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Nixon Again Fails to Return Ameren Cash Despite Conflict of Interest, Previous Claims Money Was Returned

July 17, 2007

JEFFERSON CITY – Recent campaign finance reports show that Jay Nixon has still not returned thousands of dollars in backdoor campaign contributions he received from Ameren when he began investigating the utility over the Taum Sauk reservoir collapse despite his claims last year that the money had been returned.

The campaign finance reports show that the $7,000 funneled to Nixon’s campaign by two Democrat committees through Ameren subsidiary Missouri Central Railroad Company remain in Nixon’s campaign coffers and that another $12,000 in Ameren contributions he received from the utility still remain in other party committees rather than in Ameren’s bank account.

The fact that more than $19,000 in Ameren contributions remain at Nixon’s disposal is even more disturbing since he refused to file criminal charges against the utility after missing critical evidence in a Missouri State Highway Patrol report which named two employees who removed critical reservoir probes. The Missouri Public Service Commission, which oversees utilities, has launched its own investigation into Ameren’s culpability in the reservoir collapse.

“Jay Nixon has been allowed to thumb his nose at Missourians for more than a year by engaging in a conflict of interest riddled investigation in which a political contributor and the focus of a major calamity in Reynolds County has not been properly investigated by the self-described chief law enforcement officer of the state,” said Paul Sloca, communications director for the Missouri Republican Party. “The people of Missouri have been denied justice by Nixon’s indebtedness to Ameren and the failure of most in the media to get to the bottom of this scandal. Why hasn’t Jay Nixon returned all of the Ameren money and why hasn’t the media called his bluff? Those are questions to which Missourians deserve answers.”