The unofficial (yet to be certified) results are in for the February special elections to fill vacancies in the Missouri House.

Unofficial Election Returns

State of Missouri Special Election  – Legislative District – 62

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

State Representative – District 62   Precincts Reporting 19 of 19

  Ayres, Nita Jane REP 1,325 77.8%

  Tweedle, Patty LIB 378 22.2%

Total Votes   1,703

Unofficial Election Returns

State of Missouri Special Election  – Legislative District – 57

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

State Representative – District 57   Precincts Reporting 20 of 20

  Whitehead, Hope DEM 969 55.9%

  May, Karla IND 763 44.1%

Total Votes   1,732

Unofficial Election Returns

State of Missouri Special Election  – Legislative District – 27

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

State Representative – District 27   Precincts Reporting 13 of 13

  Conway, Pat DEM 1,240 65.4%

  Gregory, Jason REP 655 34.6%

Total Votes   1,895

Man, the relatively low number of “Total Votes” in special elections always surprises me. And it shouldn’t, given our current political environment. We all know getting modern Americans to actively participate in their own Democracy is just as tough as getting them to watch American Idol. Oh, wait.

The House Democratic Campaign Committee issued the following press release:

Democrat Landslides Send Strong Message

Democrat performance trending higher despite GOP attacks

JEFFERSON CITY – Despite well funded Republican negative attacks in two special elections, House District 73 in November and today in House District 27, support for the Democratic candidates continued to increase.

“Clearly what we are seeing here in Missouri is that voters want nothing to do with the “pay to play” Republican leadership in Jefferson City. Instead, they are voting in larger numbers for Democrats who they trust to create jobs, stand up against “pay to play” corruption and defend Missouri families in these very tough economic times,” said Democratic Speaker-Elect Mike Talboy, Chairman of the House Democratic Campaign Committee.

Pat Conway, the Buchanan County Clerk, who is widely respected throughout Buchanan County, swept the special election tonight with over 65% of the vote. His total tops newly elected State Representative Stacey Newman (D-Clayton), who swept her election in November with 61% of the vote despite well funded Republican attack ads.

“We saw the same thing in both races by Republicans: smears. Voters don’t want to hear the same old negative Republican rhetoric, they want to hear about solutions to the problems facing their family and community, and tonight once again, we are honored to have their trust and support,” said Talboy.

Also elected tonight was Democrat Hope Whitehead who was victorious against an Independent candidate.

##

Do you sense part of a campaign message for November?

What could be so tempting to make a man quit his job in the Missouri General Assembly a year early?

What about “a 9-to-5 job” for a payday lending giant. That’s what Brian Yates is going to do, moving from one field with a bad reputation to a field that deserves a worse reputation.

QC Holdings (“Quik Cash”) appears to have a valuable team member. We’ll keep our eyes open and report back when he becomes a lobbyist for the free market tradition of extreme interest rates. (The United Payday Lenders of Missouri (which QC is a member of) have two lobbyists)

The STL Better Business Bureau said that “Missouri accounted for 30% of QC Holdings’ total branch gross profits last year” and that

“Among the nine contiguous states, only Tennessee has more payday loan locations (1,481) than Missouri (1,275) with the next highest being Kentucky with 785, according to the Division of Finance’s report. The report also shows that the APR allowed by Missouri’s statutes of 1,950% based on a two-week loan of $100 is by far the highest of the nine contiguous states”

When they say Payday, they mean “payday for them”, not you. And if the Republican Legislature actually moves to help people out (which is unlikely), QC can roll out at least one employee who knows his way around the place.

BTW, the Special Election will likely be held on April 6th because Yates resigned too late for a February Special election. Although this is actually a slight financial win for the area since it’ll be held concurrently with Municipal Elections in Lee’s Summit.

An extra two months is good news for taxpayers and for likely Democratic candidate Dave Coffman.

We’ll keep you posted on this story.

The political news from Eastern Jackson County is the sudden resignation of Brian Yates and an impending special election in HD56 in February.

Yates resignation is coupled with his announcement that he will be endorsing a conservative mystery candidate from Lee’s Summit in the 8th Senate District primary on Monday to oppose Bryan Pratt and Gary Dusenberg. Let’s get to some of the facts here.

Barring unexpected twists, the Republican nominee will be Mike Cierpiot and the Democratic nominee will be Dave Coffman. Coffman has raised $3300 through the 3rd quarter in the short time he has been a candidate. Cierpiot has raised $24K including $12,001 from personal injury lawyer Mike Ketchmark whose political contributions are both large and in the form of Price is Right Contestants Row bids.

Mike Cierpiot’s wife is former State Rep. Connie Cierpiot. Cierpiot’s treasurer is former State Rep. Derek Holland. Both Holland and Cierpiot were mentioned as parts of the “Lazies v. the Crazies” (Patrick Dwyer’s words, not mine) scuffle in Jackson County Republican politics in the 1990s.

