James Harris

The Star and Post-Dispatch have the story of a rather incredible letter from lobbyist and Better Courts for Missouri leader James Harris. In the letter sent Monday, Harris asks sitting Republican senators to “speak with members of the [Missouri Supreme] Court” about about a pending case.

Harris' outrageous suggestion that politicians should be lobbying members of the judiciary about pending cases was quickly shot down by the chief of staff to Sen. Charlie Shields (R-St. Joseph).

Please know that any ex parte communication from you with the judges about this case or any issue before the court may involve serious legal ramifications and should be avoided at all costs.

Emphasis in the original.

The editorial board Post-Dispatch doesn't include many fans of the ballot initiative campaign from the "Better Courts for Missouri" organization, which would replace the state's widely praised nonpartisan judicial selection plan with a more partisan arrangement that would be controlled by the governor and state senators.

[T]he greatest single political threat to justice in Missouri lies with a harshly ideological and well-financed few who are doing all within their power to politicize how judges are selected in the state.

They have plotted — and continue to plot — to cut ordinary citizens and respected lawyers out of the judicial selection process and put partisans and power brokers in charge. Their current strategy is being advanced by a shadow group fronted by James Harris, a former political operative to former Gov. Matt Blunt. [...]

As first noted in this space, the state contract for the Warrenton fee office was awarded to the family of GOP operative James Harris last week. The Beacon's Jo Mannies spoke with Harris about the award, who confirmed (surprise!) that political affiliations, donations and histories of hackery aren't even considered when the Department of Revenue reviews fee office bids.

As far as Harris is concerned, his grandmother's success in winning the contract is proof that "the governor is doing what he said; he's awarding the contracts to those who submit the best bids."

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Proving yet again that the state's new fee office bidding system is a sham, the Department of Revenue announced yesterday that a company connected to the family of James Harris was awarded the contract for the Warrenton fee office.

Harris, you may remember, is the former Matt Blunt operative who resigned as the former governor's appointments director under a cloud of suspicion, and is currently managing a campaign funded by ultraconservative activists to inject more partisanship into the state's judicial selection process.Harris' grandmother, Mary Winkelmann, who bagged a contract when James was  Blunt's appointments secretary and is still the agent for the Wentzville office, has now added the Warrenton feather to her cap. Who else is a partner in the company that will administer the Warrenton office?  One John Harris. It's sickening, really.

Hearings for Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor began today. More tomorrow.

Gov. Jay Nixon signed legislation to increase energy efficiency in Missouri. Bill sponsor Sen. Brad Lager (R-Savannah) said the bill is designed to deter the creation of coal and nuclear plants, and encourage homeowners and companies to partner with utilities to find ways to reduce energy.

James Harris' "Better Courts for Missouri" is hoping to get a measure on the 2010 ballot to inject partisanship into the selection of state judges.

GOP Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt believes that the outrageous politicking we've been experiencing in the Sonia Sotomayor nomination process has really inspired Missourians to add unrestrained partisanship into our own judicial selection process. Pratt spoke on a panel yesterday at the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference with State Sen. Jim Lembke and others about their legislative and ballot-initiative strategies for undermining Missouri's widely-praised process. On the panel, Pratt said the right-wing hysteria about Sotomayor has prompted "a greater grassroots movement'' to push for "dramatic changes" to the Missouri Plan.

And why wouldn't we want the same sort of junk here in Missouri?  I mean, who wouldn't love informed and well-reasoned questions about the influence of menstruation on judges' decisions, shameless hypocrisy from partisans on manufactured issues, or weeks of hand-wringing about how sorry politicians are for making outrageous claims about nominees.  Why wouldn't we want more of that? It sounds absolutely fabulous!

To right-wing ideologues, maybe.

­­Longtime Fired Up readers will remember the names Abid Nisar and Naveed Razzaque.  Nisar and Razzaque were two clients of now-imprisoned Republican Nathan Cooper from whom Cooper raised money which ultimately wound up in the pocket of Matt Blunt's then-Appointment Secretary James Harris.  Nisar and Razzaque each received­ a gubernatorial appointment to a board or commission.­

The uninitiated might think Cooper's incarceration would mean the end of this particular racket.  They would, of course, be wrong. 

Missouri Ethics Commission records indicate that Nisar and Razzaque have been active political givers for the last year --but only to three candidates for whose campaigns Harris was heavily engaged as a consultant.­

Mike Lair, a Republican candidate for the open Seventh District House Seat and father-in-law to former Blunt bagman James Harris, paid more than $23,000 to his wife from the coffers of a Federally funded education grant program of which he was the director over the last four years, according to official documents.  These payments, supplemented by regular reimbursement of travel per diem costs paid to Ms. Lair, represent a clear violation of financial standards promulgated by the United States Office of Management and Budget and raise serious concerns that Mike Lair violated federal law.

