Tuesday, January 04, 2011

New Ethics Committee chairman receives $1,220 worth of MU-KU tickets

New House Majority Leader and Ethics Committee chairman Timothy Jones, R-Eureka, received $1,463.05 worth of lobbyists' gifts in November, including $1,220 worth of tickets to the MU-KU football game, according to documents posted earlier this month on the Missouri Ethics Commission website.

Jones' total for the month does not include $251.67 worth of gifts to his wife and children, according to the documents.

The football tickets came courtesy of Matthew Forck, lobbyist for Ameren, $280; Craig Felzien, AT&T, $720; and John Kristan Jones, Sprint Nextel, $220.

Forck and Ameren also took care of $360.56 worth of meals and entertainment for Jones and his family on Nov. 13, according to the documents.

Including the gifts to his family, Jones has surpassed the $17,000 mark since he took office four years ago. His earlier gifts were chronicled in the December 4 Turner Report :


This year, special interests have footed the bill for a dozen golf outings, to the tune of more than $1,500.
His most recent excursion (reports for November will  not be posted online until December 1, came October 4, when David Michael Jackson, the lobbyist for billionaire Rex Sinquefield paid the $375 for Jones to play in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame Tournament.
Other lobbyists joining in on Jones pay to play fun time were Craig Felzien, AT&T; Charles Simino, Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association (Simino also bought a $50 pair of sunglasses and paid for a $10 meal), Jorgen Schlemeier, Missouri Fire Service Alliance; David A. Smith, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield; Terry Briggs, Site Improvement Association; Travis Brown, AT&T; John R. Sondag, AT&T; Heath Clarkston, Affordable Equity Partners; and Brent Hemphill, Brent Hemphill and Associates.
Most of Jones' golf outings were in Missouri, but he also played at the lavish Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego while attending a taxpayer-financed junket to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual conference.
AT&T lobbyists Travis Brown and John R. Sondag paid for two rounds of golf for the conservative Republican, whose chief claim to fame has been as a plaintiff in the Birther lawsuit against President Barack Obama.

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