…via Twitter message last night:

[@MBersin] Do you have a statement on AG Koster’s investigation of Planned Parenthood?

The reply from Senator Jill Schupp (D):

[@JillSchupp] Due to MO laws & questions raised, ok for AG to investigate. MO PP does not engage in practice-investigation should be swift & conclusive.

Previously:

On science (July 18, 2015)

Smarmy Ann Wagner point person in election year push against Planned Parenthood (July 18, 2015)

Savaging Planned Parenthood in Missouri (July 22, 2015)

Real Democrats – but not in Missouri (July 22, 2015)

A campaign finance reform bill, pre-filed in the Senate by Jill Schupp (D):

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

SENATE BILL NO. 123 [pdf]

98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY SENATOR SCHUPP.

Pre-filed December 3, 2014, and ordered printed.

[….]

AN ACT

[….]

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows:

Section A. Section 130.044 as enacted by senate bill no. 844, ninety-fifth general assembly, second regular session, and section 130.044 as enacted by senate bill no. 1038, ninety-fourth general assembly, second regular session, are repealed and three new sections enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as sections 21.431, 130.032, and 130.044, to read as follows:

21.431. No member elected to either chamber of the general assembly who vacates the office, whether by resignation, expulsion, term limitation under Section 8, Article III, Constitution of Missouri, or otherwise, shall act, serve, or register as a lobbyist as defined in section 105.470 until one full regular session of the general assembly has both convened and adjourned as provided in Sections 20 and 20(a), Article III, Constitution of Missouri, after such member vacates the office.

130.032. 1. In addition to the limitations imposed under section 130.031, the amount of contributions made by or accepted from any person other than the candidate in any one election shall not exceed the following:

(1) To elect an individual to the office of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor, or attorney general, five thousand dollars;

(2) To elect an individual to the office of state senator, one thousand five hundred dollars;

(3) To elect an individual to the office of state representative, seven hundred fifty dollars;

(4) To elect an individual to any other office, including judicial office, if the population of the electoral district, ward, or other unit according to the latest decennial census does not exceed fifty thousand, seven hundred fifty dollars;

(5) To elect an individual to any other office, including judicial office, if the population of the electoral district, ward, or other unit according to the latest decennial census is more than fifty thousand but does not exceed one hundred fifty thousand, one thousand five hundred dollars; and

(6) To elect an individual to any other office, including judicial office, if the population of the electoral district, ward, or other unit according to the latest decennial census is greater than one hundred fifty thousand, five thousand dollars.

2. The amount of aggregate contributions made by any single contributor in a calendar year to any political party committee shall not exceed thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars.

3. For purposes of this subsection, “base year amount” shall be the contribution limits prescribed in this section on January 1, 2016. Such limits shall be increased on the first day of January in each odd-numbered year by multiplying the base year amount by the cumulative consumer price index, as defined in section 104.010 and rounded to the nearest twenty-five dollar amount, for all years since January 1, 2016.

4. Every committee established under this chapter shall be subject to the limits prescribed in subsection 1 of this section. The provisions of this subsection shall not limit the amount of contributions that may be accumulated by a candidate committee and used for expenditures to further the nomination or election of the candidate who controls such candidate committee.

5. Contributions from persons under fourteen years of age shall be considered made by the parents or guardians of such person and shall be attributed toward any contribution limits prescribed in this

chapter. Where the contributor under fourteen years of age has two custodial parents or guardians, fifty percent of the contribution shall be attributed to each parent or guardian, and where such contributor has one custodial parent or guardian, all such contributions shall be attributed to the custodial parent or guardian.

6. Contributions received and expenditures made before January 1, 2016, shall be reported as a separate account and under the laws in effect at the time such contributions are received or expenditures made. Contributions received and expenditures made after January 1, 2016, shall be reported under the provisions of this chapter as a separate account from the other separate account described in this subsection. The account reported under the prior law shall be retained as a separate account and any remaining funds in such account may be used under this chapter.

