I have an eighteen year old nephew. Pell Grants matter.

You know, in Harrisonville alone, uh, as part of the Rotary, they do a packing the back pack on the weekends for the school, for the kids to have food. In Harrisonville alone, we’re in the middle of the country, in a rural community, and we have a hundred and eighty-five kids every week that take home back packs. That’s unconscionable. It’s not right that we have children that are going without food in this country. We’re too prosperous and wonderful a country to have what’s happening to the middle class continue to happen.

So, I’ve kept you too long ’cause it’s really hot in here and I apologize for talking so long. Thank you very much for coming. Really, all of you mean so very much to me. I, I can’t thank you enough. [voice: “Thank you.”][applause]

Today Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill joined her Republican colleague in the Missouri delegation and voted against restoring 4.5 million dollars in Food Stamp Aid to the pending farm bill. The amendment, offered by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, failed 33 to 63.

The farm bill, however, does continue to reward big agribusiness. Although it cuts direct subsidies to farmers, it increases other wasteful payouts:

Even as the bill eliminates the direct payments program, […] it would create a new wasteful subsidy program called “Risk Coverage” that would effectively lock in profits for the largest corn and soy growers — costing taxpayers an estimated $29 billion over the next 10 years.

Just as bad, the bill would continue the “crop insurance program.” In 2011, taxpayers paid over $7 billion for these subsidies — including giant, already profitable operations. Most businesses would give their left leg to get the same kind of deal.

Gillbrand proposed curbing those subsidies to pay for restoring the food stamp funding:

Gillibrand had hoped to prevent food aid cuts in the $969 billion bill by trimming the guaranteed profit for crop insurance companies from 14 to 12 percent and by lowering payments for crop insurers from $1.3 billion to $825 million.

Lest there be any doubt about who profits from this bill as it stands:

Giant agribusinesses like Monsanto and Cargill are pushing hard to pass this bill — they spent over $200 million in lobbying and campaign contributions in 2008 alone.

Now, about the amendment to restore food stamps: True, it affects only a specific segment of those who receive them:

The cuts target the so-called heat-and-eat initiative in which 14 states automatically make families eligible for more food aid if they receive even $1 in help paying their utility bills. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the decrease would amount to about $90 a month for an affected family, representing a quarter of its food budget.

How’d you like to lose 25% of your food budget? Now think how hard that might be when you’re unemployed, disabled or a senior on a fixed income.  Not exactly pleasant, is it?  

Republicans have responded to the rising numbers of families using food stamps by pretending to be worried that it signals not rising poverty, but growing moral turpitude, an “entitlement” mentality. Nevermind that the Bush recession socked it to the American people and that many, many more Americans have had to rely on the social safety net the GOP wishes to decimate. Currently 15% of Americans depend on food stamps. According to the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services:

“The numbers of people on SNAP reflect the economic challenges people are facing across the country,” Mr. Concannon said. “Folks who have lost their jobs or are getting fewer hours. These people haven’t been invented.”

Robert Reich asserts that “regressive Republicans pretend they’re about opportunity. In reality they’re back at what they’ve been doing for years – promoting Social Darwinism.” He is, of course, right to a certain extent. The problem, however, lies in the fact that while it may be Social Darwinism for me and thee, it’s helping hands all around for corporations,  big agribusiness, the Montsantos, and Cargills – all the folks with the wide open pocket books.

Despite all the big talk about entitlement societies, in the end it all boils down to whose interests the pols are going to stand up for. I thought I knew who Democrats went to bat for – which is why it’s so painful to see Claire McCaskill cross the partisan aisle on this one. It’s a sorry situation when even Massachusetts’ GOP Senator Scott Brown, who voted for the amendment, manages to position himself to the left of Missouri’s Democratic senator.

AFTERTHOUGHT:  McCaskill has tried to shrug off the Rasmussen poll that shows her running far behind Sarah Steelman – and she’s right to do so, as a subsequent, much closer PPP poll showed. So, my question abut her vote against food stamps: Is she this scared of Steelman? My advice, for what it’s worth: Running scared is always stupid.

Previously:

Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 16, 2012)

Attorney General Chris Koster at Missouri Boys State 2012 – Q and A (June 17, 2012)

Governor Jay Nixon (D) and Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 18, 2012)

Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 18, 2012)

James Carville at Missouri Boys State 2012 – photos (June 19, 2012)

James Carville spoke at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri on Monday night and was honored with the 24th Annual George W. Lehr Memorial Speakers Chair.

James Carville spoke at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Monday evening.

The transcript of excerpts from the question and answer session:

[….]

