While I wish political parties had not taken over in the states or on a national level, I find it particularly disheartening that the Attorney General candidates run with any platform other than upholding all the laws of the state of Missouri. The candidate who would do the best job at that ought to be elected.

Because political parties dominate the process and either a Democrat or Republican will win the election, the AG ought to be of the opposite party or an independent in an effort to ensure the executive powers of the state are not abused. Will the PD recommend this?

What did Donnelly ever do on the sunshine law. Jeff has two proposals out there. One to create a special unit to enforce the sunshine law. One to toughen enforcement of the sunshine. Show me where she has said a thing about it other than platitudes.

Jeff has eleven, yes eleven consumer protection proposals and Donnelly has two.

Medicaid fraud Jeff has a proposal Donnelly doesn’t.

Emphasize child support enforcement. What concrete thing has Donnelly proposed. Emphasize child support enfrocement. How about support world peace. Or end hunger. Do you guys have a clue.

You check out the websites. Jeff has more proposals than all the other candidates combined. He knows what he will do from day one in that
office.

But you made up your mind to endorse the women from St. Louis.

There is a whole group of us that have been working our tails off to stop Koster. For good reason. He is a Republican with serious ethical lapses. None of us are getting paid to do it. We are all doing it because it is the right thing to do.

You endorse the third place candidate over a clearly more qualified first place. Who the heck do you think she takes most of her votes from. Hint it isn’t Chris Koster. Jeff was the guy that was going to beat him and you guys screw it up.

A lot of us spent a lot of time trying to do what is right and you give us Chris Koster.

Stupid.

Finally, Donnelly being in the race will only help Chris Koster. Everything she fought for over the last few years is toast if Koster wins.

Koster could never beat Jeff straight up.

Are you kidding me? Donnelly is the weakest candidate in this race. This is a travesty; I will never, never subscribe to the PD. It is obvious your decisions are based solely upon knowing someone, rather than the breadth and scope of their vision for the office. Awful choice.

Looks like sour grapes, Jenny. The P-D editorial board has followed each candidate closely and met individually with all three. They are not ignorant.

Try reading Margaret Donnelly’s website, and you’ll see that she has a lot more proposals than you claim, all of them solid.

And if your primary concern was beating Chris Koster, you would have sided with Margaret a long, long time ago.

No, tb, that would be the Columbia Tribune, who basically said in their endorsement that they knew Jeff, and they didn’t know the other candidates well, so they were going with Jeff.

Clark

My boyfriend and I were out on the town drinking last night so I may have got a little carried away.

But you know me from posting over at Show Me Progress. You know me feeling about Chris Koster. If you look at my posts over there I have been clear that while I support Jeff I would support Donnelly if she had a better chance of beating Koster.

You are a great democrat but you are being paid by the Donnelly campaign. I am not paid by any campaign. In fact the candidate that would benefit me most winning would be Koster.

Donnelly has one endorsement outside of St. Louis and Kansas City. One. You can’t win with one endorsement outside of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Jeff is leading in the only public polls and I think you know he is also leading in the internal polls in the race. Donnelly is in third. She is a spoiler. The Post should inform voters. They may have thought Donnelly was slightly better but why tell democratic primary voters to vote for her when the imposter is looming out there.

The Post went with Donnelly because she is from St. Louis and she is good. But Jeff is better. He worked in the office and he was the leader for three years. He valued Donnelly skills or he wouldn’t have appointed to several important positions. But he was the leader.

He does have quite a bit more proposals. This is a partial listing of what he has. I don’t think Donnelly can close to this.

This is Jeff proposal on the sunshine law. Remember the Post cited Donnelly’s proposal. I didn’t think she had one. If she does it doesn’t match up to this:

Harris will strengthen the Sunshine Law in the following ways:

Establish a Sunshine Law Enforcement Unit. Jeff Harris will create a special Sunshine Law Enforcement Unit in the Attorney General’s Office to aggressively pursue complaints of actions by state officials and local governments to close public meetings or withhold public records. The unit would also work to educate citizens of their rights under the Sunshine Law. The unit would be modeled after similar offices in other states.

Five Point Strategy to Protect Public Records. Jeff Harris has a five-point plan to beef up the Sunshine Law and to put a stop to efforts by some government officials to evade the law.

Stop Governmental Employees from Using Private Accounts. Harris will put a stop to efforts by state employees form using private email accounts and Blackberries from circumventing the Sunshine Law. All emails concerning public business would have to be retained by the custodian of records.

