Candidates try to tie themselves to issues on November ballot

JEFFERSON CITY — Political strategists are forever trying to figure out how to motivate people to vote — and beyond that, to vote a certain way.

At the core, they are trying to pinpoint what people care about. Are people concerned most about the economy or terrorists? Moral values? Affordable health care? A good education?

The conventional political wisdom is that people who care passionately about an issue are more likely to vote when that issue — or a candidate espousing their views on that issue — appears on the ballot.

The August 2004 amendment banning gay marriage, for example, is believed to have drawn some Missourians to the polls who otherwise might not have voted. While casting that ballot, some of those people also then voted in the gubernatorial primaries and other races.

The political theory was that Republicans stood to benefit more than Democrats because of the type of voters most deeply opposed to gay marriage, said MU political scientist David Webber. Any Republican benefit, however, was dampened when the gay marriage ban was placed on the primary ballot instead of the November general election.

This November, Missouri’s ballot could contain several proposals that churn people’s passions. Some proposals hit people’s pocketbooks, like the one to increase the minimum wage. Others affect their life and health, like the constitutional amendment to protect stem cell research and treatments.

So it’s perhaps not surprising that this year’s causes and candidates are intertwining.

Democratic State Auditor candidate Susan Montee, for example, is publicly backing the minimum wage increase, even though it’s not an issue directly related to the auditor’s job.

Montee’s husband, lawyer James Montee, loaned the Give Missourians a Raise campaign $150,000 in April, according to campaign finance reports filed in mid-July. The treasurer for Give Missourians a Raise Inc. is a former executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party.

The connection between Montee, Democrats and the minimum wage ballot proposal is an example of “more strategic thinking in politics,” Webber said.

The stem cell issue also contains plenty of political strategy.

The ballot measure guaranteeing that federally allowed stem cell research can occur in Missouri is a direct political response to past legislative efforts to ban certain embryonic stem cell research.

It’s being financed by the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which has gotten nearly all of its $16 million from Jim and Virginia Stowers, founders of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, which conducts stem cell research.

Two separate political action committees, meanwhile, are providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates who support stem cell research and to various Republican and Democratic committees.

The Supporters of Health Research and Treatments committee already had passed out $421,400 as of the end of June, with more than $1 million that could be distributed in the coming months, according to campaign finance reports.

Some of its contributions went to other political action committees. But most went directly to political parties or candidates. An Associated Press analysis found the committee had given about $190,000 to Republicans and about $163,000 to Democrats. “The whole purpose of the PAC is to educate and support candidates and political organizations about stem cell research,” said Robert Inderman, a spokesman for Supporters of Health Research and Treatment.

That’s distinct from the purpose of the Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, a nonpartisan group that is focused solely on the ballot measure, he said.

Donn Rubin, who is chairman of the Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, also is deputy treasurer for Supporters of Health Research and Treatments. But other than sharing his services and a similar focus on stem cell research, the two committees are separate, he said.

The combined effect of the stem cell committees is not only to influence state policy directly at the ballot box but also indirectly through the election of legislative candidates.

Although Webber isn’t sure whether the passion around the stem cell debate will favor Democrats over Republicans this fall, the political scientist doesn’t foresee any immediate end to the politicization of the issue.