U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof’s careful dancing around the issue of fee office reform has been successful, if the goal of his hedged language was making sure the agents who run fee offices in Missouri were still willing to donate to his campaign.

Comparing lists of fee agents with donations from Hulshof’s April filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission, the Republican candidate for governor garnered nearly $28,000 in campaign donations from fee office agents or relatives of those agents.

In early March, Hulshof announced he would “end the patronage system” by requiring all fee offices to be bid. Under previous governors the offices were handed out to political supporters, who responded in kind by donating to campaigns. Hulshof said he would end that practice.

But in late March outside a Joplin fee office, he appeared to hedge, suggesting that fee offices that were “efficient” wouldn’t be in danger of losing their contracts. “What I don’t want to happen,” he said, “is to put a burden on our efficiently run offices.” Hulshof has since maintained that all offices will be bid, but there will be a rating scale that could give a built in advantage to those offices that are currently being run “efficiently.”

He made those statements in front of the fee office in Joplin, which Hulshof said was among the best run in the state. That office is run by Roy Cagle, chairman of the Newton County Republican Central Committee.

 Cagle gave $250 to Hulshof’s campaign in late March. Other big donors who also have contracts to run fee offices included the Atkins family in Columbia ($5,400 total); Michael Becker of St. Louis (Deer Creek office), $1,350; the Boyers family of Poplar Bluff, $4,050; Tom Carter of Ozark, $1,350 (the Carter’s run three fee offices in Southwest Missouri); Garrett and Michelle Lott of St. Louis (South County contract office), $2,700.

On another note, Hulshof also has another interesting donation. It’s from Stephen Colbert of Columbia. Who knew the Comedy Channel faux news star moved to the Show Me State?

See Hulshof’s April MEC filing here.

UPDATE: I’d like to thank Gov. Matt Blunt’s spokesman, Rich Chrismer, for personally driving up hits at Political Fix tonight. Chrismer e-mailed again to ask that I add to this post the fact that the governor has put five fee offices out for bids. The governor also expanded the patronage system by privatizing formerly state-run offices.