POSTS

Lobbying fees not disclosed in Missouri

Blunt Watch has a post about the special lobbyist-only inauguration party, something jumped out at me:

Since Missouri doesn?t require the disclosure of lobbying fees we might never know how much the Blunt family will make off the affair.

Emphasis mine. Does that seem right? If I got elected to office, you could pay my sister a million dollars a year to lobby for your cause with the implication that her lobbying would involve calling me up and saying "brother, you should support this". That's not right...

I'm still formulating my thoughts on this, but I think we need to push for a change in the lobbying laws in Missouri. If you want election reform, how about publishing in real-time whose paying whom to speak for what. The only way any politician could oppose such a seemingly obvious change in the rules would be because they've got some dirty laundry that might be aired, such as a sibling or other family member getting paid to lobby them. Seems like one of the things I've heard/read about Blunt over the last few days is that he plans to make government more efficient and transparent. What's more transparent than publishing in real-time who is "Them that's got the gold"?