With wingnut thugs planning to disrupt every Democratic town hall this August, writing about ethics reform at the Missouri Housing Development Commission is … tame. That’s the problem with actual good governance: it seems so humdrum that it’s easy to overlook.

Fortunately for Missourians, though, Clint Zweifel, their new treasurer and the chair of the MHDC, (pictured at right being sworn in last January) gets excited about ethics reform. The Housing Commission hands out tax credits to developers for low income housing, and the opportunities for commissioners to abuse their position were rife. And inexcusable. It wasn’t even illegal for them to have personal or financial interests with people coming before the MHDC.

Treasurer Zweifel pushed for quick ethics reform and got it passed last week. Here are the changes:

• Commissioners must disclose any business relationships they have with applicants and recuse themselves.
• The revolving door between the MHDC and developers just stopped turning. Companies that hire former commissioners or employees of the commission now face a two year waiting period before they can come before the commission.
• All developers will disclose all of their business relationships. So, for example, if a consultant who wrote the application for a developer has business ties with one of the commissioners, that conflict of interest will come to light.

The public yawns at news of this reform. It’ll only prevent a few undeserved millions from finding their way into the accounts of corrupt developers. Not sexy. But worth doing.

And oddly enough, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who also sits on the commission, tried to sandbag it last week. Having had two years (the reform moved at glacial speed under Steelman) to acquaint himself with its provisions–and after all, how busy is the Lieutenant Governor?–he wanted to delay the vote because, he said, he’d been traveling the previous two weeks and wasn’t familiar enough with the provisions of the reform. The other commissioners weren’t having his excuses, and except for Kinder, the vote to pass reform was unanimous.

I don’t know whether reform interfered with the plans of one of Kinder’s friends; whether–as a Republican–he just had to be an obstructionist; or whether he was actually too lazy to prepare himself for the vote.

Whatever. Zweifel is on the job. And so are the other commissioners. Thank you.

(Photo of Kinder courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Chris Koster won the election for AG, and my colleague, Michael Bersin, is happy to accept that and move on.

I’m not that far along. I have one more bone to pick, and it’s with Robert McCulloch, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney.

Not only did McCulloch endorse Chris Koster, he produced a robocall for him on the day before the election. I got one.

The point of his call–the same point Koster himself made in ad after robocall after ad–is that Koster was the only candidate with prosecutorial experience. Right. So? Since the Attorney General does no actual prosecuting himself, and since the duties have mainly to do with setting policy and administrating, Koster’s prosecutorial experience is worth … more than a tinker’s damn, but not a whole lot.

So Robert McCulloch could be said to have cost Margaret Donnelly the election. She lost by an eyelash, and that robocall that McCulloch produced easily added enough votes to Koster’s column to make the difference.

And yet, McCulloch did not consult grass roots leaders in the metropolitan area before coming out in favor of a candidate without any actual Democratic street cred. Approving of a candidate simply because he is in your club, the club of prosecuting attorneys, is insufficient reason to endorse.

I’ve said before and repeat it now, that I’m glad to see a Republican come to our side, but Koster’s votes as a Republican were often heinous. My personal (un)favorite was his attempt last year to introduce a bill revoking what little local control over CAFOs Missourians had. The Senate leadership didn’t force him to carry water for the Farm Bureau like that. Working on behalf of corporate agriculture over small farmers was his own idea.

So, without taking time to see whether a man with that kind of history is actually going to start sharing our values, McCulloch acted on his own. He dumped a fine local candidate with impeccable Democratic credentials.

What’s done, unfortunately, is done. But if I were Donnelly, I might just consider challenging McCulloch in the next primary. Not that I can see Margaret as a prosecutor, but still, there would be poetic justice in it if she won.

Yesterday I mentioned that Jeff Harris was using his campaign website to promote efforts against the Voter ID bill. Now Margaret Donnelly gets in on the action. There’s nothing on her website at the moment, but she did send an e-mail to her list (full text below the fold) asking supporters to contact their state senator and ask them to oppose the bill. I like the language in it – she calls this a continuation of the “the Republican attack on suffrage.” Interestingly, she only gives a general link to her website. Harris has a tool to mail an e-mail to state senators about Voter ID, while Donnelly directs you to the Missouri Senate website to look up and contact your senator.

Are there any other elected officials mobilizing like this against the Voter ID bill?

Dear Clark,

As the 94th General Assembly comes to an end, the Republican leadership has decided to spend the legislature’s last days debating and passing HJR 48, a ballot initiative to require Missouri citizens to have a government-issued photo identification card in order to vote.  The Republican attack on suffrage first started in the 2006 session as an attempt to boost the electoral chances of then U.S. Senator Jim Talent.  Their efforts failed then and now they are back this session in another desperate attempt to hold on to power against overwhelming voter discontent.

Voter ID legislation has been a “red herring” from its inception.  There has been no evidence in Missouri of voter impersonation fraud in the past 4 election cycles that requiring a photo ID would have prevented.  Even Governor Blunt, as Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005, described Missouri elections “free of fraud”.   HJR 48 would only create an insurmountable hurdle for many of Missouri’s elderly and new citizens.  Our country’s voting rights should be vigorously protected from fraud, but they should not be trampled on in an attempt to disenfranchise voters.  As your attorney general, I will oppose any attempt to weaken our voting rights, whether that be fraud or desperate politicians.

As the Missouri Senate prepares to debate HJR 48, I urge you to contact your state senator.  You can reach their office by calling the senate switch board at (573) 751-2000.  You can find the name of your state senator and state representative by clicking here.

Tell them to stand up for the rights of voters and vote NO on HJR 48.

Remember to check out our website at www.donnelly08.com for the latest news from the campaign trail!