Question: [….] As a man who’s been on television for years and is heavily involved in media how do feel about the large amount of bias that range from CNN to Fox News and the need many reporters feel to add their opinions in on every story instead of simply sticking to the facts. [voice: “Yeah.”][applause]

James Carville: That’s a, that’s a question that I think a lot about. And I, uh, let me, let me back up a little bit here. You gotta, news is like anything else. It can be used for good, it can be used for whatever. And you gotta distinguish between news and opinion. When I went to LSU and, and some of the older people here, there aren’t very many, would, but we got one paper. We got the Baton Rouge paper. I suspect somebody went to Central Missouri when I, in the early sixties, you got the Kansas City Star, that was it. And if you wanted to read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal you had to go in the library and it’d come four days late on a stick. [laughter] And they had like two or three like nightly news shows, that was it.  I do not think that we knew any less than young people today. And, and you gotta be careful how you use it. ‘Cause see, you, you could be in, in, in, that was all the news you got. Now, now, how much news you have, how many cable shows there, how many web sites they have? Millions. Literally, if, if you’re liberal you never have to read a conservative thing. Or, if you’re a conservative you never have to read a liberal thing. And so you use, people use this information like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support, not illumination. [laughter][applause] People, and so you ask yourself, are you using things to validate what you already think? All right. That’s not, that’s not, you can do that and you have the perfect right to do that, but you’re not gonna be enlightened, you’re not gonna learn anything if you’re watching somebody to say, you know, I knew I was right the whole time. So, and there’s plenty of places you can get things. You can discern your own opinion. And you can read opinions, but you gotta understand there’s a difference between opinion and the news. That’s all I’m telling you. And it, and, and you have to sort of discern it. It, you know, certain things after a while you develop, if you develop an opinion you can argue your opinion. It’s developed, it’s nuanced, it, it’s rooted in at least your version of the facts, that’s fine. And not, none of us, this idea that there’s somebody out there that is totally neutral is pretty hard, pretty hard for me to accept. People grow up, they have prejudices, they have biases, they have a point of view. They can’t simply remove them. It’s just, it’s just human nature. That, that, hardest thing, judges, anybody, some people are better able to do that than others, but, but it’s a difficult thing to do.

[….]

Question: [….] Recently you’ve said on various media sources that if President Obama wants, do, reelected for a second term his, uh, campaign committee needs to focus more on, uh, addressing economic policies he wants to do. What specific economic policies would you like to see the President talk more about?

James Carville: Oh, great, great question. I, I think that the, from, I was, I was the oldest of eight children and my dad was postmaster and ran a kind of like a country store. My mother sold encyclopedias. And, and the one thing that we always knew growing up is that an education was the way to do things. That you always knew that the value of an education far outstripped its costs.  And we had a, a, a growing, vibrant middle class in this country. We have sort of lost that for any number of reasons [inaudible]. What I would like for the President, and I think he’s done many good things, I think he’s had any number of things that he’s had to sort of concentrate on, uh, but I think that the emphasis in his second term, I hope he does this in the campaign, is how do we get this middle class growing again.  How are people able to, to cope with this, how are people able, how can we make the, the costs of an education line up with the value of an education or even have the value of an education exceed the cost? How are people not one health care bill away from being financially decimated? How is it that we can figure out how there are things we can make and how do we become producers again as opposed to consumers? And I think if the President does that kind of stuff and talks about the kinds of things that we need to do as a country that make investments in rebuilding the middle class I think he’s gonna be a lot more successful. And that’s what I’d more like to see him talk about. And that’s what I meant when I talk about the economy I’m talking about a broad based economy. That benefits people across the board. Now you’re always gonna have some people as, as, as would happen in, in any, in any economy some people by virtue of their drive by, by virtue of their willingness to take risk, by their work, their, their willingness to accept failure then succeed, well, we should have that.

One of the really distressing things that’s happened in this country, and it’s happened in my lifetime, and, and it, it really saddens me, is more and more the predictor of a person’s success is determined by the success of their parents. And I don’t like that. I don’t like the fact that the greatest predictor of somebody, how far somebody go in life is how far their parents went. That [applause], I don’t think that’s a good way. And, and, and we need to, and we need to think about that as a country. And you need to, this, you need to think about that as a young person.  And, I want a, I want a country where the thing that’s gonna determine how far you go, the biggest thing that’s gonna determine how far you go is not what your parents did, but what you do. And that’s becoming less and less, and that bothers me greatly. It really does. [applause]

[….]

Previously:

Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 16, 2012)

Attorney General Chris Koster at Missouri Boys State 2012 – Q and A (June 17, 2012)

Governor Jay Nixon (D) and Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 18, 2012)

Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 18, 2012)

James Carville spoke at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri on Monday night and was honored with the 24th Annual George W. Lehr Memorial Speakers Chair. He is most certainly among one of the most animated public speakers on the planet.

James Carville spoke at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Monday evening.

James Carville addressed the audience for twenty minutes and then took questions for almost another forty minutes. A transcript of excerpts from the question and answer session will follow in a subsequent post.  

Competing visions in a parking lot in Belton, Missouri on Saturday:

They’ll add the corporate sponsorships later.

What a quaint notion.

Who needs a vote when you’ve got Citizens United on your side?

