Missouri Municipal League Archives

Missouri Supreme Court to hear key Sunshine law case on Wednesday involving costs for public records

February 2, 2021 By Brian Hauswirth

The Missouri Supreme Court will hear remote oral arguments on Wednesday in Jefferson City in a key Sunshine law dispute between GOP Governor Mike Parson’s office and a former Democratic candidate for attorney general.

The case is “Elad Gross vs. Governor Parson.” While there are several arguments in this case, the biggest one is whether public governmental bodies such as the governor’s office can charge costs for searching for and researching public records.

This case began in October 2018 when Elad Gross, who later ran for attorney general in 2020, sent a Sunshine request to the governor’s office regarding campaign contributions. The governor’s office said the request found more than 13,600 documents and would cost about $3,600 to produce and take up to 120 business days to provide.

Gross later amended his request and received about 60 pages, some of which were redacted.

Mr. Gross alleges that Governor Parson’s office charged excessive fees. However, then-Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia M. Joyce dismissed Gross’ case. Judge Joyce, a Democrat, has since retired.

Gross is appealing to the Missouri Supreme Court, which will hear the case Wednesday morning at 9. Counselor Gross wants the Missouri Supreme Court to rule that the governor’s office violated the state Sunshine law.

Mr. Gross has filed a 48-page brief with the Missouri Supreme Court, saying the governor’s office abused its discretion by acting arbitrarily and in not waiving or reducing fees with his first Sunshine request.

Gross also questions why he was being charged $40 per hour when state law calls for record production “using employees of the body that result in the lowest amount of charges for search, research and duplication time,” according to his brief.

Governor Parson’s office is being represented by Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office. Deputy Attorney General Jeremiah Morgan has filed a 37-page brief with the Missouri Supreme Court.

Deputy Attorney General Morgan’s main argument involves the plain language of the Sunshine Law, saying it authorizes research time to be charged at the actual cost and does not require a waiver of those costs. Mr. Morgan also says closed and privileged material can be redacted from responsive documents.

Morgan also addresses Gross’ complaint about the $40 rate, saying the $40 per hour rate is the hourly rate of the lowest-paid attorney on the Governor’s staff. Morgan also says that research time is a major part of an attorney’s work.

“The fundamental question in this case is whether a public governmental body, such as the Governor’s office, can charge its actual costs for searching, researching, or duplicating public records, even if some or all of the research is done by an attorney that is an employee of the public governmental body. The answer is, unquestionably, yes,” Deputy Attorney General Morgan writes, in his brief.

Morgan says the governor’s office followed the Sunshine Law’s plain language, and he’s asking the Missouri Supreme Court to affirm Judge Joyce’s ruling.

This case is also attracting major interest from other groups, who have filed what are known as amici briefs. That means friends of the court.

Attorneys Bernard Rhodes and Brad Johnson represent the “Kansas City Star”, and attorneys Joseph Martineau and Lewis Rice represent the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch.” They’ve filed an amici brief.

“The Sunshine Law does not allow public governmental bodies to charge for time attorneys spend reviewing public records because no provision in the Sunshine Law authorizes such charges,” the newspaper attorneys write, in their 31-page brief.

The Missouri Press Association and the “Missouri Sunshine Coalition” have also submitted amici briefs.

The Missouri Municipal League, which represents about 650 municipalities across the state, has also filed an amici brief.

COVID will impact Wednesday’s oral arguments. Counselor Gross and Deputy Attorney General Morgan will argue their cases remotely, via zoom. Chief Justice George Draper will be the only Missouri Supreme Court judge in the Jefferson City courtroom. The other six judges will participate remotely.

The Missouri Supreme Court has been conducting remote arguments since the Lamar Johnson case in April 2020, due to COVID concerns.

Proposed tax increase for transportation considered in House committee

February 5, 2014 By Mike Lear

Those for and against asking voters for a temporary increase in the state sales tax to support transportation have made their cases to a House Committee.

