In this issue:

• Republican Economic Vision Spurs Entrepreneurship
• U.S. Rep. Blunt Recognized for Commitment to Innovation
• Governor’s Policies Lead to End of Debt
• Governor Seeks Federal Flooding Assistance
• Governor Secures Funding to Fight Meth
• ALERT: Important Campaign Finance Guidance
• Democrat Follies: Activist Judges Risk Increasing Missourians’ Taxes
• Democrat Follies: Barnes Hypocrisy on Gas Prices
• Democrat Follies: Desperate Democrats Fail Missourians
• Democrat Follies: Nixon Fails to Protect Children Against Predators
• Media Watch: News-Leader Touts Governor’s Successes
• Media Watch: Southeast Missourian Praises Lewis and Clark Plan
• Media Watch: MissouriPulse.com Post of the Week
• The Cornerstone
• Thoughts and Prayers

Upcoming Events

• 6-5-2007: Cole County Central Committee Meeting
• 6-6-2007: St. Louis City Central Committee Meeting
• 6-9-2007: Missouri Republican State Committee Summer Meeting
• 6-11-2007: Boone Co. Federated Republican Women Luncheon
• 6-16-2007: 21st Senatorial Dist. Committee Mtg.
• 6-16-2007: Race for a Cure with Team Melanie Blunt - our First Lady of Missouri!
• 6-18-2007: Central Missouri Young Republican Meeting
• 6-22-2007: Missouri Federation of Repuplican Women Convention
• 6-23-2007: Missouri Federation of Repuplican Women Convention
• 6-24-2007: Missouri Federation of Repuplican Women Convention
• 6-28-2007: 2007 National Pachyderm Conference
• 6-29-2007: 2007 National Pachyderm Conference
• 6-30-2007: 2007 National Pachyderm Conference

ALERT: Important Campaign Finance Guidance

An important reminder that under campaign finance reform legislation signed into law last year, county committees, legislative district committees, senatorial district committees, congressional district committees and the State Party committee can NO LONGER write checks to a candidate committee, a continuing committee, or even EACH OTHER.

While the regulatory changes are more complex than discussed here, here are just a few examples of violations to be aware of and to avoid:

• Political party committees cannot write a check to candidate committees for candidates or incumbents.
• Political party committees cannot write a check to continuing committees such as the local College Republicans or local Republican Women’s Club.
• Political party committees cannot write a check to other political parties such as their local county central committee or congressional district committee.

But the new rules also allow us to help Republican candidates. Candidate committees can now accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations or PACs and unlimited in-kind contributions from those groups and political parties. An in-kind contribution is a “contribution or expenditure in a form other than money.” Below are some examples of in-kind contributions:

• Political party committees can write a check directly to a utility company to pay for the candidate committee’s electric bill.
• Political party committees can write a check directly to a hotel for catering costs of a fundraiser held by the local Republican Women’s Club.
• Political party committees can provide office supplies, office space, and phone lines to candidate committees, continuing committees and each other.

REMINDER: If thresholds are met, all activity must be properly reported to the Missouri Ethics Commission. To find out if your committee has met a reporting threshold or for more information on the new campaign finance laws, contact Emily Kliethermes at the Missouri Republican Party at ekliet@mogop.org or contact the Missouri Ethics Commission at 573-751-2020.

Activist Judges Risk Increasing Missourians’ Taxes

If Missourians needed further evidence that activist judges are impacting public policy in the state, they need to look no further than a Missouri Supreme Court decision this week that opens the door for collective bargaining for public employees. The 5-2 decision was backed by Chief Justice Michael Wolff and judges Laura Denvir Stith, Richard Teitelman, Mary Russell and Ronnie White in the majority decision – all Democrat appointees. Judges William Ray Price, Jr. and Stephen Limbaugh, Jr. - who were appointed by Republican Governors - dissented. The staggering decision overturns a 60-year precedent that limited collective bargaining to private-sector employees. Not surprisingly, the ruling was based on an appeal by the Missouri National Education Association which has already announced its intention to endorse Jay Nixon who supported the court decision in comments to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The MNEA is also an affiliate of the National Education Association, which has made contributions to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, co-sponsored a pro-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. with Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the American Civil Liberties Union, and opposed efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Governor Blunt was quick to condemn the ruling: “This is yet another example of judicial activism, where a court’s action oversteps the bounds of prudent Constitutional interpretation. This reckless decision could force cities and school districts to raise taxes and subject Missourians to the threat of strikes by critical public sector employees. Public sector employees are different than all other employees, and taxpayers should not be bound by collective bargaining agreements. I am disappointed in this terrible ruling and will continue to enact policies to ensure that appropriation authority remains in the hands of the legislature and elected representatives, not judges seeking to legislate from the bench.”

