For people in St. Louis who remain blissfully unaware of the internal wrangling of Democratic politics, the past weekend was a beautiful, sun-spangled farewell to summer. For many who are committed to an improved economic and political future for the city, region and state, the weekend will be remembered for a shameful political disaster that underlines boldly the failure of political leadership in the city – North and South, black and white – and the shortsighted, vindictive political strategies that continue to hold back this city and state.
What happened? With the exception of a few absences, the Democratic committeepeople in Missouri’s 4th Senatorial District met on Saturday to choose a candidate to replace Jeff Smith, who resigned after pleading guilty to two felonies. Finding herself short of votes, because of Sharon Tyus’ aggressive and successful advocacy of Jerryl Christmas, state Rep. Jamilah Nasheed bowed out at the last minute. Christmas, however, lost in the first round of voting, leaving state Rep. Rachel Storch and Joseph Keaveny to advance.
Storch has proven leadership experience in the state Legislature – she most recently chaired the Democratic House Campaign Committee – a progressive voting record and a proven ability to find funding for local programs in the state budget or amendments to bills. A short list of funding Storch managed to wrangle from a hostile, Republican-dominated Legislature that has benefited St. Louis would include the $12 million in stimulus funds that recently reinstated some Metro routes; funding for Children’s Treatment Services (to prevent child abuse and keep families intact), Crisis Nurseries and the SAFECARE network that trains healthcare providers to identify and treatment symptoms of child abuse; and funding for 45 positions for inspectors for childcare, nursing home, and hospital facilities that had been cut from the budget.
She also is very rare among local politicians of any background in standing independent of Mayor Francis G. Slay and the divisive machine politics he represents. Most notably, she did not endorse Slay in his most recent reelection effort, though he was certain to win and has a reputation for vindictiveness when he is not shown the loyalty he expects. That is the most credible way to explain why Slay favored Keaveny – a city committeeman – over Storch, an experienced state legislator, for one of only 34 seats in the Missouri Senate and one of only two Senate seats representing significant portions of the city of St. Louis.
Slay managed to get a number of experienced politicians who should know better to go along with him in favoring blind loyalty (Keaveny) over the more seasoned and capable legislator (Storch). Voting for Keaveny from round one of the two-tiered vote were Harry Kennedy, who has served in both the state Senate and the state House (and now works for Aldermanic President Lewis Reed); Sheriff Jim Murphy, a former state senator; Bob Hilgemann, a former state representative; and Sharon Carpenter, the longterm committeewoman from Slay’s home 23rd Ward and a citywide elected official as Recorder of Deeds.
Keaveny is an attorney and treasurer of the Democratic Central Committee, so as such presumably a man of some competence. If so, by all accounts, this was not on display at the Carpenter’s Hall on Saturday when he spoke for himself to his fellow committeepeople. It was a speech that began by stating that he was not a good speaker. Of course, he had the vote of Slay’s allies locked up and didn’t need to impress any of them, but it is especially awkward to admit you can’t speak well when you are running in a minority party for the state Senate – where your most powerful weapon in the filibuster. That is, talking.
Rachel Storch is an elegant, articulate, informed speaker, and she spoke well. Sharon Carpenter best expressed the patent absurdity of the position in which this left Slay’s voting bloc when she said, “Rachel is brilliant, but we’re more comfortable with Joe.” More comfortable with Joe. This was an oft-repeated line by the many people whose minds were blown on Saturday – as if the qualifications for state senator resembles those of a shoe.
Slay also went into round one of the voting counting two votes on the North Side. Chink Washington and Anna Tyler – acting from their own motives, which may become more legible by watching future donations to their ward committee fund – were with Slay’s candidate from jump street. They soon had company, after Christmas scored lowest in round one (30 votes, to Storch’s 41 and Keaveny’s 49) and was eliminated.
That was when, in apparent retaliation against Storch’s supporters from North St. Louis for not endorsing Christmas, Tyus and her voting bloc – which also included James Clayborne, Norma Leggette, Sterling Miller and Andre Williams – flipped to Keaveny. Given that the special general election will not be competitive, the support of these African Americans will send to Jefferson City Slay’s underqualified, compliant and mediocre candidate. What is worse, they were led by Tyus, who was not elected by voters but rather appointed by T.D. El-Amin.
To get more of the names on the record, Pamela Boyd, Chris Carter, Angela Newsom, Joe Palm and Valerie Petty were with Storch from the beginning, choosing a proven progressive battler with state legislative experience over appeals to racial solidarity. Nora Neal voted initially for Christmas but then sided with Storch over Keaveny. Jesse Todd and Ellen Todd did not vote in round one (out of loyalty to Nasheed, who did not show) but voted for Storch over Keaveny. On the South Side, Cara Jensen, Thomas Hayes, John Corbett and Marie Waterhouse bucked the machine by supporting Storch consistently during the roll-call votes. Mind you, it was decided that the voting would be open, so there was no hiding if your vote had been promised to someone – perhaps after a little friendly threat.
Slay and his ally who chairs the city Democrat committee, Brian Wahby, surely celebrated a victory Saturday night. So must have Rex Sinquefield, who finds in the mayor he funds so richly a willing advocate of school choice. (Slay also pays Wahby’s wife, Robbyn Wahby, some $100,000 annually to advocate for charter and private schools in the city as part of his senior staff.) Keaveny is a willing advocate of school choice at the expense of public schools, and if Slay had any motive in supporting him other than punishing Storch, it would be in helping his paymaster Sinquefield by replacing Jeff Smith with another legislative activist for his agenda to advance the “private option” in public education.
We have to hand it to these guys – they have indeed done it again. They have indeed once again taken advantage of petty, vindictive, shortsighted politics in North St. Louis to advance their agenda and an inexperienced, inarticulate advocate of it in Keaveny. If Slay, Sinquefield and Wahby are indeed celebrating, they are celebrated having succeeded once again at holding back the city of St. Louis. Sharon Tyus – whose own political career was undermined by Slay through previous aldermanic redistricting – is welcome to celebrate right along with them. What strange bedfellows.
We can only urge those who fund and support this mayor and his machine to ask themselves a very good question – why on earth would he want someone with so little ability and experience like Keaveny to represent the city in the state Legislature when he could have had someone more experienced, resourceful and intelligent like Rachel Storch?
Slay would deny it, but he played his own regressive, vindictive and self-serving politics here. Slay opposed Storch because Keaveny endorsed Slay in Slay’s noncompetitive 2009 mayoral race and Storch did not. When you have little to offer by way of effective leadership, which is true of Slay, then it becomes all the more important to exert the power of your office to enforce lockstep loyalty, as Slay does – even, in this case, against the best interests of the city he is elected to serve, which now has an unqualified and mediocre state senator where it did have a flawed but effective Jeff Smith and could have had a gifted Rachel Storch. An eye for an eye has left everyone blind – and the one-eyed man is still king.
Footnote: 22nd Ward Committeeman Andre Williams was shot in the stomach Monday night outside a North City nightclub and listed in stable condition. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said it was not known whether the shooting was random or intentional. Regardless of how he cast his vote in this election, we wish him a speedy recovery and hope the guilty party is punished.