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In Kansas City, presidential candidate Buttigieg praises Veterans Community Project, says country is still struggling to support the troops (AUDIO)

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Democrat for President Pete Buttigieg joined Jason Kander in Kansas City to learn more about the city’s Veterans Community Project (VCP) . Kander, a Democrat and veterans’ activist, is now working on taking the service for homeless former service members nationwide.

The night before, he entertained a thousand people at a campaign fundraiser in Kansas City and announced he has raised more than any other presidential candidate in his party in the second quarter — more than $25 million.

Buttigieg, in a press conference, praised the group formed and run by former service members, saying it’s services are necessary, “not as a gift but as the country’s way of keeping a promise. You’ve got Americans who pledged to put their life on the line, not necessarily even knowing what that would mean and many of whom now face challenges, some of them as a direct consequence of their service to the country.”

The services of VCP include providing tiny houses for homeless veterans and walk-in support services for “every type of veteran facing every type of problem.”

During his only stop in Missouri Wednesday, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, took questions about his candidacy and his plans to help veterans. He touted a community support group for veterans in his city that he says taps volunteers who are “experts in their own communities” to help.

“This does not have to be driven from Washington,”Buttigieg said. “The question is how can federal policy be a wind at their back.”

Listen to an excerpt of the press conference (9:50)

Thanks to KCUR for press conference audio.

Legislature offers voters an early voting ballot measure

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The state legislature has sent voters a proposal to allow six business days of early voting before general elections. The proposal cleared the House on Wednesday, a day after it was approved in the Senate.

Representative Tony Dugger (R-Hartville) sponsored the early voting proposal in the House. (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Tony Dugger (R-Hartville) sponsored the early voting proposal in the House. (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The proposal would change the Missouri Constitution to allow voters to mail in ballots or vote in-person during business hours. Early voting would end on the Wednesday before the election.

Democrats in the House say the proposal is a “sham,” and say it is only meant to distract voters in November from a less restricted form of early voting outlined in an initiative petition that is pending with the Secretary of State. Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) has offered similar criticism.

The plan would not require local election authorities to offer early voting if no money is included in the annual state operating budget to reimburse them for it. Democrats are also critical of that provision, saying it allows future legislatures to block early voting by denying such an appropriation.

Republicans defend the plan as a legitimate early voting proposal that would not put a financial burden on local election authorities.

House committee hears five takes on ethics reform

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The House Committee on General Laws spent an hour-and-a-half Tuesday afternoon hearing five different proposals that all take different approaches at ethics reform. Lawmakers left that hearing appearing to agree that ethics reform is needed. Governor Jay Nixon and Secretary of State Jason Kander have also called for ethics reform, and legislation on the issue was also heard in a Senate committee Tuesday afternoon.

Three of those bills include a limitation on how quickly after leaving office a former legislator can become a lobbyist. That was one provision that drew criticism from some lawmakers.

Representative Rocky Miller (R-Tuscumbia) questions the need for such a provision.

“Everybody wants to limit what somebody does for a living. I thought the whole point of being a free nation was that we could grow up and become adults and go to work and do what we want to do for a living.”

Representative Mike Colona (D-St. Louis County) says such provisions could cause the law to be thrown out by a judge.

“You’re telling me I can’t work in an industry that I’ve been in for the last 8 years, or 6 years, or 4 years, to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Representative Kevin McManus (D-Kansas City) says one problem with lawmakers immediately becoming lobbyists is that those individuals would be allowed to convert campaign contributions to personal use for someone else.

He explains to one committee member, “If you employ me to work on your campaign and you pay me $10,000 and I don’t do one thing, you’ve just transferred your campaign funds to me and we’ve gotten around this whole issue of converting campaign funds to private use.”

Committee Chairman Caleb Jones (R-Columbia) suggests that rather than one, comprehensive proposal, the committee should consider sending out several bills that address different ethics issues.

“My concern is,” Jones says, “that this would go before a judge on one piece of [a large bill], the judge is going to throw the whole bill out and we’re stuck back where we are, where the public keeps having concerns about how we operate.”

