Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Nixon: I will not accept Sinquefield money

Jason Rosenbaum in Columbia Tribune Political Blog reports Attorney General Jay Nixon says he will not accept any contributions from retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield:

“I am proud to respond to your courageous call on all candidates for Missouri public office to reject contributions from millionaire Rex Sinquefield. I have never accepted money from Mr. Sinquefield or any of his Political Action Committees, and I certainly never will," Nixon said in a letter to the Missouri Education Roundtable. "Not only do I strongly oppose Mr. Sinquefield’s anti-public school agenda, I also oppose the manner in which he’s chosen to advance that agenda. Instead of competing with the merits of his ideas, Mr. Sinquefeld has chosen to circumvent the spirit of the campaign finance system by establishing 100 PACs that all have the same objective: funneling contributions to candidates who support a pro-voucher agenda.”

"Along with you and your members, I fought to defeat the voucher provisions of House Bill 808 earlier this year – provisions that Gov. Blunt and Lt. Gov. Kinder lobbied for personally in the House Chamber," Nixon added. "Those provisions failed because a majority of the legislators in Missouri – like the majority of Missourians – understand that vouchers will weaken our public schools and hurt our children. But last year’s voucher battle wasn’t the first time Gov. Blunt stood with Rex Sinquefield, and after accepting more than $100,000 from Sinquefield in this race already, it’s fair to assume it won’t be the last."


But seriously, was there ever any possibility that Rex Sinquefield was going to contribute to Nixon's campaign?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well would we expect anything less from the NEA? Glad to see you are using the educrat talking points about Sinquefield and company driving up the costs because they stepped in to defend themselves and the rest of the taxpayers. Fits right into the fact that Jay laid down last time and was prepared to do so again. Sinquefield and company made that almost impossible for him to do very well. Callahan did appear to agree that Jay was doing enough to keep from being accused of malpractice.

Maybe you werent aware - although I doubt it - that as late as November/December of last year the Nixon team had not done much of anything to prepare for the January case? He hadn't deposed expert witnesses - he was preparing to do enough lawyering to not be accused of malpractice while throwing the case to his educrat supporters.

As to the "questionable" opinion - the only thing questionable is that you didn't win. Given the state of union controlled education today - I can understand that some might not be able to comprehend how resounding of a defeat the decision was. It was well reasoned which is the problem the educrats have.

Been reading some responses from the educrats and the Americans for Proseperity group and it is clear that the educrats have no compulsion about spending taxpayer money responsibily - much less kids education money. Why I have even read and heard about the pittance that this money represents to each district. Those statements just go to show that every dollar is not valued - perhaps every child is not valued either since those dollars support them - except when they are being spent on lawyers.

Anonymous said...

Sorry - this should have been the original post on the topic.

Jay sucks up really good - so good that he can't even tell the truth about the bill he supposedly fought to defeat. If that is true - which was not apparent in the halls - then he just told African-American parents in St. Louis and Kansas City to shove it - they don't deserve a better education for their children.

My guess is his "sacrifice" is a all show. His inability to be honest about the issue and about the fact that he hasn't met a government that is big enough probably means he would never be faced with the prospect of turning money down from Sinquefield. So what is his "sacrifice"?

I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact Sinquefield and fellow taxpayers exposed Nixon's lack of preparedness to defend the state in the school funding lawsuit. Nixon's plan was to repeat 1993 where just enough would be done so as not to be accused of not doing his job - a frequent occurence for him - but not enough to win. Sinquefield and company took that option away from him. This is just a way for him to say "I'm sorry" to his education bureaucrat supporters.

You know - the same ones he calls "courageous". Doesn't take courage to spend taxpayer money foolishly on lawyers to sue those same taxpayers and cheat children out of their educational funds.

Sounds like a marriage made in heaven with Nixon. Only question is - who is the bride?