Andrew Bailey says his approach as Missouri Attorney General is shaped by faith, war

Andrew Bailey was 16 years old and vice president of his high school Republican club when asked by a reporter if he supported the death penalty.

“I do have a serious problem with the taking of a human life,” he told the Columbia Daily Tribune in 1997 for a story about the law, which remains on the books in Missouri. “But I can’t allow my emotions to fog my vision.”

Years later, serving stateside after joining the Army following the Sept. 11 attacks, Bailey volunteered to take another man’s place and head oversees — the first of two deployments in Iraq.

Those who know him best say Bailey has always been guided by morals shaped by a devoted faith and deep respect for the law. Now that he’s seeking a full term as Missouri’s attorney general — a job he was appointed to in 2022 by his former boss, Gov. Mike Parson — his friends say those values make Bailey an ideal leader whose sights are set on the welfare of Missourians rather than political aspirations.

“He doesn’t make personal evaluations based on emotions,” said James Lawson, his longtime friend and campaign manager. “Literally, every job this guy has ever had has been in the vein of public service.”

His time as attorney general has been defined by confrontation — lawsuits against the federal government, investigations of health care providers and public fights with other statewide elected Republicans.

But it’s also been marked by accusations of corruption, incompetence and grandstanding, with his critics alleging he’s more interested in scoring appearances on Fox News than effectively running the sprawling office or winning in the courtroom.

The Republican hoping to unseat him in the Aug. 6 GOP primary — Will Scharf — says Bailey is part of a “viciously corrupt” political culture in Jefferson City.

Bailey deflected Scharf’s barbs as “baseless accusations,” adding that his steady stream of lawsuits have furthered Missourian’s health and safety.

“What I’ve learned is that you’ve got to be bold and have courage to make tough decisions when people’s lives are on the line,” Bailey said. “And that’s something I learned in the United States Army.”

To Bailey’s biggest supporters, it’s his aggressiveness advocating for the causes near and dear to his heart that is his biggest selling point to voters.

“This is a guy who is an absolute warfighter,” Lawson said. “I mean, look at the way he runs the office. He’s aggressive, he’s bold. He takes action.

‘Proud to take an oath’

Lawson met Bailey as a teenager when they were both part of the Rock Bridge High School debate team in Columbia. They formed a friendship, Lawson said, over hunting, fishing and reading Western novels by Louis L’Amour.

Bailey spent part of his youth visiting family in Mississippi, where he regularly had the chance to watch his grandfather — the local sheriff — testify in court proceedings.

“I grew up thinking working with police to lock bad guys up was about the coolest job on Earth,” Bailey said. “And that’s really all I ever wanted to do.”

Bailey went on to attend the University of Missouri on an ROTC scholarship, then planned to go to law school and join the military as a judge advocate general. But his plans changed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Lawson was with Bailey as they both watched the second plane crash into the Twin Towers.

“His countenance changed in a way that was different than the guy that I had known,” Lawson said of Bailey, who was 20 at the time. “I just knew that he held a deep responsibility to hold the parties responsible who were behind that attack.”

Bailey soon volunteered for the Army and was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to train on tanks.

He was assigned to a rear detachment, meaning he would stay in the United States while the rest of his unit deployed to Iraq. A friend with two prior deployments, a wife and children was about to be sent to Iraq a third time.

Bailey, who was single at the time with no children, volunteered to take his place.

“Let me go,” Bailey recalls telling his superiors.

That’s how Bailey found himself living in a tent in the Nineveh Province of Iraq.

He rose in the ranks, eventually overseeing 200 troops and $100 million in equipment. By the time he left the Army in 2009 and headed to law school, Bailey had twice been deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He said his second deployment lasted 455 days.

He came home well-decorated. Bailey was honored in part for pulling soldiers out of a tank during an IED explosion, Lawson said.

A legacy of lawsuits

When Parson announced he was tapping his general counsel — who had no experience in elected office — to take over as attorney general, Jackson County Republican Chairman Mark Anthony Jones wrote a letter on behalf of his organization urging the governor to appoint anyone else.

“(Bailey) has little experience in the attorney general’s office, and what he has is from Democrat Chris Koster’s office,” Jones wrote. “He has only been an attorney for eight years. There MUST be other choices.”

Reached by phone last week, Jones said he has been “very surprised” by the job Bailey has done.

“I love Andrew Bailey,” he said, before adding he’s not fond of Parson, but really likes Scharf. Jones added: “(Bailey) has been a fighter for Missouri. I cannot think of one thing that he’s actually done that I don’t like.”

Bailey has followed the lead of his predecessors and regularly sues the federal government. He’s twice sued to block federal student loan forgiveness, and in his most high profile case, carried forward a lawsuit alleging the Biden administration was censoring conservatives online by pressuring social media companies.

“I wake up every morning and ask myself how I’m going to sue Joe Biden,” Bailey said during a May debate in Springfield.

His office is involved in four different lawsuits regarding medical records of transgender children — part of his effort to end gender-affirming care in Missouri. And Bailey has claimed credit for the closure of Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

“How dare anyone tell these children that God put them in the wrong body,” Bailey told a crowd at the 2023 Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit. “We know that he doesn’t make mistakes.”

He’s also joined a crowd of Republican attorneys general in litigation seeking to delay former President Donald Trump’s sentencing for 34 felony convictions, and sued the liberal watchdog Media Matters over its coverage of hate speech on the social media platform X. And he says $32 million in settlements and judgements have been awarded on behalf of defrauded Missourians through his office’s Consumer Protection Division.

But his proudest accomplishment, Bailey says, is his push to drive former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner out of office.

