An exchange, sort of, via Twitter:

@FiredUpMissouri  Fired Up! Missouri

Interesting: @JeffSmithMO and @TeamTilley hanging out on the dais in the #MO House this afternoon. 1 hour ago

@FiredUpMissouri  Fired Up! Missouri

… and @JeffSmithMO spoke to the House GOP caucus this afternoon, but not the Dem caucus? 28 minutes ago

@JeffSmithMO  Jeff Smith

@FiredUpMissouri Speaker Tilley invited me to address their caucus. Also caught up w/ Min Leader Talboy and several other Dems. 21 minutes ago

@JeffSmithMO  Jeff Smith

I announced for Repub nomination 4 US SEN RT@stlactivisthub MO So what were you speaking to MO House GOP about? Don’t keep us in the dark! 21 minutes ago

@JeffSmithMO  Jeff Smith

@stlactivisthub J/K. Talked abt my mistakes, what I learned from them, and how they can avoid such mistakes. #cautionarytale. 20 minutes ago

@JeffSmithMO  Jeff Smith

Glad someone got the joke. RT publiceyestl: @JeffSmithMO You made me laugh out loud. 19 minutes ago

@JeffSmithMO  Jeff Smith

@stlactivisthub And also abt importance of engaging ppl u disagree w/, as it helps u not only bettr understnd other perspctives but ur own 2 15 minutes ago

Former Senator Jeff Smith is a Democrat.

Previously:

Jeff Smith sentenced (November 17, 2009)

Thinking about Jeff (August 21, 2009)

Chris King is always right, and it’s always about him and the St. Louis American.  

To be clear, following up on dissonantdissident’s comment earlier, the process for a special election for a Senate district is different than a normal election. The nominee for each party will be decided not by a primary, but by a selection by the Senatorial District Committee. That’s from Section 4.9 of the Missouri Democratic Party bylaws.

Even more interesting – the committee is composed of all the Democratic committeepeople in the district, and their vote is weighted by Democratic vote for governor in their part of the district in the last gubernatorial election. Every 1,000 votes (or major fraction thereof) in the last general election for the Democratic nominee in the ward gets one vote. I’m not sure if it’s reweighted based on how much of the ward lies within the district, but I don’t see anything in the rules that indicate a further reweighting. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, of course.)

Here the wards in the district, along with vote totals for Jay Nixon, who the committeeman and committeewoman for the ward are, and what part of the district the ward lies in (N=North, C=Central, and S=South.)

So looking at those totals, and assuming I haven’t made an error in my assumptions, it looks like wards on the north side will have a total of 37 votes out of 88, southside wards in the district will have 32, and 19 belong to the central corridor. Naturally, this is a really crude description of how the voting blocs will coalesce in the committee, and they might not break down along regional lines at all. And of course this process only selects the Democratic nominee; it’s unlikely but possible that an independent could get on the ballot and win the election, and even less likely but still fractionally possible that the Republican nominee could still win in the special election.

To say the least, it will be very interesting to see who throws their hat in the ring. and who gains the support of which committeepeople. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Someone has their math wrong (and I would not be surprised if that someone is me.) St. Louis American’s Political Eye has the northside with 70 votes and the southside with 73.  

If the rumors are true, Jeff Smith won’t be a state senator much longer. Tony Messenger is on top of this story, but as I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of any of the details here, I have no idea as to how valid any of it is. Needless to say, if there was any wrongdoing, it’s only fitting that Jeff should be punished appropriately.

On the other hand, I can’t just sit quietly and not point out the good in Jeff, or the amazing effect he has had in politics, especially among young people.

I didn’t know Jeff Smith in 2004, only learning about him and his congressional race from Daily Kos diaries and from a profile in DFA e-mails about the “Dean Dozen” (which also included a certain young state senator named Barack Obama.) I first met him when he was gearing up to run for state senate. He arrived 30 minutes late to our meeting to talk about digital video in politics. I had heard he was short, but I wasn’t prepared to see that he only came up to my shoulder. Neither was I prepared to hear the high pitch of his voice.

In any event, our conversation went long, mostly because he patiently listened to me while I explained who I was and where I thought the wide availability of cheap digital video could take political communication, which prompted him to invite me to his next meeting, where I could perhaps make a contribution. Twenty minutes later, after a harrowing drive to the Royale, I sat with the blogger Archpundit, a web designer, and another blog admin chatting about Jeff’s website.

I didn’t go on to have a major part in Jeff’s electoral triumph in the 5th Senate District, but that first meeting was fairly typical of every experience I had with him. I later found out that he’s habitually late to virtually everything he attends, not because he doesn’t care about meeting people, but because it’s the cumulative effect of trying to talk to as many people as he can for as long as he can.  He’s not just gregarious and charming – he openly invites people to work toward a common purpose and invests them with trust. He feeds off being a champion, but he gives that belief right back by empowering his supporters. Doubtless this is why you find so many ardent Jeff Smith supporters, why you saw his campaign workers openly weeping at his loss in Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Any More?

