H.S. Priest didn’t think bribery was a big deal.
It was October 1902, and Priest, a lawyer, was defending his client, Robert M. Snyder, against charges of bribing a city official to obtain a streetcar contract.
“There are worse crimes than bribery,†Priest told the jury. “At most, bribery is a conventional offense.â€
The jury didn’t buy it. Snyder was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.
And so began the legend of Joseph Wingate Folk.
At the turn of the century, the young ºüÀêÊÓƵ circuit attorney took on “the Combine,†a secretive cabal of big-moneyed interests in the city that bribed their way to power and profits through streetcar franchises and other contracts. They called it “boodling.†Members of the Combine would spend $100,000 or more at a time to get their way, and more often than not, they did. They had an oath that said, in effect, that the first rule of the Combine was never to talk about the Combine.
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Over several years, Folk would indict about 40 public officials or members of the cabal. He obtained 20 convictions, mostly for bribery, though many were later overturned by a Missouri Supreme Court that apparently saw things as Priest did.
Folk would go on to become governor of Missouri. He died in 1923.
About a month ago, Jefferson City attorney Chuck Hatfield and a secret donor or donors revived his memory.
On Jan. 30, Hatfield formed a nonprofit called the Joseph Wingate Folk Society. Two weeks later, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ political operative named Kathryn Jayne Drennan formed a political action committee called the VOTE-STL PAC. What happened next is the entrance of dark money into the race for president of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Board of Aldermen.
The Joseph Wingate Folk Society gave $100,000 to Drennan’s new PAC, and the PAC started running advertisements supporting the candidacy of incumbent Lewis Reed, who is being challenged by state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed and Alderman Megan Ellyia Green.
Hatfield won’t say where the money came from, but suffice it to say, some very powerful interests want Reed to be the president of the Board of Aldermen, and they don’t want voters to know who they are. The boodlers are back.
Sadly, this is all too often how democracy plays out in the U.S. these days, says , head of the political science department at Northwestern University.
“The system allows very powerful moneyed players to use their influence in politics without being known,†Winters says. “Because things have been set up in this way, it is perfectly legal to be nontransparent, to be hidden.â€
Winters will be in ºüÀêÊÓƵ on March 12 to speak at the Ethical Society on the topic of dark money and its effect on income inequality. It’s a popular topic in ºüÀêÊÓƵ these days. Just last week, about the time VOTE-STL started funding ads for Reed, lawyer Elad Gross was on a panel discussing the scourge of dark money in American politics.
Like Winters, Gross believes the ability of powerful people to secretly influence the political system is leaving regular voters out in the cold.
“There’s a reason why poor kids go to poor schools, why we have hospital closures in rural Missouri, why we haven’t made a real concerted effort to ensure all city and Missouri residents have opportunity,†Gross said. “That’s because many elected officials are influenced by those who give them the most money, not by the people they’re supposed to represent. Dark money goes a step further and cleanses the names of donors so we as the public have less ability to fight back.â€
Indeed, when voters go to the polls in the city next week, they’ll have no idea who wants so badly to keep Reed in power. Perhaps it’s the cabal of folks working at billionaire Rex Sinquefield’s behest , eliminate the earnings tax and merge the city and county. Among Folk’s accomplishments was approving the process by which residents can amend the constitution in Missouri by a ballot initiative. Perhaps the nonprofit’s name is a nod to Better Together, whose backers also manage or fund other PACs connected to Drennan.
Or maybe it’s the forces behind the push for new sports stadium incentives in the city, who have after some well-placed campaign donations. Perhaps it is some unseen developer who needs Reed’s support and doesn’t want to be connected to the president of the board.
The fact is, we don’t know who is spending that $100,000, just as ºüÀêÊÓƵans didn’t know who was pulling the strings behind the Combine curtain until Joseph Wingate Folk came along.
Folk broke up the Combine, but its spirit never really left ºüÀêÊÓƵ. It re-emerges in different forms every decade or so, when wealthy interests seek to secretly buy politicians to do their will. Dark money is betting on Reed on March 5, and for voters that can mean only one thing, Winters says. Somebody with money wants to bend public policy in their direction so they can put more cash in their pockets.
“The lower down you go, such as an aldermanic race, the effect of big money is amplified,†Winters says. “It is looking bleak in terms of limiting the role of dark money. Very bleak.â€