JEFFERSON CITY • One week before Missouri voters chose nominees who will compete for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Claire McCaskill, state Attorney General Josh Hawley announced he had joined 28 other states fighting to protect a historic cross honoring World War I veterans.
His decision to add Missouri to an effort to preserve a memorial more than 800 miles away in Maryland was not a surprise.
From his early days as a law clerk to his life in private practice, the Republican has focused on legal cases where religion and the law intersect, most often in an effort to defend religious liberty.
Now, Hawley, 38, is in a race to take that mindset to the U.S. Senate, after he easily beat a crowded field of contenders vying to run against McCaskill in November in one of the most watched races in the nation.
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His message during the primary campaign mirrored many of the legal battles he has fought: America needs to return to the same small-town values he saw growing up in Lexington, Mo.
“The heartland way of life is really at stake,†Hawley told the Post-Dispatch. “I think it’s the great crisis of our day. I think there’s a real sense out there that access to the middle class, the ability to stay in the middle class, to live that kind of life, is in serious jeopardy.
“I think protecting that and defending that is extremely important,†he said.
The message of rural and often religious values at a time when Missouri’s Democratic vote comes largely out of its two largest cities is a switch from his first successful campaign for office, when Hawley called himself a “conservative outsider†in taking down two more experienced officeholders in 2016.
Hawley cruised to victory in that maiden run for office, knocking off fellow Columbia Republican Kurt Schaefer, a former state senator, and then beating Democrat Teresa Hensley, a former Cass County prosecutor.
In winning, Hawley became the first Republican to hold the seat in 20 years.
Hawley, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri before his leap into politics, clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts at the U.S. Supreme Court and has served as an attorney in cases before the high court.
He graduated from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, graduated from Stanford University and received his law degree at Yale.
McCaskill scoffs at Hawley’s attempt to connect with rural Missouri and said his Ivy League résumé means he is “obviously a very intelligent man.â€
But, she said, “I am pretty certain he has never looked Missouri in the eye. I am pretty sure he has not ferreted out waste and abuse over years of experience. I am pretty sure he is not as knowledgeable as I am about a lot of the public policy issues.â€
Similarly, Hawley is trying to cast McCaskill as an elite, while he is a defender of small-town values and religious freedom.
“I think it’s about being where the people are and holding the values that they hold, embracing the way of life that we live here. I’m proud of our way of life. I’m proud to be from rural Missouri,†Hawley said.
All-in with Trump
An outline of the coming campaign emerged quickly after Tuesday’s primary vote when Hawley issued a demand that McCaskill debate him on a “flatbed truck.â€
McCaskill responded on Twitter that Hawley was standing on a utility trailer, not a flatbed truck, hinting that her Republican opponent was out of touch with basic transportation terminology.
Hawley responded to that with his own zinger by tweeting a picture of a recreational vehicle and an airplane, referencing a June dust-up when McCaskill was touring the state in an RV, but flew in her husband’s plane after events ended for the day to either ºüÀêÊÓƵ or Kansas City.
Hawley has gone all-in with President Donald Trump, who, after winning Missouri by 19 points in 2016, has endorsed Hawley and held two rallies and fundraisers on his behalf.
“I think he’s going a great job. His record has been a tremendous success,†Hawley said of the president.
David Zucker, of Dardenne Prairie, who is chairman of the St. Charles Republican Central Committee, thinks Hawley is making the right call by linking arms with the president.
“He’s joined at the hip with Trump,†Zucker said. “Trump may be more popular here now than he was two years ago.â€
Rep. Glen Kolkmeyer, R-Odessa, who grew up minutes from Hawley’s hometown, said Hawley’s message is resonating in his district.
“I think it’s something that’s been lacking for quite some time,†Kolkmeyer said. “We need to take more rural values to D.C.â€
In addition to clerking for Roberts, Hawley served under Judge Michael W. McConnell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. McConnell, now retired from the bench, directs the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state issues.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he chose a clerkship with me because of my academic writing on this,†McConnell told the Post-Dispatch. McConnell also isn’t surprised that Hawley has continued to pursue similar cases as attorney general.
“His interest in this goes way back to law school if not before,†he said. “That shows a considerable dedication to that issue.â€
Prior to joining the University of Missouri faculty, Hawley worked as an appellate litigator at the Hogan Lovells law firm in Washington. He also served as senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
It was at the Becket Fund where he took on high-profile religious freedom cases.
The most well-known among them was a case in which the Hobby Lobby craft store was fighting the U.S. government over a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that companies provide insurance to employees that covers contraceptives. Hobby Lobby’s CEO David Green, an evangelical Christian, said the mandate violated the religious beliefs on which the company was founded.
The Supreme Court ruled that business could be protected from government mandates that violate their owners’ religious beliefs.
“With his background, Josh could have done anything,†Kristina Arriaga, former executive director of the Becket Fund, told the National Review in April. “He decided not to devote himself to personal enrichment. Instead, he decided to work for religious freedom.â€
Religious freedom, states’ rights
The origin of Hawley’s interest in the crossroads of law and religion germinated when he clerked for McConnell, who retired and founded a religious liberty law clinic at Stanford University and has argued religious liberty cases at the Supreme Court.
“I think protecting that and defending that is extremely important,†said Hawley, who attends the Crossing, a Columbia church associated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
He said he wants to strengthen the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was the law used to litigate the Hobby Lobby case.
“I think it needs to be defended and protected,†Hawley said, adding that the Constitution will dictate how far Congress can go in when it comes to adding new religious freedom laws.
Hawley also has taken on the Affordable Care Act in other venues. In February, he joined a coalition of GOP attorneys general to try to bring the ACA to an end — a move that has already drawn scrutiny from McCaskill.
In July, McCaskill co-sponsored a resolution that would direct Senate lawyers to defend against the lawsuit because it could threaten ACA protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
Hawley also took aim at Obamacare in 2014, when he and his wife, attorney Erin Hawley, filed a petition in support of a lawsuit that sought to dump the ACA over the tax credit people would receive to reduce the cost of health insurance.
The brief, filed under the name of two of Hawley’s nonprofits — Missouri Liberty Project and Missouri Forward Foundation — focused largely on the rights of states. Of the tax credit, Hawley wrote that, “The effect is to diminish the political authority of state voters and short-circuit the democratic process in the states.â€
In his first year in office, Hawley sued Google and Facebook over data protection policies and promoted efforts to fight sex trafficking.
In 2017, Hawley announced advertising as massage parlors as part of a multi-state investigation into human trafficking. The result of the raid was a court injunction prohibiting 15 businesses and individuals from engaging in trafficking or prostitution.
“Ten of the raided businesses have shut down permanently. Additionally, nine individuals were charged with criminal conduct. Six have pled guilty,†said Mary Compton, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.
Last December, however, Hawley raised eyebrows when he linked the problem of human trafficking to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s during a speech in Kansas City.
“We have a human trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities. There is a market for it. Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way,†he says in a recording made of the speech. “The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, never have imagined.â€
In an interview, Hawley said he wants a return to the days of quieter small towns where the middle class is prosperous.
“I think there is a real sense that, when you talk to folks all around Missouri, they feel like there’s not much that holds us together anymore as Americans,†he said. “They feel besieged by media, looked down on by Hollywood and sort of the elite media, that of course is not based here in Missouri. They feel like their values of family and work and faith are taken for granted.â€
Josh Hawley
Job • Missouri attorney general, elected 2016
Age • 38
Born • Springdale, Ark.
Previous elected office • None
Other jobs • University of Missouri law professor, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Hogan Lovells law firm