McManus, whose proposal is the largest of the five heard Tuesday, told Jones he would be open to breaking its provisions up into a series of bills.

Policy Director John Scott with the Secretary of State’s Office commended the committee for taking on the ethics issue.

“I think it speaks well of the committee … I think Missourians around the state who have expressed support for ethics reform would really appreciate that.”

The committee has not voted on any of those bills.

The five proposals are:

HB 1340 (McManus)

HB 1440 (Randy Dunn)

HB 1258 (Caleb Rowden)

HB 1260 (Jones)

HB 1267 (Robert Cornejo)

Kander files civil action against Mamtek bond underwriter

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The Office of Secretary of State Jason Kander has filed a civil enforcement action against Memphis, Tennessee-based Morgan Keegan and against 10 of its employees who worked on the sale of 39-million in bonds for the scrapped Mamtek sugar refinery at Moberly.

The Mamtek facility sits empty at the north end of Moberly.

The Mamtek facility sits empty at the north end of Moberly.

Morgan Keegan issued $39 million in bonds for the project. Kander is seeking $6.7 million in restitution for Missouri investors and $15 million in civil penalties.

Kander accuses the firm of securities fraud.

“If not for Morgan Keegan’s failure to satisfy basic due diligence standards, we wouldn’t be here today,” Kander tells Missourinet. “Had they done that it would have revealed to Missouri investors that Mamtek’s promises were false, and so in addition to failing to perform adequate due diligence during their underwriting of the bonds … Morgan Keegan exclusively sold the bonds in and out of Missouri and misrepresented the facts, and provided false information about the offerings.”

Secretary of State’s Office Communications Director Laura Swinford says the petition alleges Morgan Keegan failed to independently verify material facts, such as, “Mamtek’s financial ability to contribute to the construction of the sucralose facility, the existence of patents on the sucralose producing technology and the purported sucralose facility in China.”

The civil enforcement action was filed in Boone County Circuit Court, where the largest single bondholder is located.

Kander’s office also seeks to have Morgan Keegan barred from underwriting any more bond issues in Missouri until it hires an independent consultant to review its due diligence policies.

When Kander was in the House, he was a member of the Special Standing Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability, that investigated the Mamtek project as it had been in line for more than $17-million in state subsidies.

The Chairman of that Committee, Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City), says he is, “pleased to see actions to hold those accountable responsible.”

Early voting recommendations filed by House republican

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A House Republican has filed the early voting proposals recommended by a commission created by the Democrat Secretary of State.

Representative Myron Neth (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Myron Neth (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The bill is proposed by Representative Myron Neth (R-Liberty), who is the vice-chairman of the House Elections Committee. It would allow no-excuse absentee balloting, early voting at a central polling place, satellite voting in Presidential elections and would make early voting lists confidential. Those are the reforms identified earlier this year by the Secretary of State’s bipartisan Early Voting Commission.

Neth says to him these ideas are about making voting more accessible.

“The whole early voting thing … I think that just needs to be kept in our minds, of something that we could change to make it better.”

Neth says he wanted to at least have a discussion, but he doesn’t expect there is much chance his proposal will advance this session.

“The priority of our caucus is photo I.D. Now, if something could help that along, and early voting might be that, we might pull it in the mix. If that’s not the case, the chances of it getting much traction in the caucus is probably slim at this point.”

The House has already passed a voter photo identification bill and proposed constitutional amendment to the Senate.

Opponents of early voting say it creates more opportunities for voter fraud. Neth says the provisions in his bill, in some ways, actually strengthen the security of the voting system.

“It’s going to be the same kind of process as if you were going to go at a polling place, with sattelite locations or whatever.” He adds, “To me, you might I think you might actually have less absentee voting, which I think sometimes with mail-in ballots, absentee, that kind of thing, sometimes I think you have more opportunity for fraud … whereas this case where you open it up to where there’s more time for people to vote, and if they have to come and if we can get photo I.D. done, then they’ve got to show that photo I.D. when they vote.”