It’s important to remember that as we all go forward. Nothing should change for people who followed Jeff’s example of jumping into politics because they hold progressive ideals and believe they can make a difference. He is still the guy who believed he could win a congressional race winning over voters one door at a time and damn near pulled it off. He’s still the guy who challenged the proposition that we should have gone to war in Iraq when it was fashionable among Democrats to focus on the poor execution. He’s still the guy who has fought for voting reform in the Missouri State Senate, passed several green measures through a Republican-dominated legislature under a Republican governor, and went to the mat to preserve historic tax credits.

I have little doubt that after Jeff weathers his current troubles, no matter how severe the penalty, he’ll back in public service continuing to inspire people around him.  

Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith (D) succinctly summed up the republican presidential field for 2012 in a Twitter post:

Potential Republican 2012 presidential field: Vitter, Ensign, Sanford, Gingrich and Palin. Who says they’re not the party of family values? 29 minutes ago from txt

I wish I had thought that one up.

Today:

…In a strange and meandering press conference, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) explained this afternoon that he’d been “unfaithful” to his wife, after developing a “relationship” with a woman in Argentina…

Recently:

Sen. John Ensign today acknowledged an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff…

In the not so distant past:

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) apologized last night after his telephone number appeared in the phone records of the woman dubbed the “D.C. Madam,” making him the first member of Congress to become ensnared in the high-profile case…

Setting the stage for his entry into the presidential race, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., gave a radio interview to be broadcast today with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, in which Gingrich for the first time publicly acknowledged cheating on his first and second wives…

Family values?

By the way, Jeff Smith held out successfully for an exemption on historic tax credits for small ($1.3 million or less) developers.

The latest on the jobs bill in the Senate, according to Senator Jeff Smith, D-St. Louis, is that the parties to the disagreement have been negotiating. They’ve got it all worked out except for one snag, but it’s a deal killer for Smith.

They worked it out that Crowell would relent in his insistence that all tax credits be subject to the annual appropriations process. But the talks have broken down so far on whether to exempt small projects–small meaning $1.3 million or less–from the proposed cap on historic tax credits. Smith said:

“I want to make sure that rehabbers in neighborhoods all over the city have a chance to circumvent the cap and don’t get crowded out by large projects, so I need to have some exemption.”

Updates as I get them.

My crystal ball is in the shop for repair, but do I need one to take an educated guess about what Senate President Pro Tem Charlie Shields and Majority Leader Kevin Engler are thinking about their Republican colleague, Senator Jason Crowell? They figure the problem with him isn’t so much that he’ll be term limited out after his current term but that he’s got three more years after this one before that happens. They don’t care that he’ll be termed out: Cape Girardeau is solidly Republican. Crowell won by 64 percent of the vote last November. So replacing him with another Republican is a cakewalk, and in the meantime, what a colossal headache he is.

He and his good friend, former House Speaker Rod Jetton, just toppled, for this year anyway, the CWIP legislation. Jetton has been working for Noranda Aluminum, Ameren’s biggest customer, to defeat it. And Crowell filibustered the bill, with help from Sen. Joan Bray (D-St. Louis).

That filibuster produced some of the most interesting head butting of this year’s Senate session, with Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) calling Bray a liar at one point, and with Schaefer and Crowell squaring off as the proxies for the two competing GOP consultants in Missouri. Schaefer represented Jeff Roe, while Crowell represented Jetton.

Okay, that skirmish is over, but the economic development bill, or eco-devo as it’s known, still looms, and this one promises to be even more of a lulu, because the Senate can’t just fold on the whole bill the way it did on CWIP. To further complicate the scenario, it looks like there will be two veteran talkers, Crowell and Sen. Jeff Smith (D-St. Louis), vying to stop it in its present form. And, implausible as it seems, they are simultaneously allies and adversaries. They’re allies because they both want the bill in its present form stopped and because they agree that any cap on historic tax credits should be very high because those credits have done so much to rejuvenate downtown St. Louis.

But the two men are adversaries as well. Crowell refuses to vote for eco-devo unless tax credits from now on become subject to the annual appropriations process. We need oversight, he says. He figures that the Missouri lege hands out tax credits like candy–with little thought as to how those extra calories are going to bloat our fiscal waistline. It’s too easy for people who’ll be termed out soon to be generous. They won’t be around when Missouri steps on the scales and gasps four years down the line.

Smith also wants restraint when it comes to tax credits. In fact, last year, he and Crowell were allies in opposing the $880 million that Charlie Shields proposed giving to the Bombardier Aircraft company of Canada to build a plant near K.C. But Smith believes that reviewing tax credits annually to decide whether to extend them makes it next to worthless ever to grant any of them at all. Most projects that deserve the credits take 3-5 years to complete.  