Legal Presumption of Openness. Harris will create a legal presumption that documents are open to the public, with the Attorney General’s office determining if records are not subject to the Sunshine Law.

Fines for Negligent Violators. Harris will pursue legislation to allow for fines to be assessed for negligent violations of the Sunshine Law. Ignorance of the law should not excuse misdeeds by government officials.

Increased Maximum Fine for Violators. Harris will also seek to increase the maximum fine from $1,000 to $5,000 for violating the Sunshine Law. In determining the amount of a fine, the court would be required to take into account whether an official negligently, knowingly or purposely violated the law.

Require a Fiscal Note on Sunshine Law Impact. Harris will seek legislation to require a fiscal note summary that accompanies any legislation to state whether or not the proposed legislation will impact the Sunshine Law.

This is what Jeff has on consumer protection:

Expanding the No Call List. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will expand Missouri’s popular No Call List, allowing businesses and cell phone users to add their telephone numbers to the list. Harris is the only candidate who has called for building on this successful program.

Hanging Up Political Robo-Calls. Jeff Harris will champion legislation banning automated, “robo-calls” by political campaigns. Currently the law gives an exemption to campaigns and candidates. Harris will work to put a stop to exemption.

Taking on Predatory Lenders. Missouri’s economy and hundreds of homeowners have been rocked by the subprime lending crisis. Jeff Harris will go after predatory lenders and work to toughen standards for subprime mortgages to prevent the record foreclosures that are hurting our economy. He will make sure that prospective homebuyers won’t be taken advantage of by lenders looking to make a fast buck at the expense of taxpayers.

Capping Excessive Rates Charged by PayDay Lenders. The payday loan industry is taking advantage of many Missourians who find themselves in a difficult situation by charging interest rates that greatly exceed those charged by traditional lenders. Jeff Harris will work to place a cap on the amount these lenders charge.

Protecting Consumers from Rate Increases. Jeff Harris is the only candidate with a plan to protect consumers from utility rate increases. Harris would prohibit members of the Public Service Commission from communicating with utility companies about upcoming rate cases. The chairman of the PSC received scrutiny from both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Kansas City Star after he allegedly promised a utility executive that a merger would be approved before the matter was even before the commission.

Aggressively Intervening in Utility Rate Cases. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will aggressively defend the interests of consumers in utility rate cases, making sure their interests are heard and protected. Harris will move the Office of Public Counsel to the Attorney General’s Office, as other states have done. This transfer will give the OPC the power to pursue legal action when utility companies wrong their customers. Harris has a long record of fighting for lower utility rates. He was the only candidate to vote against the video franchising bill, which will raise cable rates in rural areas, which will allow cable companies to ignore consumer complaints and which will hurt public access channels. He was also one of two candidates who opposed a bill in the 2008 session that will raise phone rates in rural areas. Harris voted against the bill, which he said would allow phone companies to pick and choose which service areas they served. Harris said that companies might “cherry pick” services areas with the highest profits.

Canning Spam. Spam emails represent more than 45 percent of all emails sent, accounting for 14.5 billion email messages sent every day, costing businesses more than $20 billion dollars annually. Recently the state of Virginia successfully took action shutting down one of the country’s most abusive Spammers. Jeff Harris will work with law enforcement in Missouri and across the country to find new solutions to protect Missourians’ ability to use the Internet.

Putting Hot Fuel on Ice. Jeff Harris previously announced his plan to combat the problem of hot fuel, where consumers are actually sold less gasoline during summer months because gasoline expands during hot months. Click here to read more about that plan.

This is a partial listing of what Jeff has on protecting vulnerable Missourians:

Establishing Elder and Disabled Fatality Review Teams: Harris will follow the successful model used in Missouri’s child fatality review teams, which have won national acclaim. He will apply this model to cases involving the deaths of the elderly and people with disabilities.
Cracking Down on Shaken Infant Abuse: Harris will continue his push for legislation to increase the penalty for shaking a baby to death from a minimum of seven years to a minimum of 15 years.
Increasing Protections for Persons with Disabilities in State Custody: Harris will aggressively go after facilities that do not adequately protect their residents, and will push to terminate contracts with vendors who display a pattern of abuse or neglect.
Including Age and Vulnerability as Aggravating Factors in Rape Cases: Harris will push to have these factors included in cases of statutory rape and statutory sodomy.
Protecting Children from Internet Predators: Harris appoint a special counsel in for child exploitation and interdiction to work with Missouri educators to develop a model curriculum to teach Missouri children how to keep themselves safe online.

