Meet the disrupter who is about to become Missouri’s next lieutenant governor (Commentary)

By Barbara Shelly

for the Missouri Independent

For more evidence of Missouri’s drift to the far side of MAGA madness, look no further than the race for lieutenant governor.

In the primary election, Republican voters turned aside Lincoln Hough, the veteran senator and state budget expert. They rejected Holly Thompson Rehder, a state senator with a compelling biography and rock-solid conservative values. They ignored two other lesser-known candidates.

 

They chose a St. Louis lawyer who, in the campaign’s final weeks, crashed into public awareness with aggressive TV ads promising to drain the swamp and say “adios, amigos” to illegal immigrants who venture into Missouri.

In one commercial, David Wasinger stood outside of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, swore allegiance to Donald Trump and proclaimed himself “the only pro-Trump Republican” in the lieutenant governor’s race.

In reality, Wasinger wasn’t even the only Trump-endorsed Republican in the race. He shared that distinction with Rehder.

But Wasinger was, assuredly, the most Trump-like Republican in the field.

Many people scratched their heads after the primary and asked, “Who is David Wasinger?” Not me. I was a journalist keeping an eye on the University of Missouri system back around 2005 when then-Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Wasinger to the Board of Curators.

According to newspaper accounts at the time (most of which I found behind paywalls or in library archives), Wasinger and another curator bombarded Elson Floyd, then the system president, with demands and inquiries that looked like micromanagement.

“The board has dipped into everything from what classes should be taught to whether condoms should be sold in dormitories,” The Kansas City Star reported in 2007, around the time that Floyd, the only Black educator ever to lead the university system, announced he had accepted a job in the state of Washington.

Faculty and student leaders speculated that interference from the curators, and Wasinger in particular, was a factor in Floyd’s unexpected departure.

While on the board of a university system dedicated to affirmative action, Wasinger provided legal advice to a group seeking a ballot measure to dismantle affirmative action.

When an interim university system president issued a strong statement on behalf of a controversial form of stem cell research, Wasinger reproached the academic leader and forwarded him a message he’d received from an unnamed correspondent comparing embryonic stem cell research to Nazi experimentations.

He ridiculed the queer theory classes taught in the university system and was overheard joking to another curator about “putting on a grass skirt and having a lap dance,” according to reports.

Wasinger’s exploits, which took place between 2005 and 2011, seem tame in today’s political landscape. If Missouri Republican primary voters had known more about his stint as a curator they likely would have nominated Wasinger by a larger margin than the 1% of votes that separated him and Hough, his closest contender.

The point is, Wasinger was a disrupter, a bully and an anti-woke crusader years before those traits became prerequisites for a winning Republican ticket in Missouri.

In 2012, soon after he left the Board of Curators, Wasinger received a phone call from a business acquaintance. The man was an executive at Bank of America’s Countrywide unit and he asked Wasinger to represent him as he went public with allegations of massive mortgage fraud.

Wasinger had no experience with whistleblower cases, but he took this one and the gamble paid off big. Bank of America was found liable in federal court in New York for selling defective mortgage loans to government-backed agencies. Wasinger’s client collected more than $57 million under a federal law that rewards people for disclosing fraud against the government.

A year later, Wasinger filed a case on behalf of a whistleblower alleging fraud by JPMorgan Chase & Co. That client collected $63.9 million.

“I am just a country lawyer from Missouri trying to hold Wall Street accountable,” Wasinger told Reuters in 2014.

Put another way, he was the sole owner of a small St. Louis law firm destined to receive a gigantic payday for his successful role in holding Wall Street accountable.

That wealth has enabled Wasinger to self-finance his political career. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Missouri auditor in 2018 and resurfaced this year in the lieutenant governor’s race.

Records available so far show Wasinger has loaned his campaign $2.6 million. Plus, a company based out of Wasinger’s home loaned a PAC $300,000. Missouri First Conservative PAC spent most of the money on direct mailings either praising Wasinger or bashing Hough and Rehder, his closest opponents.

Wasinger’s Democratic opponent is Richard Brown, a popular House member from Kansas City.

 

In an interview with The Martin City Telegraph, the retired school teacher regaled readers with stories about his “Forrest Gump” life, which includes singing on stage with Phil Collins and being rescued as a kid from a deadly 1977 flood by the Kansas City Royals legendary outfielder Amis Otis.

But at the start of September, Brown’s campaign reported having a little more than $7,000 on hand — hardly enough to compete against Wasinger.

So it seems safe to ponder what we can expect from Wasinger as lieutenant governor.

For sure, he didn’t pony up $2.5 million-plus to wait around for the Tourism Commission to convene. Wasinger bills himself as a “conservative outsider” and lists “draining the swamp” as his top priority.

In fact, Wasinger says on his campaign website that he’ll be “taking a hammer to the establishment.”

I’m not sure what that means. But I think we’re about to find out.

Barbara Shelly is a journalist in Kansas City. She was a reporter and opinion writer for the Kansas City Star and now contributes to various outlets as a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Hechinger Report, The Week, The PitchKC and other publications.