Previously:

Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 16, 2012)

Attorney General Chris Koster at Missouri Boys State 2012 – Q and A (June 17, 2012)

Governor Jay Nixon (D) and Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 18, 2012)

Last night at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri Kansas City Mayor Sly James addressed Boys State citizens. Mayor James spoke without notes for almost an hour from his perspective as a mayor on a wide range of subjects including education, law enforcement, jobs and infrastructure. He then took questions from the audience.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on June 17, 2012.

Excerpts from the approximately half hour question and answer session:

[….]

Question: [….] Um, regarding your opinion on gun control. Instead of completely taking away our ability to buy guns at eighteen why don’t instead we give gun shops, you know, the ability to know who has a criminal record and who’s been in trouble in the past? Why don’t we give, let them have the ability to know that and do background checks and decide who they want to sell to? ‘Cause as store owners they are allowed to decide who they want to sell to.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James: Couple of reasons. First, I’m not talking about gun control, I’m talking about getting guns out of the hands of knuckleheads who shouldn’t have guns. If you want to call that gun control [applause] [inaudible][cheers]. Number two, they already have that ability to check backgrounds. But most people who are committing crimes don’t walk into a A-one gun shop and say, hey, mister A-one gun shop owner, here’s my driver’s license, I was convicted a couple of weeks ago of something and I’m kind of waiting to be sentenced here, but I want to buy a gun so I can kill some witness who testified against me [laughter]. And they’re, I mean, they’re getting them off the street, they’re stealing them out of homes, they’re buying them at gun shows. Gun shows are one of the biggest proliferators of illegal guns on the street of anybody and they don’t have to check. There’s a lot of states that don’t do the same thing across the board. And I’m sorry, I don’t see any reason why an eighteen year old ought to have an Uzi. I can’t think of any reason why a kid living at Thirty-ninth and Prospect in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri needs an AK-47. [applause][cheers]

Who’s next? [laughter]

[….]

Question: [….] You seem like a very well informed man, you seem to have a general idea on how to fix certain problems in this country, so which presidential candidate do you think will be the best for this country? [voices: “Woo.”]

Mayor James: I’ll tell you my personal preference and I’ll tell you who I’m planning to support. And that’s Barack Obama. [applause][cheers] And one of the main reasons I plan to support Barack Obama is because I recognize the situation he walked in to. Could he have done better? Absolutely. Is he trying to do better? Absolutely. What I don’t know is which Mitt Romney will actually take office. [laughter][applause] And I think I’ll leave it at that.

[….]

Previously:

Missouri Boys State 2012 (June 16, 2012)

Attorney General Chris Koster at Missouri Boys State 2012 – Q and A (June 17, 2012)

Last night at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg Governor Jay Nixon (D) and Kansas City Mayor Sly James spoke to and took questions from Boys State citizens. Between his speech and the question and answer session Governor Nixon also signed the appropriation bill for K-12 education into law.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on June 17, 2012.

Governor Nixon spoke briefly, signed the bill, then took questions from the audience for approximately a half hour. Kansas City Mayor Sly James followed Governor Nixon on the evening’s program.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James at Missouri Boys State on the campus of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on June 17, 2012.

Mayor James spoke without notes for almost an hour and then took questions for approximately a half hour. Transcript excerpts of the evening’s question and answer sessions will follow in subsequent posts.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) signing the K-12 education appropriation bill into law at Missouri Boys State.

The press release on the bill signing from Governor Nixon’s office:

June 17, 2012

Gov. Nixon signs bill providing record funding for K-12 classrooms at Boys State

WARRENSBURG, Mo. – Gov. Jay Nixon this evening signed legislation to provide record funding for public elementary and secondary classrooms during a visit to the American Legion Boys State of Missouri.  After delivering remarks, Gov. Nixon signed House Bill 2002 and engaged in a dialogue with Boys State delegates from across Missouri.

In his State of the State Address in January, Gov. Nixon called for record funding for Missouri’s elementary and secondary classrooms.  The General Assembly joined the Governor in these efforts by passing House Bill 2002, which includes the record level of funding.  The legislation signed by Gov. Nixon this evening will invest $3.009 billion in elementary and secondary classrooms during Fiscal Year 2013.

“Strong public schools are critical for ensuring that our children can compete successfully for the careers of tomorrow,” Gov. Nixon said.  “Because we’ve balanced our budget each year without raising taxes, we have the resources to make this record investment in our public school classrooms.  Our commitment to public education is ensuring that more Missouri kids are graduating from high school prepared to succeed in college, in a career or in our armed forces, but we can’t stop now.  Together, we’re going to keep managing our budget well, holding the line on taxes, and investing in public education so that all Missouri children have the chance to achieve their dreams.”

Because of Missouri’s ongoing commitment to public education, student performance across the state is increasing.  The percentage of students scoring at or above proficient on math, communications arts and reading exams increased again in 2011, with significant gains across minority populations.  Enrollment at Missouri’s public colleges and universities also has surged over the past three years.

While Missouri is increasing its investment in public education, many other states are cutting education funding.  According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, while Missouri increased funding for public school classrooms in fiscal year 2012, 30 other states provided less funding for public education than they did in fiscal year 2008.