“It’s something I’ll always look back on and be proud of the work that we did,” Bailey said.

While Bailey has had his fair share of wins, he’s also suffered high-profile defeats.

His social media lawsuit, which Bailey made a centerpiece of his legal assault on the Biden administration, was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, led by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The state Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that lawmakers could not end Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood through the state budget. In its ruling, the court found Bailey’s office failed to appeal the claim that the budget decision infringed on equal protection rights, the Associated Press reported.

Among the many lawsuits Bailey inherited from his predecessor was a case against Missouri school districts that implemented mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. After a judge ruled in support of the school boards, Bailey’s office missed its deadline to appeal.

Bailey has also faced criticism that he has mismanaged the office, resulting in missed deadlines and staff turnover — including from some of the highest profile lawyers in the office.

“The result of that has been cases, including low level cases that should be handled easily by the office, being farmed out to private counsel,” Scharf said. “They’ve missed deadlines in numerous cases around the state. They’ve even been called to task for that by judges in any number of cases. It’s a real problem, the basic functioning of that office has been compromised by poor management.”

Bailey denies the accusations.

“That’s nonsense,” Bailey said. “Whether or not a filing meets a deadline oftentimes is an issue that is litigated.”

Bailey added that inherited an office with high turnover rates, but reduced it from 35% to 25% his first year in office.

Bailey also faced criticism — and a formal complaint with the Missouri Bar — after his office got facts wrong in a letter to the Hazelwood School District falsely blaming the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion program for an assault of a student off school property.

Bailey said all facts his office cited in the letter came from media reports.

But the most pointed criticism is over campaign donations Bailey has accepted since he launched his run for a full term.

Bailey recused himself from a gambling lawsuit filed against the Missouri State Highway Patrol after PACs connected to the lobbyist of the companies suing the state wrote checks to the committee supporting his campaign.

He raised eyebrows after accepting $50,000 in campaign donations from Doe Run, a St. Louis-based company being sued by thousands of Peruvians over allegations of lead smelter poisoning in their mining town in the Andes. A few months before the donation, Bailey filed a brief asking the federal court to move the lawsuit out of Missouri.

“On issue after issue after issue,” Scharf said, “that office is compromised by special interests. And I think that’s just wrong.”

Bailey shrugs off Scharf’s criticism.

“We have substantially the same policy that’s been in place under the previous two administrations,” Bailey said. “And I’ll tell you, political donations don’t influence the decisions I make in my official capacity.”

A fight to end abortion

Abortion is a leading issue this election. And the fight against it has been a major focus of Bailey’s tenure.

He attempted to derail a constitutional amendment from reaching the November ballot rolling back Missouri’s abortion ban by trying to argue such a petition would cost the state trillions of dollars. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled Bailey had “an absolute absence of authority” to reject the state treasurer’s fiscal note.

Despite losing the case, Bailey’s efforts contributed to delays in the abortion rights coalition’s fundraising efforts.

He is currently suing a Planned Parenthood clinic near Kansas City over a secret video of a man pretending to have a pregnant, underage niece he wanted to take out of state for an abortion. Bailey alleges the video proves the organization is involved in “trafficking minors,” something Planned Parenthood vehemently denies.

Bailey said his fight to end abortion is personal.

In January 2017, Bailey’s daughter died the day she was born.

“We named her Grace because by the grace of God, I got to hold her for an hour,” Bailey said.

At the first ultrasound, Grace was “provided a diagnosis that was inconsistent with life,” he said.

He and his wife choose to continue the pregnancy.

“Look, I know that these are extremely personal conversations that people have, but I have faith that God designs every human being in the womb,” Bailey said. “And that we’re all made in His image. And I want all kids to have an opportunity at life.”

Bailey believes Missouri’s current law, which prohibits abortion except in cases of medical emergencies when the mother’s life is at risk, “is the proper policy position to protect life.”

After completing law school at the University of Missouri, Bailey worked as an assistant prosecutor in Warren County where Bailey said he was particularly moved by his interactions with victims. But his additional role as attorney for the county juvenile office – which Bailey said he took on to help make ends meet at home — changed his life.

He watched children come in and out of the system. He said the number of children who didn’t have a home to go to on Christmas broke his heart. Eventually, he and his wife decided to foster and then adopt three of their four children, who now range in age from 2 to 11. He joked that they form “a soft Tampa to cover zone defense.”

Lawson said Bailey isn’t just a politician who talks about “life begins at conception.”

“Andrew is one of those people that has not only put his money where his mouth is on those topics,” he said, “he’s a guy that’s pulling kids out of the foster system.”

Lawson said the years spent watching Bailey fight for his family and community made the decision to join his best friend on the campaign trail an easy one.

Until recently, Lawson worked in real estate.

A “major” pay cut later, he reminisced on their high school debates when they took on complex topics and planned how they would change the world. Now, Lawson said, that dream is a reality.

“When you look at this election and this race, both of these attorneys are really smart people,” Lawson said. “But there’s a difference in terms of the bio and the legacy of service that these guys have … When we ask ourselves, who do we want to be the chief law enforcement officer in the state of Missouri? I want the guy that has run towards danger his entire life.”

Bailey said every morning of the school year, he drives his kids to the bus stop. He looks forward to the uninterrupted time spent hearing about their lives and thinking back to his own upbringing in middle America.

“It reminds me why I do this job,” Bailey said. “And reminds me that there are things worth fighting for.”

The Missouri Independent is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering state government, politics and policy. It is staffed by veteran Missouri reporters and is dedicated to its mission of relentless investigative journalism that sheds light on how decisions in Jefferson City are made and their impact on individuals across the Show-Me State.