Ketchmark was also mentioned in the 8/15/1993 KC Star article in reference to the story of how Derek Holland got nominated (with help of his wife) to replace Bob Johnson in the State Senate (an election Holland lost to Margaret Rennau). It’s a virtual guarantee that this group of Republicans, who were on the “hard right” before it was “cool”, have ruffled people in both parties over the last few years. And when you consider that Bob Johnson was running for the State Senate in 2006 against Matt Bartle, it’s not like the scuffle is over. It has just been extremely one-sided recently.

As for electoral numbers..

Yates defeated Chris Ruggles by a 62-38 margin last November as John McCain defeated Barack Obama by a 58-41 margin amongst district precincts (Our apologies if the absentees tilted in a weird enough way to change that percentage significantly).

The 56th district is made up of the I470 corridor of Lee’s Summit, some parts of Lee’s Summit closer to US50 (but not downtown), Lake Lotawana, Lone Jack, assorted parts of Southeastern Jackson County, Lake Jacomo, and all those fun areas. The Lee’s Summit precincts went 57/42.49 for McCain while the rest of the precincts went 61/38 McCain.

Having to deal with an under 2 month long campaign, with a portion of that over Christmas, is going to be tough for the Dems to deal with. But it could be educational when it comes to seeing what could work in regards to their hopes in the 2010 elections. Plus, weird things happen in February special elections.

Happy Thanksgiving voters, have a Special Election!

According to the News-Leader, Republican committee members nominated Branson-area realtor Nita Jane Ayres by a 10-9 margin to be their nominee in the February 2nd, 2010 special election to replace Dennis Wood in the “Republican for almost 150 years” 62nd district. [Update: Further tweets reveal that Ayres cast the deciding vote for herself.]

Ayres is a resident of Branson West in Stone County. Branson West was known as Linchpin until 1992 when they decided to change their name to Branson West. I am pointing this information out because some may not be aware that there is a Branson West or that Branson is now large enough to have a “Branson-area”

Barring some unforseen intraparty squabble, the nomination of a really good horse veterinarian, or a surge of Democratic popularity in a part of the state that voted for Hulshof and Hubbard, the Republicans will hold this seat and people who wanted to run in 2010 to succeed Wood will find something else to do with their time.

But it should be closer than Mizzou v. Furman.

Time to vote on things that matter close to home, Kansas City.  Now – let’s get down to business and talk about todays special election.  (Sample ballot here)

I’m agnostic on the whole smoking ban. There are places I would go, occasionally, that I don’t go now if they were smoke free. But nobody’s bar is going to float or fail on my business, since I am a pretty unreliable bar customer anyway. Sometimes I don’t set foot in one for weeks at a time. I’m kinda sick of “it’s all about me and I know what’s best” showing up on my frickin’ ballot on a regular basis. Knock off trying to legislate morality. As my mommy and daddy did the hard job of successful parenting while I was growing up, I don’t need the state to parent me now, thanks just the same.

I will probably actually decide when the ballot is in my hand, but I’m leaning “no.” Why should McCoy’s have to close their cigar room, but the casinos are exempt? What the hell? It’s like saying you can’t smoke and drink at the same time, unless you wanna make it a hat-trick of vice and gamble, too.

It is in my nature to be prone to bristling at paternalistic legislation. I can avoid smoke without telling Michelle Markowitz that she has to ban smoking at Davey’s.

My inner civil libertarian has no problem with regulating payday loan businesses, however.  They make enough money that they can pay a grand a year for a permit to operate and that money used to fund city inspections of the industry.  I saw on a public affairs broadcast that there is a stretch of road that had twenty payday loan businesses in less than two miles.  That’s just nuts.  That’s a lot of people operating in a sub-economy, but that’s a whole ‘nuther post unto itself.  I’m voting “yes” on Question 2.

Now – the biggie – the extension of the 3/8 cent existing bus tax. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I’ll be taking the bus to the polling place, how the hell do you think I’m going to vote on this one? Sheesh. Have we met?

Listen folks, Clay Chastain is full of sh*t – I know, I know, stating the obvious. But seriously. I ride the bus, regularly.  I had a car wreck the same week gasoline hit three bucks a gallon for the first time ever in the wake of Katrina. Hybrids couldn’t just be purchased and driven off the lot back then, remember, and I got in the habit of riding the bus while I was waiting. I just never bothered getting out of that habit because where I live and where I go are as convenient as they could possibly be for me. If I never drive downtown again, it will be too soon. Anyway, the people who say that no one rides the bas are either clueless or lying. I see more full and SRO buses every day.

More and more people are parking their cars and riding the bus because they can’t afford to drive like they used to, and other people are making changes to their lifestyle because they are concerned about the environment and climate change.