7. Any committee that accepts or gives contributions other than those allowed shall be subject to a surcharge of one thousand dollars plus an amount equal to the contribution per nonallowable contribution, to be paid to the ethics commission and which shall be transferred to the director of revenue, upon notification of such nonallowable contribution by the ethics commission, and after the candidate has had ten business days after receipt of notice to return the contribution to the contributor. The candidate and the candidate committee treasurer or deputy treasurer owing a surcharge shall be personally liable for the payment of the surcharge or may pay such surcharge only from campaign funds existing on the date of the receipt of notice. Such surcharge shall constitute a debt to the state enforceable under, but not limited to, the provisions of chapter 143.

[….]

[emphasis in original]

In addition, the amount for reporting a single contribution within forty-eight hours is reduced in the bill from $5,000.00 to $2,000.00. During the legislative session or while awaiting gubernatorial action contributions to members of the General Assembly, candidates for the General Assembly, statewide state office holders, or candidates for statewide state offices would be required to report contributions of $500.00 or higher within forty-eight hours.

It’s a start.

What are the chances?  

In the open seat 24th Senate District race between Jill Schupp (D) and John Ashcroft (r):

Office/Candidate Name Party Votes % of Votes

State Senator – District 24 160 of 160 Precincts Reported

Jill Schupp Democratic 27,662 49.925%

John R. Ashcroft Republican 26,030 46.980%

Jim Higgins Libertarian 1,715 3.095%

Total Votes: 55,407

[emphasis added]

Apparently there are still pockets of Missouri where you can’t buy a legacy a seat. Yet.

Jill Schupp (D) versus the legacy (r) in the 24th Senate District (October 25, 2014)

Campaign Finance: paving the legacy’s path to the Senate in gold (October 19, 2014)

Campaign Finance: polling, polling, polling… (September 24, 2014)

Campaign Finance: all in on the legacy (September 23, 2014)

Campaign Finance: supporting the legacy in $10,000.00 increments (September 5, 2014)

Campaign Finance: legacies (August 27, 2014)

“He said legacies usually get asked to pledge automatically.” (August 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: all that money in the 24th Senate District republican primary (August 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: 24th Senate District – July quarterly campaign finance reports (July 18, 2014)

Campaign Finance: end of quarter confidence in the 24th Senate District (July 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: 24th Senate District – April quarterly campaign finance reports (April 19, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Friends of the family?  (April 11, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Make room for daddy? (April 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: trying to catch up in the 24th Senate District (March 31, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Schupp (D) and Lamping (r) in the 24th Senate District – 4th quarter 2013 (January 15, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Schupp (D) and Lamping (r) in the 24th Senate District – 3rd quarter 2013 (October 21, 2013)

Does that include a ride on the blimp? (November 1, 2014)

Hoover: Kent is a legacy, Otter. His brother was a ’59, Fred Dorfman.

Flounder: He said legacies usually get asked to pledge automatically.

Otter: Oh, well, usually. Unless the pledge in question turns out to be a real closet-case.

Otter, Boon: Like Fred.

A Rex Sinquefield funded PAC dropped even more money on the legacy in the 24th Senate District race (yesterday, via the Missouri Ethics Commission::

C141179 10/31/2014 ASHCROFT FOR MISSOURI Grow Missouri 308 E High Street Jefferson City MO 65101 10/31/2014 $112,013.00

[emphasis added]

It was an in-kind [pdf] contribution. Maybe it was a Halloween ride on the blimp.

The Rex Sinquefield funded PAC Grow Missouri’s moving billboard at

the University of Central Missouri’s Skyhaven Airport near Warrensburg this morning.

Heh.

