Newest 7th District candidate Hunter comes with plenty of baggage

The blogosphere has been lighting up with speculation about the last minute entry of former 127th District State Representative Steve Hunter, R-Joplin, into the Seventh District Congressional race.

The Billy Long is Wrong blog suggests Hunter's candidacy is a master stroke by Long strategist Jeff Roe to put someone in the race who is more ethically challenged than Long to draw away some of the attention. (Though so far the ethics complaints against Long seem rather minor in nature.) The blog features the following passage:

Billy Long now faces three ethics complaints. How does one take the focus off their candidate who faces a potential battle with the Federal Election Commission? You convince another candidate without a chance to run for the same office, a candidate with both local and federal corruption issues himself to take the focus of Long's own problems. This could very well be the plan with the late addition of Steve Hunter, the latest Republican running for Missouri 7.

The blogger Bungalow Bill looks upon Hunter as a stalking horse to draw votes away from Sen. Gary Nodler in his home Joplin area:

So what is the strategy? Hunter knows the last man on the ballot is worth three points minimum, or is there another strategy in this race. Could he have entered to take votes away from Gary Nodler in Joplin (Jasper/Newton) to help another candidate in the race? It does set up some possibilities. So is he a serious candidate or not

?

Most of the writing about Hunter's problems have centered around the legal battles his wife, former Jasper County Public Administrator Rita Hunter, is facing, but as longtime Turner Report readers know, Hunter's ethical problems have been a longstanding issue.

Hunter was a magnet for lobbyists from his first day in Jefferson City until his tenure was ended by term limits. In the Nov. 8, 2008 Turner Report, I noted that the Hunters were treated to a Tina Turner concert by Ameristar Casino lobbyists Gamble & Schlemeier,Oct. 8, 2008, when he had only two months left in the legislature. It was the last of thousands in freebies from the casino industry.

From the Sept. 25, 2004, Turner Report:

One of the important duties of every state legislator is taking fact-finding missions to see first-hand some of the problems that face his constituents.

Apparently, 127th District State Representative Steve Hunter takes that obligation seriously. Though the nature of his fact-finding missions was not spelled out in documents filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Hunter accepted travel expenses from lobbyist Sarah Topp on three occasions this year. He accepted travel expenses from lobbyist William Gamble one other time.

Though Ms. Topp and Gamble represent a number of clients, including the Missouri Sheriffs Association, the Ethics Commission records indicate the travel money to Hunter came courtesy of the Ameristar Casino Hotel in Kansas City. Ms. Topp and Gamble also represent all of the interests of Ameristar Casinos, a Las Vegas-based company which only recently moved its operations into this state.

On Jan. 22, Hunter accepted $91.32 in travel expenses, according to Ethics Commission records. He also accepted $91.32 in travel expenses, indicating he most likely went to the same place, as well as $125 for meals, food, and beverage from Ms. Topp on Feb. 20, $138 in travel expenses from her on March 8, and $455 for meals, food and beverage on March 20.
Hunter accepted an additional $250 in travel expenses from Gamble on Aug. 28, according to the Ethics Commission records. Legislators are allowed to amend the records if they pay the lobbyists back, though the original expenditure remains. The Ethics Commission records show that none of Ameristar Casinos' gifts to Hunter have been paid back.

Hunter was the only legislator to receive gifts from Ms. Topp in February and the only representative (there were three senators) who received gifts in March, records indicate.

The $1,150.64 Hunter received from the gambling interest is more money than any other area legislator has received from all lobbyists' gifts combined.

Hunter's lobbyist-financed casino trips were just the tip of the iceberg. It was not long before Hunter was not only accepting gifts from lobbyists, but to all intents and purposes became one, while still serving as a legislator.

From the Feb. 1, 2009 Turner Report:

Though he has not officially registered with the Missouri Ethics Commission, The Turner Report has heard that former 127th District State Representative Steve Hunter, R-Joplin, is going to join the growing list of those making the leap from legislator to lobbyist.

it should not be much of a leap for Hunter, who worked for lobbying organization Associated Industries of Missouri during much of his tenure in the House.

You may recall that Hunter broke ties with AIM in June, blaming the media for creating the impression that he could actually be swayed in his vote just because he was being paid by a lobbying group. I wrote this in the June 15, 2007 Turner Report:

After four years of double dealing as a state representative and an employee of a lobbying group, Rep. Steve Hunter, R-Joplin, has done the right thing and severed his ties with Associated Industries of Missouri.

Unfortunately the problem, according to Hunter, has never been with his conflict-ridden extra source of income, but with the media who have questioned his integrity, according to this passage, which a reader sent me from the Kansas City Star's pay-for-view Prime Time Buzz:

"I got tired of reading about it in the damn newspaper," Hunter said when asked why he resigned his post, effective May 1. "I’d been accused by the labor unions and the state chamber (of commerce) of having a conflict."

Hunter, a Joplin Republican who heads a House committee that examines worker's compensation issues, took the job in 2003. Associated Industries of Missouri, which describes itself as a "pro-business lobbying team," was closely involved in passage of legislation tightening worker's compensation laws in 2005.


Contrary to Hunter's opinion, his second job, definitely was a conflict of interest, as has been noted numerous times over the past few years in The Turner Report. To recount, consider this passage from the July 15, 2005, post:

Hunter has done a 360-degree turnaround in the type of bills he has sponsored since his first term in the House.
During his first three years as a representative, Hunter did not sponsor any business legislation. Then three weeks after the end of the 2003 General Assembly, he found a new job as a membership recruiter for Associated Industries of Missouri, a powerful pro-business lobbying organization. And that is not just my term for it. As Susan Redden's Globe article noted, AIM spells out exactly what it does on its website. It represents the "interests of Missouri employers before the General Assembly, state agencies, the courts, and the public."
Financial disclosure forms filed by Hunter with the Missouri Ethics Commission indicate that he was employed by Associated Industries of Missouri in 2003 and 2004 and received at least $1,000 from it in both years. Unfortunately, all officeholders are required to state on these forms is if they received $1,000, they do not have to be specific.
It would be safe to speculate that if Steve Hunter was not the chairman of the House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee he would not have been the first person AIM would have thought about hiring. That committee, of course, deals with the workers compensation legislation that AIM and Missouri businesses have been pushing and finally succeeded in passing.
Perhaps Hunter wrote every word of that bill himself. He is certainly an intelligent man. But it would not be a stretch of the imagination to believe that AIM staff could have been very helpful in constructing the pro-business legislation.
Hunter sponsored that bill as a representative for this area, then put on his other hat after the end of the legislative session and spoke at eight "Lunch and Learn" presentations put on by Associated Industries across the state, speaking as an AIM employee to explain what he had done for the organization as a legislator.
Hunter sponsored three other bills designed to cripple labor unions in the state, which did not get anywhere.


And the same anti-union bills were sponsored by Hunter during the 2006 and 2007 legislative sessions.

And there is more to the Steve Hunter story, but I will save that for another time.