Barnes Hypocrisy on Gas Prices

In a stunning example of hypocrisy, Kay Barnes was bumbling around this week decrying higher gas prices even though she backed a 4 percent tax increase on motor vehicle fuel in 2002. Of course, voters overwhelmingly disagreed with Barnes’ position by rejecting Proposition B at the polls that year. But if Barnes had her way, Missourians would be paying even higher gas prices despite her disingenuous and politically-motivated concern that people pay too much money at the pump today. Barnes hypocritical behavior of supporting higher gas prices before she was against them demonstrates the she’s forgotten that Missourians want common sense solutions to higher gas prices rather than political rhetoric from someone who supported higher fuel prices just a few short years ago.”

Desperate Democrats Fail Missourians

Following a legislative session in which Republicans approved massive funding increases for public and higher education, instituted tax cuts for elderly Missourians and implemented serious Medicaid reform, desperate Democrats have sought to divert attention from those successes by making politically-motivated and baseless claims against the Governor. For example, a group of Democrat lawmakers sought to attack the Governor for receiving an 8.2 percent pay increase that he personally opposed, but they failed to mention that Jay Nixon was receiving an 8.4 percent raise while fellow Democrats Susan Montee and Robin Carnahan each will get an 8.5 percent increase. Hypocritical Democrats should be asking Jay Nixon and the other Democrats to explain their pay increases and should stop attacking a governor who publicly opposed the increase. Democrats failed so miserably during the legislative session that a Democrat African American state lawmaker quoted anonymously by The St. Louis American criticized his own party for not offering Medicaid reform proposals: “Whether we like it or not, the Republicans did something. They stood for something towards addressing the health care crisis in the state.” Even some Democrats are coming to realize that sound bites aren’t a substitute for legislative success. While Republicans have focused on results and delivered, Democrats have focused on empty political rhetoric and delivered nothing.

Nixon Fails to Protect Children Against Predators

Jay Nixon has failed in court to protect Missouri children against sexual predators after a Cole County judge threw out part of a law barring sex offenders from living close to a school or day care. It is frightening that Nixon was not able to successfully defend the law supported by Governor Matt Blunt who has long advocated some of the toughest sex offender laws in the nation. Nixon says he will appeal the judge’s decision, which means all eyes will be on Nixon and his ability and willingness to protect our children. We can only hope that he’ll put his crusade to become governor on hold long enough to do the job he was elected to do and protect our children – but we won’t hold our breath.

News-Leader Touts Governor’s Successes

With their journalistic teeth gritted, the Springfield News-Leader concedes in an editorial that the Governor’s leadership was key to the successes of the recently-completed legislative session. While the newspaper editorial took a few back-handed liberal swipes at the Governor, the newspaper had to conclude that: “No matter what you think of the governor's agenda — and we differ with a fair amount of it — there's no denying that, as it relates to legislation that passed, the governor comes out a winner this year.” You know that admission had to hurt, but the editorial wasn’t done there. “But the governor fought for an agenda this year and accomplished much of what he set out to do.” For the third year in a row, even the liberal media has to admit that Governor Matt Blunt’s agenda has helped improve the quality of life for all Missourians by remaining faithful to one concept: Promises Made, Promises Kept. To read the editorial, go to the News-Leader's site.

Southeast Missourian Praises Lewis and Clark Plan

The Southeast Missourian this week praised the Governor’s Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative that will provide $335 million in new funding for higher education facilities and nearly triple the amount of funding for student scholarships. Last week, the Governor visited several communities that will benefit from the landmark initiative including Southeast Missouri State University’s River Campus in Cape Girardeau. “The creative financing play took several turns from inception to last week's bill signing, and the final result is a tribute to the efforts of educators, legislators and the governor to serve the best interests of Missouri's higher education for years to come,” the newspaper said. To read the entire editorial, go to the Southeast Missourian's site.

MissouriPulse.com Post of the Week

Riddle Me This

Last week, Jay Nixon’s slush funders at the Missouri Foundation for Health released a poll that concluded most Missourians would support raising taxes to cover the uninsured. Not to rain on the parade, but it would be most interesting to know how the foundation defines who constitutes the “uninsured.” Do they, like Nixon (see pg. 9 of link), believe illegal immigrants are entitled to state health services funded by the tax dollars of hard-working Missourians? If so, do they include illegal immigrants in their definition of the “uninsured”?