This is some of Jeff proposals on the enviroment:

Giving Local Communities a Voice. Jeff Harris has pushed for legislation to give communities a voice in where CAFOs can be sited. Current law allows the Department of Natural Resources to ignore local concerns, giving away the farm quite literally to corporate farms who don’t care about how their facilities affect their neighbors’ quality of life. Local control will also allow the people who live in an affected community and who know the land best a real opportunity to speak out and stop a CAFO from being built in areas that threaten our drinking water. As Attorney General, Harris will continue to push for this legislation, and he will continue to press the legislature until it becomes law.

Protecting Our State Parks. Jeff Harris has also sponsored a measure to prevent CAFOs from being built near state parks. These parks are part of what makes Missouri a great place to live, and we need to keep this land open and usable by all. The interests of all Missourians must outweigh the interests of corporate farms.

Enforcing Existing Laws and Regulations. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will diligently enforce Missouri’s existing laws and regulations. He will defend local residents and property owners who need to be protected from corporate special interests. Harris will use his office to fight for them and to hold the corporate farms accountable.

Forcing the Department of Natural Resources to Hear Local Concerns. Hopefully future governors will not allow their administration to close its doors to Missouri citizens when it comes to issues that affect their lives. If the Department of Natural Resources continues to refuse to take input from local citizens and to use that feedback as part of its evaluation process on siting CAFOs, Jeff Harris will take action to make sure local concerns are heard. As the people’s lawyer, Harris will side with the citizens of the state over Big Ag and political appointees.

Prosecuting Corporate Farms that Fail to Take Appropriate Safeguards. As Attorney General, Jeff Harris will not hesitate to go after corporate farms that fail to act as responsible citizens. Harris will make sure our drinking water is safe by going after CAFOs that pollute and force them to clean up their mess.

This is just a partial listing of Jeff proposals, Clark. I don’t think Donnelly can come close to matching them.

You pick yourself off the mat and you do the best you can. You say to yourself there are more important things in the world than who is the next attorney general. But yesterday was a great day for Chris Koster. Unfortunately.

of course MOST of the responses are going to be backlash by people who are upset that their chosen candidate did not get the endorsement.

i am THRILLED that donnelly got the Post’s endorsement. she is by far the best candidate in the race. unlike jenny, i am not going to spend, um, like, fifteen pages on this blog listing all her proposals and qualifications, but will direct people instead to her website: http://www.donnelly08.com. you can read about her there, and why she will be an excellent candidate for attorney general.

the post has been a stellar journalistic institution, ever since it was owned by the pulitzers. thank you for taking the time to investigate this race and choose a strong candidate.

oh, yeah, one other thing, jenny:

donnelly announced and started fundraising well before koster entered the race. she had been considering a run for AG for years. she decided to run because she thought she would be the best democratic candidate for attorney general. and even when koster announced, she still believed that. and, apparently, lots of other people believe that too, since she has outraised harris and can boast 85% of her campaign contributions from individual donors.

i understand that you are a strong jeff supporter, and that seeing the post’s endorsement of margaret must be disappointing. but everything you are spouting off here does really look unfounded, like sour grapes.

sorry, one more.

not everyone who supports donnelly is getting paid by the donnelly campaign, jenny.

A couple of points, Jenny:

I work for Margaret Donnelly because I think she’s the best candidate. I approached her campaign and asked if I could help out, and I recused myself from front-page posts on a race I feel very strongly about just to avoid an appearance of paid influence on Show Me Progress. I have been impressed with her throughout the campaign, and when I saw her in person in action at the West County Democrats debate, I knew that was who I would support. Nothing against Jeff, who I like.

Again and again, I sense from you this anger that someone would dare rob Jeff Harris of the nomination, and somehow you’re convinced that there’s a big united progressive voting bloc that will be evenly split between Margaret and Harris, so any gain by Margaret hurts Harris. I don’t think it really works that way. I can also assure that without Margaret Donnelly in the race, Koster would be running lots of negative ads with his big money advantage that would bury Harris.

Our own internal polls show Jeff doing quite poorly, with Margaret and Koster battling it out for first place. In our polling, there are more undecideds than in the P-D poll, but Jeff doesn’t have the money for enough ads and/or mailings to catch back up. We’ll see who’s really ahead on Election Day, but ask yourself what makes more sense. Do you really think Jeff Harris is ahead in St. Louis without any TV advertising and only a handful of endorsements?

