An Attorney General candidate says she will continue to press her case to open hardship hearings before the Missouri Ethics Commission, despite a setback in court.
Rep. Margaret Donnelly (D-St. Louis) is a Democrat running for Attorney General. Her request for a temporary restraining order against the Ethics Commission has been rejected by a Cole County Circuit Judge in Jefferson City. Donnelly considers that only a minor setback in her legal challenge of the commission. It doesn’t prevent her from presenting her full legal arguments to the court at a later date.
The State Supreme Court this summer struck down a state law that lifted campaign contribution limits. It ordered candidates to comply unless they could prove that to do so would cause their campaign a hardship. The Supreme Court left enforcement of its ruling up to the Ethics Commission.
Donnelly contends that the Ethics Commission has no right to close hearings with candidates who claim a hardship. A lawyer for the commission says state law not only allows the commission to close the hearings, but requires that the hearings be closed.
Download/listen Rep. Margaret Donnelly (D-St. Louis) on legal challenge (:16 MP3)
