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Bob Priddy: Missouri -elects- a sitting governor for only the second time in history

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Bob Priddy for Missourinet

Missouri voters did something Tuesday that was done only once before in the state’s 200-year history.  Historian Bob Priddy explains that Governor Mike Parson was not running for reelection. He was Lieutenant Governor when Eric Greitens resigned, moving him into the big office. This was the first time Missourians were faced with a sitting governor running for election since Lilburn Boggs, who as lieutenant governor replaced Daniel Dunklin, who resigned after becoming Surveyor General of Missouri and Illinois.

Boggs, who is best known for issuing the extermination order against the Mormons, was elected to a full term in 1836.

The extermination order said, the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace,” which led Joseph Smith and the Mormons to flee to Nauvoo, Illinois.  The order remained on the books until Governor Christopher Bond canceled it in 1976.

Boggs also is remembered for the “Honey War” for almost going to war with the state of Iowa, a boundary line dispute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Priddy: Missouri once had three secretaries of state in about a week

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Bob Priddy for Missourinet

Missouri once had three secretaries of state within a week. It was December 1994 when the Missouri Supreme Court removed Judi Moriarty. Governor Carnahan appointed his Director of Administration Dick Hanson to be the interim secretary of state.  By the end of the week, he had appointed Rebecca McDowell Cook of Cape Girardeau to complete Moriarty’s term.  Hanson, thus, has the distinction of having the shortest term of any Missouri statewide office-holder.

McDowell was a lawyer and state school board member. She became the second woman to hold the Secretary of State’s job—Moriarty being the first and only fourth woman to hold a statewide position.

She was elected to a full four-year term but did not run for re-election in 2000. Four years later she was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor but lost by one-half of one percentage point to fellow Cape Girardeau resident Peter Kinder, who went on to serve three terms.

Bob Priddy will be bringing his historical perspective to Missourinet’s live election coverage Nov. 3, after the polls close. Join us on your favorite station or on Missourinet Facebook Live.

Bob Priddy: Peaceful transfer of power was once blocked in Missouri

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Bob Priddy for Missourinet

President Trump’s back and forth on a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election might remind historians of a time when Missouri Democrats took the same approach.

Democrats had a stranglehold on state offices and on the legislature in 1940 when Forrest Donnell was the only Republican elected to statewide office.  In those days, the Missouri Speaker of the House was the official who proclaimed the official winners of statewide elections and Speaker Morris Osburn refused to certify Donnell’s election.

The loser, Democrat Larry McDaniel, and state Democratic Party Chairman C. Marion Hulen claimed voting irregularities made McDaniel a winner by 30-thousand votes, not the 36-hundred margin that made Donnell governor.

The Missouri Supreme Court ordered Donnell to be sworn in, six weeks late, and to serve until a recount showed he had lost.

The recount became a disaster for McDaniel, who withdrew his challenge without consulting Democratic leaders who had urged him to fight.

Donnell became the last Republican governor until Christopher Bond was elected 32 years later.

Bob Priddy has been writing a history of the Missouri Capitol, to be published by The University of Missouri Press

Bob Priddy: election history this week as 5 statewide officials run for their jobs for the first time

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Bob Priddy, special to Missourinet

Missourians are voting in a unique election this year because five statewide officeholders are trying to keep a job nobody elected them to hold four years ago.

Missouri historian Bob Priddy explains that Governor Mike Parson, Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Eric Schmitt, and Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick were not elected to their present offices in 2016.

The resignation of Governor Eric Greitens created a jobs shuffle at the top of state government.

In 2016, Parson was elected Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State treasurer. Kehoe was headed back to private life as a term-limited senator and Fitzpatrick was facing ouster from the House because of term limits. Parson moved up with the resignation of Governor Eric Greitens and promptly appointed Kehoe as Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State Treasurer then was appointed Attorney General when Josh Hawley ended Claire McCaskill’s U.S. Senate career.  Fitzpatrick, House Budget Committee chair, was appointed by Parson as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer.

The only statewide officeholder who is running for reelection, not just election this year, is Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who has stayed where voters put him four years ago.

They all have opponents who hope to short-circuit their historic bids on election day.