Some opponents also argue that early voting tends to favor one party over another, but Neth says he hasn’t seen that in his experience.

“Maybe there’s some anacdotal evidence or other evidence out there to show that. For me, personally and for how I’ve seen people and how people have absentee voted before, I don’t think it skews one way or the other.”

Secretary of State Jason Kander says having a Republican support his measure demonstates that there is bipartisan support for it.

“I’ve not talked to any legislators who say that they are against early voting. It’s an issue that has passed the legislature before and we felt like we needed to give it a fresh look and a fresh push forwrard.”

One lawmaker who does say he generally opposes early voting is House Speaker Tim Jones (R-Eureka).

“We have an election day in this country for a reason and I don’t want to dilute the importance of election day with some kind of aggresive early voting procedure … people are going to have to prove to me why they need early voting. We have a very, I think, easily accessible absentee voting system that I have never found to be a problem if I have a problem voting on voting day.”

As for whether Republican support for early voting could sway Kander on the issue of voter photo I.D., Kander says he won’t support the proposal passed this year by the House. He says it disenfranchises many Missourians, particularly among the elderly and minorities. He thinks that proposal, if it clears the legislature and the governor, will be thrown out by the courts.

Secretary of State candidates split on top issue facing the office

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After two terms for Robin Carnahan, Missouri will have a new Secretary of State in 2013. The two major party candidates for that office disagree on the most important issue in the race.

Republican Shane Schoeller says it’s taking away opportunities for voter fraud, “That we do more to protect the integrity of the elections. That’s why I’ve been a strong proponent of getting photo ID passed as the primary source of identification when you show up to vote on election day, which my opponent (Jason) Kander has called ‘extreme’ and ‘unfair.'”

Democrat Jason Kander does say the proposals that have come up in Missouri were extreme and unfair, and he points out approaches taken in other states that he supports.

“If you look at Idaho, for instance … no one would call it a liberal stronghold, and it has come up with a sensible and strong voter ID law that doesn’t disenfranchise a single eligible voter. In Idaho, if an eligible voter goes to cast a ballot on election day and doesn’t have photo identification, the voter can sign a sworn affidavit and then cast a ballot like everyone else, not a provisional ballot … which are rarely counted. If voters aren’t who they say they are, they’ll be put in jail. That seems like a strong deterrent to me.”

Schoeller says he proposed a bill that included the affidavit language that Kander voted against. Kander says the difference between it and the Idaho measure is that Schoeller’s proposal would have given individuals in that situation a provisional ballot, but Schoeller says the ballot would be counted unless it is proven the person casting it is not a legitimate voter.

Kander says the most important issue facing the Secretary of State, and all elected officials, is finding ways to spur job creation. He says his approach would begin with the office’s business services division.

“What I will do is make sure that the folks who work in the business services division also take a real, proactive role in connecting and building relationships with organizations throughout the state … many of which are nonprofit organizations … who exist to help new entrepreneurs avoid some of the common pitfalls that people run into when they first start a business.” Kander adds, “If we develop those relationships through the business services division, then we can make sure to connect people with these organizations that many times they don’t even know are there in their community.”

Schoeller says he, too, has plans in mind for that division to help foster job creation.

“Right now, there’s a little less than 60 different classifications that you have to figure out how to register a business under when you register a business in the state of Missouri. In our neighboring state of Kansas they have less than ten classifications.” Schoeller says he would work to reduce the number of classifications used in Missouri.

Schoeller says another area important to businesses relates to when rules are passed either through the legislative process or by voters. “All too often, regulators sometimes write beyond the intent of legislation and they, for example, write into the rule making process their own ideas. I think it’s important that if you’re in the office of the Secretary of State that … you’re protecting people who are business owners and Missourians across the state from any unnecessary regulations.”

Schoeller accuses Secretary Carnahan of allowing such regulations to go forward, and says he will hold regulators accountable.

Voters go to the polls a week from tomorrow.