ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Councilman Tim Fitch is proposing the wrong solution to a vexing problem.
This week, Fitch, a Republican, proposed a bill that would cut the county’s health department budget by $122,000, the amount of salary and benefits that will be due to his former County Council colleague, Democrat Rochelle Walton Gray, in a job she was appointed to last month by County Executive Sam Page. It’s a wasted exercise because the council doesn’t have line-item control over the county budget. But the spirit behind Fitch’s bill has value.
Fitch, with fair reason, believes the hiring looks like a payoff for Gray’s controversial vote to keep Lisa Clancy as the chairperson of the council in 2021. Gray cast her vote before the woman who defeated her in last year’s Democratic primary, Shalonda Webb, took office. The dispute over who is head of the council, Clancy or Rita Days, is pending in court. Clancy is an ally of Page. Regardless of whether the hire was a quid pro quo for Gray’s vote — Page says it was not — it looks bad.
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All such appointments of former lawmakers to such jobs look bad, says Councilman Ernie Trakas, a Republican like Fitch, but one who has been often aligned with Page. “I never like it when a former officeholder gets hired into an administration, at any level of government.â€
There is a solution to that problem. Council members could seek a charter amendment that imposes a cooling off period on such appointments, much like voters put in the Missouri Constitution in 2018 when they passed the amendment. The amendment includes a provision that stops state lawmakers from taking lobbying jobs for two years once they leave elected office.
There was a time when Republicans wanted to apply the same sort of cooling off period to appointments made by a governor. When he was a state senator, St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann proposed a one-year state moratorium on such hires. “Republicans and Democrats have both done it,†Ehlmann said at the time. “You can find plenty of examples.†Ehlmann’s bill didn’t get anywhere.
The idea was revived when Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, was accused by Republicans of offering jobs to key lawmakers before an important Medicaid vote. Again, the bill floundered. A few years after Ehlmann made his proposal, former state Rep. Jake Zimmerman, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Democrat who is now the county assessor, filed a similar bill. By then, Republicans were in the majority in the Legislature and Zimmerman’s bill didn’t even get a hearing. Such laws rarely make it to the finish line because too many members of both parties in all levels of government benefit from such arrangements.
In ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, the list of former council members hired by the county executive, or appointed to various jobs, is a long one. Page has done it twice already, first hiring Hazel Erby, and now Gray. Erby has a short memory. She’s now criticizing Page for hiring Gray. When Steve Stenger was the county executive, he hired close allies Pat Dolan and Greg Quinn. Before Stenger, former County Executive Buzz Westfall hired Jeff Wagener, and Gene McNary, a Republican, appointed Brainerd LaTourette as head of the police board.
Gov. Mike Parson has appointed numerous lawmakers, and former lawmakers, to key, high-paying state jobs. So did each of his predecessors. In the city, Mayor Lyda Krewson hired former Aldermen Steve Conway and Scott Ogilvie to join her staff.
In nearly every case, there is a vote, or two, or 10, that critics could point to that makes the hire or appointment look like a payoff. In politics, when it comes to ethics, perception is reality.
If Fitch wants more than headlines, he’ll follow the example set at the state level previously by Ehlmann and Zimmerman. File a bill that makes it illegal for a county executive to hire a current or former council person until at least a year, or two, or heck, maybe five, after their elected service ends. Seek bipartisan support for such a bill and try to get it on the ballot where voters can weigh in.
I’d vote for it.