Kermit Brashear (Lincoln Star Journal photo)

Kermit Allen Brashear, II
Age: 63 (b. 3/16/1944)
Hometown: Omaha, Nebraska
Occupation: lawyer-politician-lobbyist

Two members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s board of directors have driven the sale of KFUO-99.1 FM to Joy FM, now in the comments phase of its filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

One is treasurer Tom Kuchta, who has long argued for selling the station. The other is Kermit Brashear, a silver-haired lawyer, politician and lobbyist from Omaha .

Brashear is a native of Crawford, a small town in northwestern Nebraska, and a graduate of the University of Nebraska and its law school. From 1994 until 2006, when term limits forced him out, he was a Republican state legislator; he served as Speaker of the unicameral legislature from 2005 to 2006. Before the start of the next session, in 2007, he registered as a lobbyist.

He’s known for his high intelligence and brightly-colored ties; he lives in a modest house, and gives generously to his church. He’s also well-paid, billing $350 an hour.  Kermit Brashear is a big frog in a small pond.

He and his firm gave the first $100,000 of their time to the KFUO deal - but he’s now on the clock, and he’s expected to reap plenteously from his work for the LCMS, in a deal that’s been roundly criticized for appearing to be far more advantageous to Joy FM than the MoSyn. (He refused to discuss his remuneration with the Post-Dispatch, claiming that it was “privileged and confidential” information.)

Brashear, who both voted to authorize the sale and did all the negotiating - including deciding which possible buyers would and would not be considered - is now the lone authorized spokesman for the Missouri Synod about the sale of KFUO to Joy FM, a “Christian contemporary” station; the LCMS has placed a gag order regarding the radio station on all the MoSyn’s employees.

He can be unpleasant, sarcastic, angry - and then absolutely charming and likable, sometimes within the space of a single brief interview. And for all the heat he’s currently taking for selling St. Louis’ lone classical music station, he says that classical is his own preferred listening format.

Brashear has earned some serious criticism in his home state, where he was satirized by Omaha World-Herald cartoonist Neal Obermayer as a white-haired, bespectacled frog puppet on the hand of a Miss Piggy labeled “Omaha Business.” As a legislator, news stories in the World-Herald noted, he set a record for missed sessions. Even his friends talk about his volcanic temper, and the way he doesn’t respond to telephone and email messages on subjects he doesn’t care to discuss, no matter how pressing the deadline.

Bob Glissmann, an editor at the World-Herald, knows Brashear well both from church and work, and likes him. “He does get pretty haughty,” said Glissmann. “He gets pretty hot, then he cools down. But I think he cares about the way he’s viewed; he wants to be seen as upright and fair.”

That doesn’t always happen. Last summer, there was an uproar when he presented the Sarpy County (Neb.) Board with a bill for $678,000 - and counting - for his part in a deal to bring the minor league Omaha Royals to the suburbs; he had earlier said that his fees might go as high as $500,000.

The leaders of the Radio Arts Board, the “Friends” group that tried to buy KFUO from the MoSyn and keep it classical, have complained that Brashear instead tried to sell them Joy FM’s outstate stations and an HD channel, acting, in effect, as Gateway Creative Broadcasting’s agent. That would be consistent with some of his actions as Speaker.

While in that post, Brashear took hits for bringing legislation that benefited his clients. One, in 2005, was a bill banning public utilities from getting into the Internet broadband business. That would have saved consumers money, and brought advanced technology to Nebraska’s rural areas. But cable company Cox Communications, a Brashear client, didn’t want competition. Brashear pushed the bill through.

In the debate over broadband, Jack Gould, the issues chair for Common Cause Nebraska said, Brashear “said he was the only person who fully understood wireless and and cable and what was in the public interest. In any other place in the world, it seems like wireless (access) is a good thing. He really hurt rural Nebraska.”

He had other ethical issues as Speaker. Dave Hergert, a candidate for the University of Nebraska’s Board of Regents, violated Nebraska’s campaign spending laws. Threatened with criminal prosecution, he hired Brashear as his attorney - and Brashear, in his capacity as Speaker, defended his client on the floor of the Legislature. Hergert was finally impeached, convicted and removed from office, in a major defeat for Brashear.

Brashear “just doesn’t respect conflicts of interest,” said Gould.

Brad Ashford, a state senator from Omaha and Brashear’s successor as head of the judiciary committee, respects Brashear. “He works best in an environment where he’s calling the shots,” he said. “Of course, there’s a price to be paid for that. That’s how he does things; that’s how he works.”

For an experienced politician, Brashear is sometimes surprisingly impolitic - on a regular basis in his dealings with reporters, and even with fellow politicians. Last spring Brashear insulted Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, and then was shocked when the governor replaced him on a committee he’d chaired.

“He does rankle people,” said Ashford. “He’s very focused on the charge he’s given, on the charge he accepts. You have to kind of vision with him.

“Kermit is definitely singular.”

For more on Kermit Brashear, see “Kermit Brashear and the LCMS leaders’ petition”

For more on the Joy FM-KFUO deal, see “LCMS board puts Stortz, others under gag order”, “Some early expert observations on the FCC filing” and “Missouri Synod Agrees to Sell KFUO”