Previously:

Jill Schupp (D) versus the legacy (r) in the 24th Senate District (October 25, 2014)

Campaign Finance: paving the legacy’s path to the Senate in gold (October 19, 2014)

Campaign Finance: polling, polling, polling… (September 24, 2014)

Campaign Finance: all in on the legacy (September 23, 2014)

Campaign Finance: supporting the legacy in $10,000.00 increments (September 5, 2014)

Campaign Finance: legacies (August 27, 2014)

“He said legacies usually get asked to pledge automatically.” (August 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: all that money in the 24th Senate District republican primary (August 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: 24th Senate District – July quarterly campaign finance reports (July 18, 2014)

Campaign Finance: end of quarter confidence in the 24th Senate District (July 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: 24th Senate District – April quarterly campaign finance reports (April 19, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Friends of the family?  (April 11, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Make room for daddy? (April 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: trying to catch up in the 24th Senate District (March 31, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Schupp (D) and Lamping (r) in the 24th Senate District – 4th quarter 2013 (January 15, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Schupp (D) and Lamping (r) in the 24th Senate District – 3rd quarter 2013 (October 21, 2013)

A few months ago I met Jay Ashcroft, the Republican candidate running against Rep. Jill Schupp (D-88) for the Missouri Senate 24th District seat, while he was walking through my neighborhood greeting potential voters. He came across as personable in a somewhat feckless way and he was hauling one of his cute little kids in his wake, all calculated to thrill folks in my heavily Republican neighborhood who, presumably, remember the heyday of his father, George W. Bush’s very conservative Attorney General, John Ashcroft.  Many of us have been counting on Rep. Jill Schupp to bring our district into the Democratic fold, but I have to admit that this show of early campaign zeal on the part of this scion of the Missouri Republican establishment left me a bit worried that she might not be able to waltz into the Senate.  

And I was right to be worried – but not because Ashcroft has been burning up the shoe-leather on my neighborhoods’ sidewalks, but because the Ashcroft name elicited the predictable Pavlovian slobbering from the GOP establishment. Lots of big GOP donors jumped in to help the baby Ashcroft take his first big political step. He harvested almost $60,000 from Rex Sinquefield alone, although the lion’s share of his financial support has come from Missouri Republican pols hoping to reinforce their Senate majority:

Republican state senators have bankrolled Ashcroft’s campaign, providing $570,411 through a joint political action committee and $110,505 through their individual campaign committees. Ashcroft said that did not obligate him to side with them.

Yeah right … . As you might surmise from that coy comment, Ashcroft is attempting the Ann Wagner say-nothing approach in order to avoid alienating any group  of potential backers, a strategy that has a better chance of working in his case since, unlike Wagner, he is a newcomer with no political record that might give his actual positions away. He has been so noncommittal that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Virginia Young concluded that “his positions on issues often seem under development.”

What’s not under development, though, is Ashcroft’s willingness to adopt the GOP’s tried-and-true smear techniques. I recently received a mailer from the Ashcroft campaign telling me that Jill Schupp, who spent much of her time in the Missouri House struggling against GOP policies that would decimate the welfare of the state’s children, is enabling – wait for it – “sexual predators” in our schools. That’s right, she’s hand-in-glove with pederasts, according to Ashcroft. I understand from today’s Post-Dispatch that his campaign’s been airing TV spots making the same claims.  

The mailer cites a number of bills, many of which do include the provisions that touch on issues involving sex-offenders. Many of these bills are omnibus bills chock full of unrelated changes to the state’ criminal code or other bodies of law. Consider SB815 from 2010, which Ashcroft cites, which requires candidates for School boards to submit “documentation to the election authority to demonstrate that he or she does not have disqualifying information on the family care safety registry and does not have any substantiated claims of child abuse on the central child abuse registry.” It also has lengthy provisions concerning charter school governance, school finances, teacher requirements, teacher compensation and governance, and much, much more.

Careful politicians don’t just vote for part of a bill, or for a single-focus bill’s worthy intentions; they want to know what it will achieve in toto and, if like Jill Schupp, they’re conscientious, they take the big picture into consideration. They want to know if the goal has already been realized in other existing or pending legislation, or if it will have any unintended, negative consequences. Given the propensity of this predominantly Republican legislature to carelessness when drafting legislation, one would ask for no less.

