JEFFERSON CITY — Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has become a vocal cheerleader for restricting foreign-owned farmland in Missouri, a cause that has grabbed Republicans’ attention as U.S. relations with China have deteriorated.
Now, as the Aug. 6 primary election approaches, Ashcroft’s opponents in the Republican race for governor are using his past advocacy against him.
A campaign ad titled “ depicts a Missouri bovine forced to learn a new language “now that my farm is owned by China.”
The cow, according to subtitles, says its herd is wondering why Ashcroft supported a law “allowing the Chinese Communist Party to buy land here in Missouri, even land near sensitive U.S. military bases.”
Other cows in the ad are adorned with hammer-and-sickle emblems, the flag of China or, in one case, a portrait of Ashcroft taken from an Associated Press photograph.
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Asked to back up the claim about Ashcroft, Rich Chrismer, a spokesman for the political action committee behind the ad, pointed to legislation Ashcroft testified for in 2023 that would restrict foreign-owned purchases.
The bill would have reduced the current 1% cap on foreign-owned agricultural land to 0.5%, and also would have barred “any alien or foreign business” from buying land within 30 miles of agricultural land, military installations and more.
Ashcroft says the ad — from the American Dream PAC, supporting Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe in the governor’s race — ignores the latter provision creating 30-mile buffers around certain spaces.
“That paragraph precluded the entire state,” Ashcroft told the Post-Dispatch. “They don’t know how to read the bill.”
But the offensive by pro-Kehoe forces could serve to turn the tables on Ashcroft, who has spoken out against a policy Kehoe once supported. Kehoe, as a member of the Missouri Senate in 2013, voted for the bill allowing up to 1% foreign ownership of Missouri agricultural land.
Ashcroft’s campaign has attempted to push back.
In March, an attorney for Ashcroft’s campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Springfield TV station demanding it pull the ad.
And, more recently, Ashcroft’s campaign featuring Ashcroft’s father, former Gov. John Ashcroft.
“Jay Ashcroft never supported policy or legislation that welcomed or authorized Chinese ownership of Missouri land,” said John Ashcroft, who also represented Missouri in the U.S. Senate and served as U.S. Attorney General under President George W. Bush.
State Sen. Bill Eigel, the third major Republican in the race for governor, says Jay Ashcroft hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to countering foreign-owned land.
But Ashcroft’s campaign said Eigel, who is pushing for an all-out ban on foreign ag land ownership, actually voted for allowing foreign ownership in the past.
Ashcroft referred to 2023 legislation Eigel voted for that restricts foreign ownership of farmland but allows foreign governments to own farmland for “nonfarming” purposes.
“They (Kehoe and Eigel) both have voted to sell our land to China,” Ashcroft said. “They both know that what they did was wrong, so they’re trying to just project their own failures on me.”
Eigel has also filed his own legislation to ban all foreign-owned agricultural land, which didn’t gain traction this year.
The measure would’ve required “aliens and foreign businesses” to “divest interest in agricultural land in the state” by the beginning of 2027.
“Bill Eigel is the ONLY candidate in the race for governor who wants to ban all foreign entities from owning Missouri land,” Sophia Shore, campaign manager for Eigel, said in a statement. “He is also the ONLY candidate who has a plan to get the land that has been lost back.”
In 2013, Kehoe supported legislation to allow Shuanghui International of Hong Kong to legally own about 42,000 acres of Missouri farmland. Shuanghui, now known as WH Group, acquired Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, a major pork producer in Missouri.
Derek Coats, campaign manager for Kehoe, said in a statement the lieutenant governor has “advocated for a complete ban on foreign ownership of land by our enemies.”
Along with his Senate Republican colleagues at the time — such as current U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt and Gov. Mike Parson — Kehoe voted to override Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of the 2013 plan, opening up Missouri ag land to foreign ownership.
In recent years, however, Republicans have pushed to reverse course.
The issue came up in the 2022 race for Senate, with Schmitt’s Republican primary opponents attacking his past votes; Democratic nominee Trudy Busch Valentine also criticized Schmitt, but she still lost the general election by double digits.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, who is running against businessman Mike Hamra in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary for governor, said “Democrats have been trying to fix the mess the extremists made.”
In a statement, she referred to legislation she filed barring future agricultural land purchases by foreign corporations, “ensuring we’re putting America’s food and energy needs first.”
Quade said that while she has been “sounding the alarm” on the issue, “other candidates have voted to sell off Missouri’s farmland or have made other issues a priority over securing our national interests.”