We need to expand our buses and put another Max line down Troost. We sure as hell don’t need to tie our bus system to light rail at this stage, when we are seven years from turning dirt and ten years from the first passenger on light rail. If we were closer to fruition in light rail efforts, it might make sense to tie them together. Right now, no. The bus is what we have, it’s doing a good job, and we can make it better.

Now, get out and vote KC – the local stuff impacts your life directly. Think about that, and go do your duty, Citizens.

( – promoted by Clark)

The last couple of weeks have seen a fair amount of new developments in Missouri House races.  Right now, the Republicans hold a 89-70 advantage, with four vacancies (16th 18th, 65th, 158th).  82 seats are needed to hand Minority Leader Paul LeVota the speaker’s gavel.  Since the 65th is a solid Democratic district, that leaves 11 seats that need to flip in 2008 for the Ds to capture the majority.

At this point in the election cycle, candidate recruitment is critical, and several races in competitive districts are starting to take shape.

In the 24th, a seat held by Republican Ed Robb in southern Boone County, former rep and Columbia Tribune columnist Chris Kelly has announced his candidacy.  This race was one of the most expensive in the state in 2006, with Robb edging out former Columbia schools superintendent Jim Ritter.  With Kelly in the race, the Ds have a credible candidate to take back the 24th.

Charlie Dake, the D who shocked the state by winning the very Republican 132nd district in a special election, only to lose to Don Ruzicka in November, has filed his paperwork for another shot at this seat.  Dake is likely the only candidate to give us a shot at taking this district.  But in a presidential election year, look for the Republican tilt of this district to be even more pronounced.

In the KC metro, Terry Stone has signed on for a rematch against pro-voucher incumbent Jerry Nolte in the 33rd.  Last time, Stone came within about 100 votes of knocking of Nolte in this Democratic seat.  Look for Stone to finish the job this time around.

In the 158th in Cape Girardeau, the Democrats have selected former Postmaster and current Cape Parks Board Chairman Mike Keefe to run in the February special election.  The Rs have not selected their candidate yet.  While it will be very difficult to take this Republican seat, it seems like Keefe is a home-run in candidate recruitment.  And the stench of corruption from Nathan Cooper might still be wafting over the local GOP.  This one bears watching a little closer.

Other districts that are potential targets for Democratic takeovers are the 1st, 5th, 7th (open), 15th, 17th, 20th (open), 21st, 36th, 38th, 47th, 48th, 85th, 86th (open), 91st (open), 92nd (open), 93rd, 94th, and 120th (open).

As a Western MO guy, I don’t know much about the 16th and 18th, although both seem like they may be competitive.  Any STL folks that care to enlighten us on those races?

What are the competitive races in your necks of the woods?

Ed Appelbaum loses to Tom Dempsey 56% – 44%.

I saw this article on Combest today.  While I don’t harbor any delusions that our chances of taking this seat are any better than, say, 10%, does this have any predictive value for the Ds recruitment prospects versus the Rs on a state-wide basis?  Does this indicate the level of interest/enthusiasm among grassroots Ds v. Rs?

I would contend that this is an indication of the relative strength of the Ds.  With the proper breeze at our backs, and the right candidates recruited and in place, perhaps we can pick up a few seats otherwise thought to be untouchable.

I would be interested to know everyone else’s perspective — what are you seeing on the ground in your part of the state?  Are we lining up good candidates for the State House seats?  Are people excited about the 2008 election?

….or more.  Any evening this week from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., you could help out in St. Charles, but you’ll be multitasking.

One hand is going to be holding a clipboard for collecting signatures in the petition drive to get an amendment on the ballot mandating hand-counted paper ballots in Missouri instead of computerized voting.

Another hand will be giving folks information about the special election in St. Charles next Tuesday for the state senate.  Republican Chuck Gross resigned from the senate.  Ed Applebaum, the Democrat, is facing a well funded Republican named Tom Dempsey.  Applebaum’s a good man and, by the by, could use your contribution.

The third hand will have voter registration cards.

No partisan rant will be required or even desired.  You’ll just be urging people to vote in an election where single digit turnout is expected, helping them register if need be, and asking for a petition signature.  That request for signatures will prove to be popular.  When several volunteers for Show Me the Vote went signature collecting recently at the St. Charles Festival of Little Hills, they got a seventy percent positive response from people they approached for signatures.  That’s as in 70% of the people were glad to sign.  A lot of Missourians would be happy to see the last of those computers at the voting precinct.

The reason you might need more than three hands, by the way, is that petition signers have to sign on a sheet for the county they reside in.  Just kidding about the hands.  You won’t need extras, of course.  Just put a sheet for each county on your clipboard.

Volunteering in St. Charles will enable you to kill three birds with one stone. 

If you’re interested in helping, call Judith Conoyer (636-946-8425).  And if you need a ride, call Pro-Vote.