On Sunday, we reported that Jeff Roe, the Kansas City-based Republican political consultant, had played a key role in getting the Missouri House to pass a resolution critical of the Boeing Co., the state's second-largest employer.

We underestimated him.

Yes, he got the House (a body not particularly noted for its expertise in military aviation) to state that Boeing's St. Louis-built F/A-18 fighter jet is inferior to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter built in Fort Worth, Texas, by Lockheed Martin, one of Mr. Roe's corporate clients.

Mr. Roe is a political consultant for many top Missouri Republican office holders and would-be office holders. His influence in Missouri's GOP-dominated Legislature is Texas-sized.

What we didn't know until Monday was that Axiom Strategies, Mr. Roe's firm, also was working the other side of the street. On Monday, Ann Wagner of Ballwin, a congressional candidate who is one of Mr. Roe's clients, issued a strongly worded statement defending Boeing and denouncing the House's support of Lockheed Martin. Her statement was emailed from one of Mr. Roe's employees.

Such is the bizarre state of politics in Missouri. Lawmakers are making public policy decisions based on the advice of high-powered political consultants. When political consultants represent policy interests before the very same lawmakers they are paid to elect, it is an obvious and untenable ethical conflict.

Even when they're only working one side of the street, this is dirty and deceitful.

What's more, Mr. Roe isn't even registered as a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin in Missouri, which means his double-dealing is made worse by a lack of transparency.

In other examples of this process, at least there is some transparency. Fellow Republican strategist David Barklage, for instance, is registered as a lobbyist. He's being paid by the backers of the Aerotropolis economic development bill for his advice. It doesn't hurt his business plan that he's also a paid adviser to several high-ranking state Republicans.

Or maybe it does.

Mr. Barklage also offered advice to the Senate Majority Fund, which specifically targeted two fellow Republicans who won their primary elections in 2010. Now those two senators, Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph and Brian Nieves of Washington, appear to be at war with the consultants who worked against them, applying their political grudges to policy debates.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, Hilltop Public Solutions, which advises Gov. Jay Nixon and other top Democrats, also has waded into the public policy field. The firm has worked for industrial consumers that opposed elements of Ameren Missouri's nuclear plant legislation.

It was a Senate debate about the previous version of that nuclear bill in April 2009 that first brought attention to this insidious influence in the Missouri Capitol. Republican Sens. Kurt Schaefer of Columbia and Jason Crowell of Cape Girardeau shouted down each other for doing the bidding of their political consultants.

The question then remains the same one now: Where does politicking end and policymaking begin?

Voters should be able to discern the difference. Lawmakers should know the difference. In Missouri today, neither statement is true.