The Post-Dispatch quotes Emily van Schenkhof, deputy director of Missouri Kids First, a child welfare lobbying group that, who not only takes issue with Ashcroft’s smearing of Schupp, but who adds that such campaigning has the potential to discourage good legislation dealing with child sex-offenders:

Van Schenkhof said ads portraying isolated votes as favoring predators are “going to make it harder for us to do thoughtful policy work on sex offenders, because people aren’t going to want to get involved in these conversations”.

It’s fair to expect politicians to be accountable for their votes, but when it comes to how they vote on particular bills, it’s important to make sure one has all the information. It’s especially important when the information is coming near the end of a close election and the source is an individual who himself doesn’t seem to want to go on the record on any of the hard questions if it might result in election-day blowback, but who is more than willing to distort his opponents voting record.

Is it possible that along with the generally bad smell emanating from the Ashcroft campaign in the wake of this last, shameful maneuver, one can also detect a whiff of desperation? Maybe all that second-hand, GOP greenback courage isn’t working the way it was supposed to and the Ashcroft heir is running scared?  

Via Twitter:

Jill Schupp ‏@JillSchupp

Senator @Clairecmc understands the importance of this Senate race and getting out the vote on November 4th. 1:13 PM – 26 Oct 2014

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission

C131081 10/26/2014 SCHUPP FOR SENATE Claire McCaskill PO Box 30077 St Louis MO 63130 United States Senator 10/25/2014 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Yes, she does.

A television ad:

various: Jay Ashcroft doesn’t trust women to make decisions about their bodies. I’m worried Ashcroft would limit my access, my access to birth control. I’m worried Ashcroft wants to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. I’m worried Ashcroft will be another Todd Akin. We need someone we can trust.

Jill Schupp: I’m Jill Schupp and unlike Jay Ashcroft I trust women to make these important decisions. I’ll always protect a woman’s right to choose and access to birth control because I trust Missouri women.

There are plenty more reasons to vote for Jill Schupp over the legacy in the 24th Senate District race. In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Editorial: Care about Medicaid expansion? Vote for Jill Schupp

[….]

….We endorse Ms. Schupp to be the next state senator from the 24th District.

Her experience, her clear positions on Medicaid expansion and a variety of other issues, and the Senate’s desperate need for more ideological balance make Ms. Schupp the clear choice over political newcomer Jay Ashcroft, a Republican from unincorporated west St. Louis County.

Mr. Ashcroft is the son of former Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft, who went on to become a U.S. senator and U.S. attorney general before starting a Clayton law practice, where the younger Ashcroft also works. Mr. Ashcroft has never held political office, and his inexperience shows in his lack of clarity on key issues….

[….]

“…his inexperience shows in his lack of clarity on key issues…”

For right wingnut republicans that’s a feature, not a bug.

Hoover: Kent is a legacy, Otter. His brother was a ’59, Fred Dorfman.

Flounder: He said legacies usually get asked to pledge automatically.

Otter: Oh, well, usually. Unless the pledge in question turns out to be a real closet-case.

Otter, Boon: Like Fred.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: polling, polling, polling… (September 24, 2014)

Campaign Finance: all in on the legacy (September 23, 2014)

Campaign Finance: supporting the legacy in $10,000.00 increments (September 5, 2014)

Campaign Finance: legacies (August 27, 2014)

“He said legacies usually get asked to pledge automatically.” (August 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: all that money in the 24th Senate District republican primary (August 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: 24th Senate District – July quarterly campaign finance reports (July 18, 2014)

Campaign Finance: end of quarter confidence in the 24th Senate District (July 3, 2014)

Campaign Finance: 24th Senate District – April quarterly campaign finance reports (April 19, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Friends of the family?  (April 11, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Make room for daddy? (April 7, 2014)

Campaign Finance: trying to catch up in the 24th Senate District (March 31, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Schupp (D) and Lamping (r) in the 24th Senate District – 4th quarter 2013 (January 15, 2014)

Campaign Finance: Schupp (D) and Lamping (r) in the 24th Senate District – 3rd quarter 2013 (October 21, 2013)

Campaign Finance: paving the legacy’s path to the Senate in gold (October 19, 2014)