Tilley not running for anything, but campaign account pays for $3,000 in meals during first quarter

Speaker of the House Steve Tilley's name will not appear on any ballot in August or November this year, but his campaign account is alive and well with more than a million dollars in it, according to his quarterly report filed today with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

And even though Tilley announced Nov. 10 that he would not run for lieutenant governor, he still used his campaign account to pay for nearly $3,000 worth of meals during the first three months of this year, according to the report.

In 2009, Tilley stopped accepting meals and gifts from lobbyists and proposed an ethics proposal, which he released exclusively through The Turner Report. His latest report, however, indicates that he used $453 to reimburse meals from St. Louis lobbyist John Bardgett.

The report also shows he used his campaign account to pay for the following:

-Dominicos Italian, meals and entertainment, $614.17, March 1

-Alexandro's Restaurant, meals and entertainment, $419.68, Feb. 16

-Missouri Ticket Guys, meals and entertainment, $500, Feb. 10

-Scottrade Center, meals and entertainment, $277.50, Jan. 30

Tilley's meals also included one far from the borders of Missouri. The report has a listing for $133.40 for "meals" at Inaka Sushi in Las Vegas. Nev., where Tilley bought a second home on Sept. 1, 2010, a purchase first revealed in the Oct. 26, 2010, Turner Report.

The continued big spending from the Tilley account has been well documented by veteran reporter Rudi Keller of the Columbia Tribune, who noted recently that the speaker took the unusual, but legal, step of using campaign money to buy into a bank.

House Speaker Steve Tilley, a prolific fundraiser who stepped back from a bid for lieutenant governor, made an unusual investment with his excess campaign cash when he purchased 12,000 shares of stock in a community bank based in his hometown of Perryville.

That purchase is noted in his quarterly report, which shows he spent $900,000 on those shares and also invested $210,000 with Scotttrade Brokerage Account.

Though Tilley is not running for office in 2012, he has said he plans to maintain the committee because he has nor ruled out a future run for office.

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