There are a couple reasons for our queries. A simple explanation of the term could have drastically altered the conclusions of the poll, especially if the foundation’s definition is in line with recent grant awards. Since 2003, the foundation, which was created by and is overseen by Nixon through appointment powers, has doled out $900,000 in grant awards to St. Louis-based La Clinica, which openly defends its health care work for uninsured illegal immigrants. If the $900,000 is any indication, it seems the foundation interprets its mission, which is to help the state’s uninsured, as including illegal immigrants. Unlike Nixon, we’re willing to bet that certain 2008 AG aspirants might frown on the foundation’s current interpretation of their mission.

Press accounts of La Clinica’s work:

“Working with a small budget and a volunteer staff, La Clinica is struggling to serve a community with few alternatives. . . . Almost two-thirds [of the clinic’s patients] are undocumented immigrants, said the clinic's founder...” (P-D, 9/12/1999)

“Doctors and school officials asked that they not be required to police for illegal immigrants or to place them in a position of denying people health care services or an education. Dr. David Campbell is director of La Clinica, which is staffed by volunteers and run on contributions. The clinic had nearly 10,000 patients visits last year. ‘Out of those 10,000, how many are undocumented?’ he said. ‘I don't know. We don't ask, and I hope we don't ever have to ask.’” (P-D, 8/15/2006)

The Cornerstone

Sharing Successful Ideas: Camden County Republicans

One of the keys to our party’s success is through the many exciting and innovative new ways local Republicans are strengthening our Party. Sharing ideas at the grassroots level can help our efforts statewide, so this week Susie Johnson, President of the Camden County Republican Club (CCRC) and a member of the Camden County Central Committee, discusses some of the exciting things going on among Camden County Republicans:

“The MRP approached me about writing a guest column in the GOP Voice because as a fellow grassroots Republican, we are all in this together! Hopefully sharing some of what our counties are doing locally to support our Party, we can help strengthen our grassroots operations as we prepare for yet another important election in 2008. As a little background, our CCRC began like most, small (only about 25 members) and like many we were new to volunteering, we weren’t’ always sure what we could do right here in our community that could help our candidates, locally and statewide. However, as we began to really work hard, making phone calls, planning events and staying active, we saw our CCRC membership grow to more than 400 people. Almost every month we hold a potluck dinner and meeting designed to inform our members about the candidates and issues that affect our great state. We try to bring in a different speaker to each meeting to encourage attendance. With the guidance of the Missouri Republican Party, we also have begun several great programs that will continue to increase our numbers and make a big impact on our state from right here in Camden County. I want to share one of our greatest achievements, our newly registered voter outreach program. Twice a year, we collect the names of the newly register voters from our county clerk and send them a mailing that includes a cover letter, survey and return envelope. This past February, we mailed approximately 1,500 voters and while our response size varies, we generally receive about 10 percent back. The important information from the surveys is entered into the MRP voter file. We personally contact those Republicans who respond and immediately invite them to our next CCRC meeting. Not only are we helping ALL of our Republican candidates by identifying new supporters, but we also are expanding our list of volunteers and CCRC members. It is a great program and I am so very proud of our members for the help they give in keeping it going! If you have any questions on the CCRC or if you have any ideas to share, please contact me, Susie Johnson, at 573-374-9622 or by e-mail at ronsusiej@charter.net.”

The Voice would like to thank Susie and encourage local Republicans from across the state to share their success stories with us by contacting Mika Schrimpf at mika@mogop.org or 573-636-3146.

Thoughts and Prayers

The Missouri Republican Party encourages Republicans across the state to keep these individuals in your thoughts and prayers:

Major Daniel Ellinger, U.S. Army, son of 6th District State Committeewoman Carol Ellinger, who is beginning his second tour in Iraq.

Harold Hamann, father of 15th District State Committeewoman Peggy Adams, who was recently hospitalized.

Evelyn Kinker, mother of 21st State Commiteewoman Linda Leabo, who has heart problems.

Bob Schwartz, 3rd Senatorial District State Committeeman, who recently had surgery.

Paul Busiek, husband of Mavis Busiek. Paul’s health concerns continue.

Mike Keathley, Commissioner of Administration, who has cancer.

Tony Snow, White House spokesman, who has cancer.

Dawn Sprick, daughter of Gary Harris, who has cancer.

Brian Grace, Director of Public Affairs at the Department of Economic Development, who is recovering from surgery.