(The following is my column from the Thursday Newton County News.)
Country fans who have seen him perform live, tell me Kenny Chesney really puts on a show. I will take them at their word. I know that when it comes to country music, Chesney is perhaps the most successful touring artist of the past few years.
So when he came to the Mizzou Arena on the campus of the University of Missouri-Columbia May 18, tickets were sold for premium prices, with top-flight, close-to-the-action tickets going for $69 apiece.
That was the type of high-priced gift MU lobbyist Stephen Knorr took around the state capital earlier that day, the last day of the 2007 General Assembly.
Whether he saw them or not, I do know that the elected officials who represent the Newton County News publishing area, Sen. Gary Nodler, Rep. Marilyn Ruestman, and Rep. Kevin Wilson did not accept any of the tickets. In fact, when it comes to accepting lobbyists' gifts, Mrs. Ruestman and Wilson are down at the bottom of the list. They simply don't accept much from lobbyists. And Nodler is nowhere near the head of the pack when it comes to the State Senate's gift grabbers.
I would like to be able to tell you that no elected officials accepted these high-priced freebies. After all, Missouri taxpayers pay our senators and representatives $31,000 a year, and $75 per day for meal money, plus expenses, while they stay in Jefferson City four days per week from January through the middle of May.
The people of Granby, Newtonia, Diamond, Neosho, Stark City, and all of the other communities served by this newspaper, for the most part do not have the money to try to influence our elected officials with meals, drinks, travel, entertainment, and other gifts.
By the time Stephen Knorr made the rounds in Jefferson City, he found takers for $1,725 worth of tickets, or 25 tickets. Two of those who accepted the tickets, Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, and John Fourgere of Attorney General Jay Nixon's office, reimbursed Knorr for their tickets (five weeks after the concert and just before the information was posted on the Missouri Ethics Commission website).
These are the people who simply accepted the remaining $1,587 worth of tickets:
Rep. Shannon Cooper, R-Clinton, chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, took five; one apiece for Speaker of the House Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill and his wife Cassie; Rep. Kenny Jones, R-California, took two tickets; Rep. Tom Dempsey, R-St Charles, Dempsey's wife Molly, Rep. Carl Bearden, St. Charles, Bearden's wife Debbie, Rep. Timothy Jones, R-Eureka, Rep. Robert Mayer, R-Dexter; and Mayer's wife Nancy received one apiece.
Gus Wagner, who works in the office of Sen. Dan Clemons, R-Marshfield, grabbed four tickets.
And bringing it close to home, Rep. Steve Hunter, R-Joplin, and his wife, Jasper County Public Administrator Rita Hunter, also latched onto the tickets.
For the past three decades, I have had politicians tell me that a lobbyist paying for a meal or giving free tickets is not going to influence the way they vote. Sometimes, I really think they believe that. But it certainily builds good will and offers special interests access that the rest of us do not have.
One last note: I mentioned earlier in the column that Rep. Shannon Cooper, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, took five tickets, worth $345. On the same day, Cooper accepted $329.43 worth of travel and lodging from lobbyist Jorgen Schlemeier, whose client list includes Ameristar Casinos, which was listed as paying for the trip. So far this year, Cooper has accepted more than $2,600 worth of gifts from lobbyists.
I'm sure Cooper would be the first to tell you that $2,600 worth of gifts aren't going to change the way he votes.
And maybe he really believes it
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