Money trail on Chamber attack ad against Dreyer leads back to Richard, TAMKO

If you follow the money for the attack ad which began airing against 129th District state representative candidate Shelly Dreyer, that path leads to the man she hopes to replace, Speaker of the House Ron Richard.

As I noted in an earlier post, the Missouri Chamber PAC paid for advertising which describes Ms. Dreyer as a tool of St. Louis trial attorneys and depicts her as someone who just blew into the district two years ago after being a St. Louis trial attorney.

The advertisement began airing the same day Richard endorsed Ms. Dreyer's opponent, Bill White, an endorsement which is prominently mentioned in the ad, but the ad was in the hopper well before the endorsement was announced.

Missouri Ethics Commission documents indicate the Missouri Chamber PAC paid $29,450 to Ozark AdWorks, Joplin, Wednesday, for advertising, the same day the PAC received $25,500 from the Southwest Missouri Leadership PAC, a PAC that is associated with Richard and has the same treasurer as Richard's own campaign committee, Joplin CPA Nick Myers.

The ad was purchased the same day David and Debra Humphreys of TAMKO contributed $25,000 to the Southwest Missouri Leadership PAC. Southwest Missouri Leadership had contributed $1,800 to the Chamber PAC earlier.

Other late activity reported by the Chamber PAC indicates that two lobbyists associated with numerous hospital interests, Randy J. Scherr and Michael Winter, who represent Cass Medical Center, Lutheran Medical Center, Lee's Summit Hospital, Lafayette Regional Hospital, and Hospital Corporation of America, each contributed $250 on the same day.