There's too much wrong with Jo Mannies' ridiculously incomplete, inept and credulous coverage of the Peter Kinder/Better Leadership for Missouri scam to allow a comprehensive description in one sitting.  So let's focus on one piece in particular for now: the absurd explanation by Paul Sloca for why Better Leadership for Missouri has been paying Peter Kinder's campaign rent.

Among the Democrats' examples: Kinder hasn't reported paying rent since
he paid $2,400 in December to the J. Harris Company, operated by GOP
consultant James Harris.

Better Leadership's latest reports show rent payments of $3,960 to Harris' company. ...

Kinder hasn't paid rent in six months, said Sloca, because he's waiting
for a bill from the Missouri Republican Party, which handles the
payments for the building where his campaign is currently situated.

If this is the best Sloca can do, no committee should be paying to guy to do "communications."  Folks may remember that this illegitimate line of reasoning is the same one used by Matt Blunt when it was revelead that his campaign had accepted unreported and illegal in-kind contributions from Mike Kehoe in the form of a campaign bus:­

A central part of Barack Obama's effort to win the Presidency with his message of change and rejection of "the old politics" has been his campaign's concerted attempt at diminishing the influence of lobbyist money on the process.

By contrast, John McCain's campaign is not only run largely by lobbyists, but is funded by them as well.

And for us Missourians, there is one particularly illustrative and locally relevant example.  According to McCain's official website, one of the individuals raising more than $50,000 for the McCain presidential campaign is Jefferson City's own James Harris.  Harris is a lobbyist registered in Missouri on behalf of no fewer than nine clients.­­

We've written before about the candidacy of Republican Mike Lair for the 7th House District and how his campaign is largely financed by Blunt administration fee agents installed by son-in-law James Harris.

Harris, who served as the Blunt administration's appointment secretary and now counts the gubernatorial campaign of Sarah Steelman among his clients, looks to be sharpening his talons on Mike Lair's opponent in preparation for Kenny Hulshof.  

Even as as it became clear that his quest for a second term would never fully materialize, Matt Blunt's campaign continued to pay vast sums for "services" to former appointments director and Nathan Cooper associate, James Harris.  Team Blunt reported paying more money to Harris in consulting fees after Blunt had announced that he wouldn't seek a second term than they paid to him in the previous quarter, when the campaign was still live.

Missourians for Matt Blunt Inc. reports making the following payments to James Harris's consulting firm over the first quarter.  All but one of these payments came after Blunt announced on January 22 that he would not be seeking another term in office. 

Anyone who has been following the efforts of GOPers to scrap Missouri's non-partisan court plan in favor of a more political alternative may want to note the recent restructuring of that campaign. 

We've devoted significant space on this site to exposing the folks behind the Adam Smith Foundation --the group which was initially constructed to demolish the non-partisan court plan.   As previously explained, the Adam Smith Foundation was a cooperative effort between Blunt allies Jeff Roe and James Harris aimed squarely at setting up a structure that could be used to intimidate judges and assault Missouri's longstanding process for selecting judges.

Well, perhaps the Adam Smithees got a bit more attention than they'd bargained for --and of the wrong kind.  Opponents of non-partisan courts appear to have refocused their efforts in the form of a new front group, Missourians for Better Courts.  Just like the Adam Smith Foundation, the new group was also headed up by Team Blunt alumni.  The executive director of Better Courts for Missouri is former Blunt administration stalker staffer and "low-level" aide, Jonathan Bunch. 

Lost in the torrent of stories that emerged during the first days of candidate filing in late February was the official entry of Mike Lair into the Republican primary for the 7th District House seat.

Lair, aside from being one of the board members of an organization created by Team Blunt to scrap the non-partisan Missouri Court Plan in favor of a hyper-political alternative, is also a family member to some of the key players in the cabal responsible for the Blunt Administration's cash-and-carry appointment policy.  It is those players who are fully engaged in helping push Lair's candidacy for the general assembly seat formerly held by ally Jewell Patek. 

It appears as though Jeff Roe and James Harris --who've created an entire entity whose purpose is to attack Missouri judges and threaten them with the same treatment they gave Cole County Circuit Judge Tom Brown in 2006-- have achieved their poorly hidden goal.

Congrats to the governor's henchmen on successfully intimidating elected Missouri judges into making wrong decisions.