Gov. Jay Nixon signs fee office law; takes dig at detractors
JEFFERSON CITY — Gov. Jay Nixon isn’t backing down from the Missouri GOP on the issue of fee offices.
Today, Nixon went to the heart of GOP country to sign the bill that requires driver’s license fee offices to be bid out and priority in bidding given to non-profit agencies. Since Nixon is already doing that, the law won’t change much.
Over the past week, the Missouri Republican Party has been criticizing Nixon because some of the bids — including large ones in Lee’s Summit and St. Charles — have been won by Nixon campaign donors.
To respond, Nixon signed the bill at the office in Springfield that had been run previously by one of Gov. Matt Blunt’s biggest supporters. Now the office is run by a non-profit agency called Alternative Opportunities Inc. The organization provides services to people with disabilities.
In a news release, Nixon pointed out that the Republican-led Legislature passed the fee-office bidding bill with bipartisan support:
“I applaud the bi-partisan work undertaken by the legislature to get these bills to my desk today. Legislators from both parties recognized that license office reform was sorely necessary and worked diligently to passed legislation that puts the needs of Missouri’s license office customers first,” Gov. Nixon said.
Jay Nixon is learning the ol’ ‘listen to what I say, don’t look at what I do’ from his Obamamassiah.
Even the St Louis Post-Dispatch said: “the bidding process will be rigged to simply benefit Democratic supporters of Nixon.”
License offices have been awarded to donors linked to more than $80,000 in contributions to Nixon alone.
Worse
Governor
Since
Holden
Geesh Messenger…are you even aware the execs with the non-profit that got the Springfield fee office donated over $10K to Nixon’s gubernatorial campaign?…so Nixon went to Springfield to tout the end of patronage at a fee office he rewarded to his campaign donors…talk about hypocrisy…
Tony, have you ever written a tough story about Jay Nixon? You seem to have a HUGE man-crush on him.
You might want to look into Nixon’s old pal Chuck Hatfield. You see he’s collecting $10,000 per fee office. Doesn’t sound like Nixon’s reformed anything here.
I am patiently watching the bidding process of a local license office. A non-profit who does tons of work for the community has bid as has a longtime democrat crony with clouds over the head of one family member. We shall see who gets the gig.
Be fair. Look back at the contracts awarded in the previous pre-Nixon years and be fair. Really, did contracts get awarded fairly to the lowest bidders statewide. I didn’t hear any of you wining back then about contracts. Your guy decided not to run for office, and nobody forced him to do so. He quit when Missouri was at the crossroads, and claimed there was nothing else to accomplish. Some of you supported this quitter, and now you are mad. Your man quit on Missouri. He gave up on Missouri. He left Missouri to work for a company. Get this through your heads, he quit, HE QUIT!
Get Real, I don’t care for Matt Blunt or any other royal political family member. I always thought that awarding license offices to your pals that funneled money your way was slimy. I’m guessing that was common practice for many years with Dem cronies controlling nearly all the fee offices for the Carnahan/Holden years. When Blunt won, he awarded the offices to his buddies. The dems went crazy because their gravy train was yanked from them. Twelve years just wasn’t enough for them to ride.
Like I said, a non-profit is bidding on a local office against the wife of a longtime elected democrat official in my area. The elected democrat has a big cloud over his head right now. I’m curious to see who Nixon selects in this process. Will he stand by his word and award it to the non-profit or will he line his cronies pockets with the revenue produced?