Shut the door!

Three years ago the former Republican Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives resigned his position and registered as a lobbyist shortly thereafter. His firm has since become one of the most prominent lobbying firms in the state representing such clients as the AFL-CIO.

His campaign account that donors once gave to in order to advance his political career stayed open until two weeks ago having donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates for public office even though he himself was no long a candidate.

The balance of the former Speaker’s terminated campaign account has now been donated to a new political action committee which has begun handing out campaign donations to state legislators.

Just this past summer the former Senate President Pro Tem resigned his position early to take a job with another of Missouri’s most prominent lobbying firms leaving his Senate District unrepresented.

A state representative who sponsored ethics reform legislation that would have required lawmakers to wait two years before becoming a lobbyist quit soon after being reelected to a third term and became a lobbyist. He also left his district unrepresented.

The former Democratic Senator from Jefferson County resigned early from the Missouri Senate to accept a Cabinet level gubernatorial appointment from Jay Nixon to run Missouri’s Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Another Republican state representative left his job early to take a gubernatorial appointment to the Board of Probation and Parole where he still serves.

You get the idea. This is called the revolving door whereby elected officials either quit early or wait until term limited to immediately become lobbyists or accept lucrative government jobs and monetize their time in public service.

It sends the wrong message and opens the policy process to the perception of impropriety. The revolving door is more than a Jefferson City trend it is part of the Capitol culture and it is time to change.

For years other elected officials have called for ethics reform but to no avail despite their best efforts.

Now there is some hope that the Missouri Legislature might finally get ethics reform done in 2016. For the first time in a long time there seems to be consensus on closing the revolving door and limiting or banning lobbyist gifts. House and Senate leadership seem to have their priorities straight and even liberal-progressive Governor Nixon seems to be on board.

With the apparent growing bipartisan chorus of voices calling for an end to the revolving door, a ban on lobbyist gifts and other ethics reforms what could derail it? The answer for anyone who has been around public policy and politics for much time knows the answer to that question – a lot can derail it.

Two things come quickly to mind:

1. Legislators could decide to go after the freedom of speech of private nonprofit organizations like the National Rifle Association, Pregnancy Resource Centers, and Americans for Prosperity, or Missouri Alliance for Freedom under the misguided facade of transparency.
2. Or the Governor and his associated liberal-progressives could attempt an assault on free speech by trying to force a limitation on the amount citizens can contribute to political campaigns of their choice.

Either of these attempts will likely result in strong push-back and gridlock in the Legislature resulting in ethics reform having to wait yet again.

If however, the Legislative and Executive Branches decide to leave the freedom of speech unmolested we are at a historic moment where we can begin to reform Jefferson City’s Capitol culture.

If you support closing the revolving door, banning gifts from lobbyists, and closing old campaign accounts and returning donors’ money along with a few other common sense ethics reforms then I encourage you to dial in to the fight.

If you do not already have your state legislators’ contact information you can click here to go to Missouri Alliance for Freedom’s Scorecard to find your state rep.’s and senator’s phone number and email address. Call or e-mail them now and tell them you support real ethics reform that leaves freedom of speech alone.

It is time to close Missouri government’s revolving door! Call now and let them know. Stay in the fight!

For Freedom!

Ryan Johnson, President of the Missouri Alliance for Freedom

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