I’m not sure why you cite “only one endorsement” outside of St. Louis and KC as a reason that someone can’t win. Besides the fact that it’s not even true (Margaret has more than one endorsement outside of St. Louis and Kansas City), are you talking about the primary or the general? Because if you’re talking about the primary, that’s not true at all, and if you’re talking about the general election, are you implying that people like Jeff Harris will not endorse her?

I’m not going to spam the thread with a long list of Margaret’s proposals, but readers can go here: http://donnelly08.com/issues. Margaret certainly compares favorably.

BTW, I don’t see a proposal about Medicaid fraud on Jeff Harris’ website. I do on Margaret’s.

I do hope you can tamp down your frustration and anger and get back to positively advocating for your candidate.

Totally Jeff. Furthermore it is irresponsible to take into consideration what Donnelly states that she has done on behalf of children, abused children etc. when in fact these records are closed records to the public, SEALED! These records should not be however.
Why doesn’t she make a law to open these records, hiding the identity of the child using there initials, then the public would be able to see just how Margaret Donnelly performs her job as a Guardian Ad-Litem. Before such happens no, one will ever know.

No one knows how this lady has performed on behalf of any child or family that a judge has appointed her to. It is more than ludicrous to make claims concerning her great work in this area because this paper does not know.

It is careless for people to make such claims concerning her work record on behalf of abused children.

Jeff Harris all the way!!!

There are two fortunate things here:

1 - the post has nothing positive to say about Chris Koster. Sound familiar?
2 - endorsements like this are far more important to candidates and their campaigns than they are to most voters who never read them

Let us not forget Harris has a 10 point lead in the Post’s poll. Donnelly was in third. Endorsements or not, he’s still going to emerge as the winner next Tuesday.

Why don’t you go ahead and go point by point because I went to Donnelly’s website and found nothing comparable to Jeffs. The proof is in the pudding. Give it your best shot. If you don’t want to spam the thread send me what you have at this e-mail address kt.tunstall.fan@gmail.com. If I am wrong I will admit. But when I looked it wasn’t close.

Sour grapes. Yes but not the way you think. I have consistently said I would support the candidate that has the best chance of beating Koster. Jeff Harris is a better candidate than Donnelly but I feel strong enough against Koster that I would support Donnelly if I thought she could beat him.

Outstate support. I am talking about the primary. You say Donnelly has more than one supporter outstate. Maybe she has added people in the last week but when I looked all she had was a state representative from Springfield. Correct that I think she had Bekki Cook also. Two. Jeff has more than fifty endorements outstate. Of course democrats outstate will endorse election day. But a lot of them will be unhappy if there are three St. Louis candidates Page, Zweifel, and Donnelly on the ticket. Tell me how I am wrong here.

BJ I shouldn’t blame Donnelly for running. Fair comment. I was mad. But I still think she is a spoiler.

Everything I am hearing about the polling says that. I know of one public poll and two private polls done by other campaigns. They all pretty much had the same numbers. You show me otherwise and I will switch because I want to stop Koster. The Star endorsement should be coming tomorrow. If Donnelly gets that over Harris in a place not named St. Louis that would help her.

No way Koster beats Harris in a two way race. Donnelly’s supporters are great people. Just like Harris’. I think either would beat Koster in a two way no matter how much money he has. Heck Jeff is ahead of him spending far less money. A little harder for Donnelly because Koster would do okay outstate against her. But the majority of democrats just don’t want Koster.

D. Walker:

I am appalled. I am also a family law attorney, and your comments about the closed records in Donnelly’s cases show that you have little understanding of the sensitive and personal nature of the type of work Donnelly has been involved in. The records you mention protect the identities of minors who have possibly been abused and in very tough family situations, which is not their fault. They should not have to be subjected to possibly embarrassing personal information being revealed for the sake of your insatiable curiosity about what Donnelly has or hasn’t done on their behalf.

If you are concerned that Donnelly hasn’t been effective or successful as a family law attorney in protecting children and families, look at some of the awards she has received. For example, the St. Louis Council on Child Abuse and Neglect awarded Donnelly their Child Advocate of the Year Award in 2004. Those types of organizations are sensitive to the confidentiality necessary to protect children but know what makes a good advocate. Endorsements like that should be proof enough of the good things Donnelly has done.

GO team Donnelly!

Ladies and gentlemen,

I’ve just read through all the comments and edited out some of the more intemperate language.

