Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Post-Dispatch editorial- Sinquefield trying to buy himself a secretary of state

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board did not mince words during its endorsement of Democratic  candidate Jason Kander for secretary of state.

While the editorial praises Kander's "intellectual capacity and bipartisan spirit," what is most striking is its indictment of Republican candidate Rep. Shane Schoeller, R-Willard, and Schoeller's primary benefactor, retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield:


Retired investor Rex Sinquefield of St. Louis is trying to buy himself a secretary of state.
Mr. Sinquefield, the most prolific campaign donor in Missouri history, has written two checks to Mr. Schoeller totaling $400,000. That's a lot of cash from a guy who has spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to get the secretary of state to write favorable language for his many, mostly bad, ballot proposals.
No matter who he belongs to, a pet secretary of state would be a very scary prospect for Missouri.
Mr. Sinquefield generally hasn't had much luck using his millions in donations to convince the Missouri Legislature to pass his bad ideas, such as allowing parents to siphon off public school dollars to reduce their private school tuition, or eliminating the state's income tax in favor of heavy new sales taxes or starving state government of revenue. So now he's turning to a new strategy: buying a malleable secretary of state.
It's a bad idea, but just one of the many reasons Mr. Kander is the better choice for secretary of state.

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