CLAYTON — In what is shaping up to be the most contentious election for St. Louis County executive in 20 years, much of the focus is not on the candidates but on John Temporiti, who is County Executive Charlie Dooley's campaign manager and treasurer.

A skilled political fundraiser, Temporiti may be Dooley's most valuable operative as the county executive defends his seat in next November's election against the Republican challenger, lawyer Bill Corrigan.

Republicans, however, have begun to target Temporiti as a chink in Dooley's armor.

They claim Temporiti, a lawyer, uses his close ties to Dooley to gain leverage with county officials on behalf of legal clients, campaign contributors, even his own family.

Temporiti, 60, asserts that his only motivation is public service, something he learned growing up in the Hill neighborhood and attending a Catholic seminary for eight years.

"In politics, I think there are tremendous temptations to be inappropriate in your actions, inappropriate in your morality and inappropriate in how you deal with people," he said recently in an interview in his 17th-floor office at Gallop, Johnson and Neuman in downtown Clayton. "As far as ethics go, I trust my gut; that's where God is. Your gut will not betray you."

Temporiti, of Shrewsbury, is the former chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party and was chief of staff for St. Louis Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. in the 1980s.

He left Dooley's staff at the end of 2006 to return to private practice and to run Dooley's campaign.

Since then, he said, he has maintained a hands-off policy regarding county affairs.

"I have had nothing to do with running county government. That's Charlie (Dooley) and his staff," Temporiti said.

However, critics maintain that Temporiti has continued to meddle in county affairs by lobbying on behalf of law firm clients to public officials, some of whom are beholden to Dooley for their jobs.

"When one perceives that his or her job could be on the line, that's unfair pressure," said Susan Ryan, spokeswoman for the Corrigan campaign. "And it's a distraction from what county employees are supposed to be doing on behalf of taxpayers."

Critics point to two matters they say are troublesome.

One involved Temporiti's lobbying on behalf of a legal client. The other involved a proposed contract for a firm that employs Temporiti's son.

Temporiti said he chose clients based on their ethical and professional standards. Among those he has lobbied for, he said, were an Atlanta company pushing a development plan in Affton; and Holiday Inn, which was seeking to build a hotel in West County. Both projects have since been put on hold, he said.

He said his efforts on their behalf were aboveboard.

"I have never told a client that I have Charlie's ear," he said. "What's important to me, and why I think I've been successful when dealing with a city, county, state or dealing with (Washington) D.C. is that I always created an environment where there's a win-win opportunity.

"If you ask people in government — any stage of government — how does John posture relationships, it's that both sides (his clients and government entities) win."

TRASH CONTRACTS

Temporiti's efforts last year on behalf of Allied Waste shows the fine line that separates Temporiti's private practice and his connection to county government.

Allied at the time was seeking hauling contracts for the county's new trash districts.

At one point, Temporiti invited representatives of competing trash companies to his law firm's office to discuss the program.

Bryan Barcom, of American Eagle Waste, said he was among about eight trash company owners or managers there. Barcom said Temporiti introduced himself at the meeting as "Charlie Dooley's best friend and his former campaign manager."

Barcom said Temporiti went on to say that not all the trash companies in the room would survive the trash districting program.

Barcom said, "He (Temporiti) said, 'A few of you will be on board, but unfortunately, we're going to put a few of you out of business.'"

"At that point, I said, 'Who are you to say who will stay in business and who will go out of business?' And from that point on, the meeting pretty much went downhill."

Barcom, whose firm did not win any of the trash hauling contracts, is now a plaintiff in a suit that alleges that the county failed to give haulers two years' notice before carrying out the program, as required by state law.

Allied eventually won contracts through bidding in two of the eight districts.

Temporiti denied that he made any comment about trash companies going out of business.

"I was there only as a facilitator representing Allied to try and provide for a discussion as to how this (trash program) would make the most sense in terms of what the county was proposing to do," he said.

"All I did was have them come together and say, 'You're the industry. What makes sense for the industry in terms of responding to the county?'"



public education

Last spring, Dooley submitted a contract to the County Council on behalf of the county Health Department that would have awarded the marketing firm Hughes Group Inc. $100,000 for a public education program about recycling.

The council rejected the proposal.

Council members said they did not know at the time that Hughes employed Temporiti's son as a senior manager.

After the vote, Temporiti invited two council members who had voted against the contract, Steve Stenger, D-Affton, and Barbara Fraser, D-University City, to separate lunches during which he asked why they had voted against the contract.

Temporiti said in an interview that he had intended only to assure Stenger and Fraser that he had not tried to influence county officials on behalf of his son.

"I have a lot of respect for the process of awarding bids for the county, and I wanted them to understand that I in no way participated in that process at all," he said.

He added, "First of all, I would never break the law. And second, I certainly would never do it for such a small contract."

Stenger said Temporiti had told him that he would get a chance to reconsider his vote.

Stenger and Fraser have declined to comment further on the matter.

However, another council member who voted against the bill, Greg Quinn, R-Ballwin, said the incident showed that Temporiti had undue influence over Dooley.

"The fact that he had enough confidence to tell two council members that the Hughes contract was coming back up for another vote really does suggest that he has enough influence that he can control which contracts Dooley submits to the council for reconsideration," Quinn said.

Temporiti has denied that he ever told Stenger that the bill would be resubmitted.

"I don't know if it will be resubmitted," he said.

Dooley also said that he had not discussed the Hughes contract, or any county government business, with his campaign manager.

He described Temporiti as "just another lawyer."

"He's representing his client like most lawyers do," Dooley said. "But he is not a part of this administration. He is not on the county's payroll. And he has nothing to do with the decision making."