Whichever candidate you prefer, whatever the party, however deeply felt your passions, the guidelines of The Platform rule out personal attacks (on each other or on the people who are the subjects of posts) and abusive, hostile language.

And it surely is a really bad idea — as one of the commenters in this thread has acknowledged — to get plastered and then spew one’s anger and disappointment all over the page.

Thank you.

Donnely??? Home town edge maybe… but not the right candidate. Koster admits he misses the GOP, Harris is the right choice for AG. Sorry PD, wrong again.

Harris and Donnelly supporters… we’re all good Dems at heart and will have to come together on August 6th to support the candidate who wins the nomination. While I’m personally concerned about Koster, who doesn’t have established credentials that close to the core values of the Democratic party, any of the three candidates would be an improvement over Gibbons.

Sarah,

Sorry that you are appalled, but there is nothing that I can do to control your emotions which appears some what on the hysterical side. I spoke the truth and stand by what I stated. Nothing that you have stated convinces me that I am wrong and that you are making sense.

My point I made very clear. Donnelly’s work as the investigative arm of the court on behalf of abused children for any other purposes should not be represented in her race for Attorney General as proving that she has been a competent GAL when in fact, the public can never know if this is true. No one and certainly not this paper knows if she has been competent or as clean heart as she appears and has made herself out to be. I happen to know some cases where she has not been.

Yes kids need to be protected, but the best way to guarantee that these children are protected from abusers, including sick corrupted minded attorneys and judges are to allow these records to become public. This can be made possible by not using the real names of the children involved as it is done with most Appellant cases involving minors, but most poor parents never make it to the Appellant Courts.

There should be some way the public can see what is going on in our courts concerning this vulnerable group, where judges, attorneys and other officials nave not acted in these children best interests, but in way that virtually guarantee their ruin.

Well, it looks like Koster is the odd man out…at least on this blog.
I’m not surprised by the Donnelly endorsement, as a matter of fact, I think it’s a good PD choice, she’s a good candiadate. She doesn’t seem to have political ambitions beyond AG and she’s willing to do what is right for the people [including children] of Missouri. I like Jeff Harris and I’m still undecided. I have one week to be persuaded.

The reason for my post is Clint Zweifel…I’ve worked door to door, phone banks, and stuffed a few envelopes. He’s the best candidate for middle income workers of Missouri. Zweifel.. He’s been there, done that.

Sarah the attorney,

Donnelly also got the Dundley Dunlop Award, the same type of awards that you mentioned earlier also, didn’t she? He is the GAL on the case pasted below.

The fact that such an award could be named after such a man says everything about these types of awards and the incompetence and abuses possible in this system by such people as Guardian Ad-Litems and judges who over-see these type cases and, who are accepted by their peers and others as being mentally healthy and of moral good conscience when in fact, they are NOT!.

The fact is, there isn’t any non-interested body that oversees a GAL’s performance on a case. It is left to the judges to supervise the GAL’s that they appoint on these cases.

It is a total mess and the system in Missouri is useless in cases where a judge is corrupted and a case is fixed. There are lots of fixed cases and where you have an immoral judge and certain immoral attorneys or attorneys who are unwilling to buck the system, many abused children become chopped meat, such as what almost happened to the child in the case pasted below.

Most children are not as lucky as the ones in the case below to have a national organization take up their cause and a sharp professional mother as their other parent who was not guilty of abuse and was unknowing of the abuse.

http://www.jfcadvocacy.org/amicus-briefs/SwinnOMMJusticeforchildrenbriefS1304833.doc

Sarah,

The moral to the story is, these organizations you mention have no real credibility and no one knows how Donnelly has performed as a GAL. And, the only way to be able to see how GAL’s are performing on behalf of our children is for open records hiding the identity.

Your argument is non-sense as proof by what we know about how the GAL and judge performed in the case above without disclosing their true identities. But, if this case had not made it to Appeals Court with a National Child’s Advocacy group getting involved, it is almost certain we would no nothing about what took place and secondly, the Appeals Court would have most likely swept it under the rug, distorting their opinion which happens a lot in cases where such inexcusable abuses takes place by court officials in a lower court.

It is a big mistake when people fail to believe that evil is EVERYWHERE and is not a respecter of people. There are evil attorneys, judges, GALs, etc., who appear to be light but are not.

Found it!

An example of Margret Donnelly’s work as a GAL. She was the GAL on this situation:

http://www.ShreddedSociety.com