Representative Dave Hinson (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Even those who oppose a one-percent increase in the state sales tax to support transportation told a House Committee they understand that the Transportation Department needs more money.

Read the proposal, HJR 68

Richard Sheets with the Missouri Municipal League says his members are concerned that a higher sales tax would make it harder to pass or renew local taxes.

“Many of the funds that cities use … the capital improvement sales tax … are sunset. They’re based on particular projects so they come back before the voters,” explains Sheets. “As the sales tax increases, my members concerns are that those issues would not prevail at the ballot.”

Jeanette Mott-Oxford with the Missouri Association for Social Welfare says she offered better solutions when she was a state legislator.

“For the 20-percent of Missourians that have household incomes of less than $17,000 a year, their total tax share is 9.6 percent of their incomes now,” Mott-Oxford says. “Part of that is sales tax, part is property tax, part is income tax, part is excise taxes … the full range of what we do. They have no discretionary income. They have a lot of month left at the end of their paycheck … they would really feel this increase.”

Supporters argue that the same low-income Missourians will be impacted no matter how the state looks to generate more transportation dollars.

Transportation Department Director Dave Nichols testified in support of the proposal. He tells lawmakers its proceeds would not be limited to funding roads.

“Missourians all across the state, whether you’re in a rural area or an urban area, have told us that we need to have dedicated state funding for other modes of transportation,” says Nichols. “This solution that Representative (Dave) Hinson has brought to you today has that built-in … that there are dollars that can be used for any transportation purpose in our state.”

Senator Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City) told Missourinet earlier this week supporters of the tax have found costs too high to pursue a petition campaign. See that story here.

Missouri Municipal League on failure, future of out-of-state vehicle sales tax

September 14, 2012 By Mike Lear

One of the organizations that helped develop and supported HB 1329 in the last legislative session says it will try another piece of legislation in the 2013 session.

The Missouri Municipal League expects another bill dealing with sales tax collection on vehicle purchases to be put before the Missouri legislature in 2013.

Deputy Director Richard Sheets of the Missouri Municipal League says its attorneys helped craft 1329, which would have allowed local governments to resume collection of sales taxes on vehicles purchased from private Missourians or out-of-state dealers. The bill was created after a Supreme Court ruling in March that such collection was unconstitutional.

It had strong bipartisan support and was passed by veto-proof margins in the session, but was vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon. The House didn’t bring the bill up to attempt a veto overturn, with Republican leadership saying it didn’t have enough support from the Democratic caucus.

Governor Nixon in recent weeks highlighted that overturning his veto would mean more than 122 thousand Missourians would retroactively owe taxes on vehicle purchases made since the Court’s ruling. That alarmed many lawmakers who had supported the bill before, and was seen as likely grounds for a court challenge over the bill’s constitutionality.

Sheets says the issue of retroactively was considered by MML’s attorneys when they were creating the language. “Their thought was to make this seamless in order to show that this was … had always been the intent of the legislature. That really was our point in this. This was not a new tax, this was not a new feature of our sales tax … that was the intent of the statute when it was written.”

Sheets anticipates another bill to be offered in the 2013 legislative session, taking into account the concerns over retroactively.

He says without those tax collections, local governments are suffering from the loss of a revenue stream they have enjoyed for decades. Enactment of use taxes at the local level can address that concern, but Sheets thinks the issue must still be addressed legislatively.

“Our problem is this was a tax that should never have gone away … this was included in the sales tax when the voters voted on this. We just think that there’s a lot of problems with this whole thing.”

Republicans have criticized Governor Nixon for not becoming involved in the development of the bill prior to vetoing it, but Sheets says the League met with the Governor on several occasions while it was being developed.

“The Governor really understood the issue and wanted to work with us and we met with the Governor, but he just could not get past thinking that another vote was necessary and we really disagreed with the Governor in that respect.

Sheets expects to work with Nixon again in creating a new bill.