Who is going to start a major project if he can’t have confidence that the tax credits will be there four years from now? Developers won’t sink capital into turning a warehouse into loft space in St. Louis city if they have to worry that by the time they’ve acquired the building, gutted it, and installed the beams and joists, the tax credits will get ripped out from under them.

If Crowell had his way, developers would have to sweat it anew every year at the whim of the Appropriations chairman, someone that generally changes every couple of years. They want to invest, not shoot craps. Smith pointed out to me that Gary Nodler, the current chair, is termed out in 2010. Maybe Rob Mayer, who is the next ranking Republican on the committee will succeed him. What will his policies be like? And what if he doesn’t succeed? Suppose it turned out to be Brad Lager next–Lager, who thinks that the historic tax credits those Washington Ave. developers have used to bring part of downtown St. Louis back to life, is just out of control spending.

No, Smith feels there must be some promise of continuity.

And where will this ideological, and very long-winded debate, leave Engler, the debate moderator, and the eco-devo bill? Republicans want to get the bill passed. They could use the Missouri version of the nuclear option, just shut down the debate by “calling the previous question” (PQ). But that weapon has been reserved in the past for use against Democrats.

Dave Drebes suggests this possibility:

More likely, they will do to Crowell what they did to state Sen. Matt Bartle a couple of years ago when he tried to stop an appointment. They’ll just keep the senate in session all day and all night until he can no longer physically stand. Bartle lasted 13 hours. Crowell has some allies and might be able to hold the floor longer, but eventually there are limits to human stamina.

Oddly enough, a stubborn insistence on preserving historic tax credits might work out for Smith. Who knows? But Crowell’s similar stubborn insistence on his vision of putting tax credits into the appropriations process is probably doomed. If one of them manages to succeed, it looks more likely to be the Democrat in a GOP controlled chamber.

First the Bombardier deal looked shaky in the Senate, but then the House passed it 125-16. However, it got killed in committee in the Senate. Only to be revived in scaled down form in the Senate and passed. Does this roller coaster have any more hills?

The original Senate bill would have granted up to $880 million in tax credits over 22 years to Bombardier if the maker of jet airplanes built a plant near Kansas City and employed at least 1,000 workers. The money was actually a loan in the form of tax credits, though, because it would have had to be paid back in the form of royalties on the passenger jets that were sold.

The scaled back version is for a mere $240 million over eight years. The new deal also requires that the money be paid back and that a 5.1 percent rate of return also be paid. The legislature hopes to find out this July whether the offer is a ripe enough plum for Bombardier to pick.

Charlie Shields (R-St. Joseph), the Senate Majority Leader, painted a rosy picture, with Bombardier employing 2100 workers and suppliers employing another 5,000. Shields predicted a $5 billion economic impact on the state.  

But a couple of odd bedfellows, Jeff Smith (D-St. Louis) and Matt Bartle (R-Lee’s Summit) argued in the Senate that Bombardier might have the wrong kind of economic impact:

But opponents such as Matt Bartle of Lee’s Summit look at appraisals of the company’s health from some investment firms and finds recommendations that investors sell Bombardier stock. Fellow Senator Jeff Smith of St. Louis read the investment firm’s recommendations to fellow senators. The analysis says Bombardier has financial problems, has lost share of its segment of the airline market, and has a pension program that is under funded by $1.2 billion dollars.

Bartle says it’s clear the reason Bombardier wants Missouri’s tax credits is because it can’t raise funds on the capital markets as cheaply as it can get money from Missouri. “The capital markets know this is a stupid deal!” he shouts on the Senate floor.

Smith quietly agrees, “We’re the suckers.”

Those supporting the bill countered by reading more positive assessments from other investment analysts, but Smith argued that we have no business dispensing $240 million when we can’t even take care of former Medicaid recipients.

Meanwhile Bartle wondered why we would give such tax breaks to a French Canadian firm in preference to Missouri employers:

“Instead of giving a tax cut of a quarter billion dollars and spreading it across all Missouri employers – large and small and medium – we are giving it to one company,” Bartle said. “We are putting 240 million eggs in one basket.”

And not a well constructed basket at that:

“We don’t know the aircraft manufacturing business,” Bartle said. “We don’t know it’s prospects. We don’t know its overall health in the current marketplace. We’re buying $240 million of junk bonds.”

In my first posting on the Bombardier deal, I said that Shields “should tell the other senators how many Brooklyn Bridges they are buying here.” That was not an apt analogy. Nobody is running a deliberate scam here. It feels more like our legislators are amateurs sitting in on a poker game with the high rollers. And betting too much.

Jeff Smith gets credit for the title of this posting.