KNACK FOR POLITICS

Growing up, Temporiti said, he considered only two career choices: the priesthood or law.

His family operated the Oldani grocery business, where Temporiti worked as a boy. The last of the family's three stores closed in 1969.

Temporiti attended St. Louis Preparatory Seminary South, Kenrick Seminary and Cardinal Glennon College.

Even as he studied for the priesthood, he showed a proclivity for politics. He got himself elected to some kind of office every year he was in school.

By senior year at Prep South, he was student council president, a star basketball player and the school's Post-Dispatch scholar athlete.

Temporiti went on to earn a bachelor's degree in philosophy, but in his first year of theological studies, he decided against the priesthood.

The family did produce one person who followed a religious calling; Temporiti's sister and only sibling, Antoinette, became a Catholic nun.

Temporiti followed his second passion, and graduated from St. Louis University Law School in 1975.

While practicing law with a relative's firm, Temporiti was tapped to run Schoemehl's first mayoral campaign. When Schoemehl won, in 1981, Temporiti became his chief of staff. He was 32.

In 1985, he resigned from the mayor's staff to run for Congress when Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-St. Louis County, decided to run for the Senate. Then Gephardt announced he would remain in the House, ending Temporiti's bid for an elected position.

In 1988, when Gephardt briefly ran for president, Temporiti again ran to replace him in Congress. But Temporiti's hopes were again dashed when Gephardt dropped out of the presidential race to return to Congress.

Since then, Temporiti has twice gone to work at Gallop, Johnson and Neuman.

In the 1990s, he joined UniGroup Inc., the parent company of United Van Lines, Mayflower Transit and Vanliner Insurance Co., eventually taking the helm at Mayflower and Vanliner before leaving the company in 2004.

He calls his former boss at UniGroup, Bob Baer, a mentor in his career. Baer now heads the Metro transit agency, which relies heavily on funding from St. Louis County.

Temporiti never completely abandoned the dream of holding an important elected position.

In 2003, he flirted again with running for Congress after Gephardt announced that he would not run for re-election in 2004 because he planned to run for president.

But that time, Temporiti considered running as a Republican.

He approached Republican consultant John Hancock, then executive director for the state party, about switching allegiances.

As a pro-life Catholic, Temporiti said, he had grown disillusioned with the Democratic Party primarily over its support of abortion rights.

"It was tough to reconcile abortion with traditional Christian, Democratic values," he said.

He also questioned Democratic financial policies.

"Our Judeo-Christian ethic is, work hard and be fiscally conservative. But I saw a lot of liberal, socialistic tendencies affecting our financial stability as a country," he said.

Temporiti said he opted instead to stay with his party and to try to change it from the inside. He said he made some headway in that regard after he was appointed chairman in 2007 of the Missouri Democratic Party.

"From my humble perspective, I moderated (the party) back to the fundamentals that built the Democratic Party — morality, fiscal responsibility and work ethic," he said.

As for the party's abortion-rights platform, Temporiti said, "Democrats feel theirs is a big tent and everyone has an opportunity to participate, even people you don't agree with, whether they're pro-choice, gays, lesbians, whatever they may be.

"Christ didn't come to save Pharisees, he came to save the poorest of the poor, the prostitutes. To me, if Christ were alive today, he'd be a Democrat."

Hancock said in a recent interview that he was dubious about Temporiti's motives.

"It was shaping up (in 2003) to be a fairly crowded Democratic primary, and I always wondered if Temporiti wasn't really an opportunist looking for an easier route to Congress," he said. "The Democratic Party hasn't changed its position one bit on any of the issues he said he was troubled about. So why is he still such an ardent Democrat?"

MIXED EMOTIONS

Temporiti said he and Dooley had known each other since 2000, when Dooley was a member of the St. Louis County Council. That year, he said, Dooley approached him and Baer, a staunch Republican, to seek their support for Dooley's ultimately unsuccessful primary race for Congress against William Lacy Clay.

In 2003, Dooley succeeded George R. "Buzz" Westfall as county executive after Westfall died. A special election was scheduled for 2004 to complete Westfall's term.

Temporiti said several people approached him to encourage him to run for the job. Meanwhile, Dooley had not declared whether he would run.

"I said, 'Charlie, let's get together, and talk,'" Temporiti said. "I told him that we had the opportunity — one of us did, in my opinion — to be county executive."

Ultimately, Temporiti said, he opted against running, and backed Dooley.

"It was not my time. I felt that, or I would have done it," he said.

In 2004, Temporiti was hired as executive vice president of the St. Louis County Economic Council, which promotes development in the county.

His office was just down the hall from Dooley's. Temporiti took some heat at the time, notably from former Republican Councilman Kurt Odenwald, that his job was actually to plot political strategy for the county executive.

As Dooley's campaign treasurer this year, Temporiti has already raised more than $1.3 million in what could become the most vigorous race for county executive since 1990, when Westfall wrested control from then-Republican incumbent H.C. Milford.

If the money he raised for Dooley in the 2006 race is any indication, Temporiti is just getting started.

The outcome of that election was never seriously in doubt. Nevertheless, Temporiti amassed $1.7 million to help Dooley bury the Republican challenger, Joe Passanise, who raised a mere $20,000.

Temporiti said that he was proud of his work on Dooley's behalf but that he had lately had second thoughts about passing up retirement several years ago.

"I have mixed emotions," he said. "The first emotion is that it is a unique and wonderful opportunity to be of service to people.

"But the second part of politics is the rough-and-tumble, Machiavellian dynamic that pervades it. And sometimes, I do wish I wasn't in that world."