Republicans pour money into effort to retain 156th District seat

Missouri Republicans are playing defense to keep their majority in the Missouri House of Representatives and they are pouring thousands of dollars into radio ads in the 156th District to hold the seat being vacated by House Speaker Rod Jetton.

The House Republican Campaign Committee is paying for the ads aimed at Democratic nominee Michael Winder. The exact amounts being spent won't be reported until Monday, but House Majority Leader Steve Tilley of Perryville said the seat is one of about a dozen statewide that the GOP is trying to keep to prevent a Democratic takeover of the House. It is the only seat in Southeast Missouri that worries Republicans, Tilley said.

Republicans hold an 89-70 edge in the House, with four vacant seats. That means a switch of 11 or 12 seats could give the House back to the Democratic Party for the first time since 2002. There are about 16 open seats, including the 156th District, held by the GOP and Tilley said the Republican candidate is vulnerable in seven or eight of those contests. On the Democratic side, the number of open seats is about a dozen, he said, but only two or three could switch.

Those figures do not include seats where a Democrat or Republican is mounting a major challenge to the incumbent.

"There are about 65 seats that Republicans will never lose and about 65, many in the major cities, that Democrats will never lose," Tilley said. "The majority is determined in the middle."

Raising money

Winder, who is making his second bid for the seat, has shown he is competitive with Republican Shelley Keeney, Jetton's legislative district assistant, in fundraising. Through Sept. 30, he had raised $42,367 and Keeney had gathered $50,704.

But the help from the House Republican Campaign Committee, which had $1.1 million in the bank on Sept. 30 and has raised $370,000 more in amounts above $5,000 since, gives Keeney an edge. Republican House members have raised and turned over to their campaign committee much of that cash and the committee uses it to target races.

With the abolition of campaign donation limits, the committee could give the cash to candidates to spend, but Tilley said the money is more effectively spent by the committee. "Our point is we have been running races and making these expenditures for a long time, and we feel better about our decisions because we do it for a living."

Democrats have a counterpart committee, the House Democratic Campaign Committee. It had $288,000 in the bank Sept. 30 and has raised another $112,000 in donations of more than $5,000. But the committee turns over much of its extra cash to the Democratic State Committee, which uses it for Democratic Party priorities at all levels.

"We have to balance out all those things," said House Democratic Leader Paul LeVota of Independence. "It is the different priorities you have at the time."

LeVota didn't dispute that the GOP is playing defense to keep the majority. "We will make substantial gains," LeVota said. "The big question is whether it is enough to make the majority. We are very close to gaining that goal."

Truth in advertising

The ads are a big plus for Keeney, but Winder said the message shows how desperate Republicans are to hold the seat. The ads accuse Winder of supporting income tax increases, sales tax increases and increases in taxes on businesses. He said he would not support raising any taxes, adding that Republicans are using the issue because Winder is endorsed by Missouri Right to Life and strongly supports gun rights. Both of those issues have been used effectively by Republican legislative candidates in rural areas.

"It is just totally not true what they are saying," Winder said.

Winder does support restoring Medicaid cuts enacted by the legislature in 2005. But he said that move, which would cost an estimated $260 million annually in state revenue, could be paid from the state's $800 million surplus. Since the cuts were enacted, Republicans have argued that restoring eligibility to 2005 levels would require a massive tax increase.

Tilley, however, said the ads are accurate and are not based on Winder's support for restoring Medicaid. Instead, he pointed to a 2006 survey by VoteSmart.org. In that survey, Winder responded that he would support "slight increases" in corporate taxes, income taxes for people earning more than $75,000 a year and sales taxes. In the same survey, he said taxes should be "slightly decreased" for gasoline, incomes below $75,000, real estate and vehicles.

That is enough to justify accusations that Winder will increase taxes, Tilley said.

"I think people who, with all due respect, go out and campaign to increase money for education, parents as teachers and to restore Medicaid should be honest enough to know what it is going to take to do that," Tilley said. "But I am not just going to say a bunch of stuff because it helps us get elected."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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