Clearly Qualified: Jefferson City Voters Choose Experience and Transparency

Apr 17, 2025

On April 8, 2025, municipal elections were held in Jefferson City and Cole County. Voter turnout was abysmal, partly due to the number of unopposed offices on the ballot. The turnout was just 8% county-wide, although as many as 15% of registered voters showed up in the few areas with contested races.

In Jefferson City, three new city council members will be sworn into office at the council’s next meeting on Monday, April 21, 2025. Those are Derek Thomas in Ward 3, Julie Allen in Ward 4, and Shane Kampeter in Ward 5.

This represents an opportunity for the city council to make a fresh start after several years of dysfunction brought on by infighting, public mistrust, and partisan bickering. However, success will depend on the mayor's leadership, how appointments are made to key city council committees, and his ability to forge collaboration, compromise, and consensus on the city's significant challenges in the coming year.

This election also revealed significant shortcomings in Missouri's campaign finance laws, which are designed to promote transparency regarding campaign finances. In this election, laws designed to prevent lobbyist abuse were cited to justify not following normal reporting requirements, raising concerns about the city council race in Ward 4.

Resignations Offer a New Opportunity

Jefferson City is divided into five wards, each with two city council members serving for two years. Their terms are staggered so that one seat in each ward is up for re-election each year. The seats and elections are non-partisan, meaning that candidates do not run campaigns that rely on partisan politics, and their affiliation with the Republican or Democratic Party is not relevant to city business or policies.

This year, three council members decided not to run for re-election: Scott Spencer in Ward 3, Derrick Spicer in Ward 4, and Mark Schwartz in Ward 5. Spencer has announced he will run for the Missouri House of Representatives seat from District 60 (Jefferson City). Spicer plans to run for Missouri Senate District 6, which includes Jefferson City and all of Cole County, in addition to several adjacent counties.

In the past few years, these three council members have regularly been involved in controversy, fighting publicly with fellow members and creating a hostile tone during council meetings. They have taken positions and actions that have not been popular with the public, even going as far as being rude and argumentative with citizens who testify in council meetings.

A New Jefferson City Council

This election allows the council to do a much-needed “reset.”

In Ward 3, Derek Thomas defeated Erica Choinka for the council seat being vacated by Scott Spencer. Thomas, who is retired, touted his decades of experience in management and budgeting in business and the time he has spent in the past two years attending council and committee meetings. He defeated Erica Choinka, a communications specialist working for Republican lawmakers in the state Capitol. During the campaign, she highlighted her service on the Parks and Recreation Commission and being a mother of two young children. She also runs a “conservative lifestyle” blog on TikTok, often expressing very partisan views and deriding those with more liberal viewpoints.

Julie Allen won the council seat in Ward 4 over opponent Kathi Harness for the seat vacated by Derrick Spicer. Allen, a CPA, emphasized her 30 years of experience in state government and consulting. Kathi Harness is a registered state lobbyist and owner of Harness & Associates. Harness has lived and raised a family in Ward 4 for 37 years and has run a successful small business consulting firm. Her campaign often echoed themes seen elsewhere in Republican campaigns, “Make Jefferson City Great Again,” and attempted to instill fears about crime and public safety in Jefferson City.

Shane Kampeter will take over the Ward 5 seat formerly held by Mark Schwartz. Kampeter, unopposed in the election, is president of GKS Management, a local development company. His company has won contracts with the city to purchase and rehabilitate several historic properties on Capitol Ave.

The new council members will be sworn in on Monday, April 21, and this will represent an opportunity for the new council to see if it can make progress on many of the big issues facing the city in the coming year: the building of a downtown conference center, addressing the city’s housing shortage, cost of healthcare benefits for city employees, dealing with the city’s aging infrastructure, diminishing federal and state funding sources, and many others.

A lot could depend on the approach taken by Mayor Ron Fitzwater. The mayor controls the appointments of members to the six standing Council Committees that propose laws, review contracts, and projects before presenting them to the full council for approval. Those include the Administration, Budget, Finance, Public Works, Public Safety, and Annexation committees. When making leadership appointments on those committees, will he choose members based on their length of service on the council or area of expertise, or those he views as more aligned with his political beliefs and party (Fitzwater is president of the local Republican central committee as well as a registered lobbyist)?

Council Race in Ward 4 Reveals Defects in Missouri Campaign Ethics Law

Candidates for public office in Missouri must comply with the state’s campaign finance laws, overseen by the Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC). To raise and spend money for a campaign, candidates establish a candidate committee, register with the MEC, and file periodic reports on how much they raise, who contributed and when, how much was spent, when it was spent, and what it was on. Each committee must have a designated treasurer whose responsibilities include making the required MEC disclosures, and the name of the committee and its treasurer must appear in all the candidate’s printed campaign materials.

In 2016, a lawmaker and former Speaker of the House, Steve Tilley, resigned from the legislature to become a lobbyist, taking with him $1 million of campaign contributions he then spent on himself and candidates, some of whom became clients of his consulting services. In response, the Missouri legislature changed the state’s campaign finance statutes to require former elected officials to dissolve their campaign committees if they register as lobbyists. Any money they have has to be returned to donors, given to charity, or donated to a political party organization.

Although the revised statute language only refers to what happens when a public official subsequently registers as a lobbyist, the statute, by extension, prohibits currently registered lobbyists who run for office from creating a candidate committee to manage their campaign finances. But that places them in a precarious position. To raise money for their campaign, the only other option under MEC rules is to form a “continuing committee”, commonly called a “political campaign committee” or PAC. The state statutes permit a candidate to raise money for a PAC, but the PAC must be established and its campaign activities and expenditures must be directed and controlled by someone other than the candidate.

In the Ward 4 city council race, a PAC supported a candidate and registered lobbyist, Kathi Harness. Harness MO’s Future PAC was established with the MEC in December 2024, just days after Harness filed for office. Harness successfully raised funds for the PAC over the next two months, raising over $11,000 in donations before the cut-off date for the first reporting period, but failed to file a report of its contributions and expenditures as required by the MEC 40 days before the April 8 election. The 40-day report is required of any committee that receives funds and spends money on behalf of all campaigns supporting candidates or ballot issues. All the other city council candidates submitted a 40-day report, including Harness’s opponent, Julie Allen, identifying contributions to their campaigns and expenses.

The failure to file the 40-day campaign finance report itemizing the Harness campaign’s donations was highlighted in a social media post by Capital City United for Good Government, another political action committee established by citizens of Jefferson City to advocate for transparency, integrity, and respect in local government. In an article published by the local newspaper, Melissa Largent, the treasurer for the SchwartzPAC, a PAC that provided financing for the councilman Mark Schwartz’s campaign, asserted that Harness MO’s Future PAC was not required to file the 40-day report, like Harness’ opponent, since the expenses it incurred were “not related to Harness’ campaign.”

However, this ignores the MEC statute that requires all committees to report campaign donations as well as expenses. Had Harness MO Future PAC filed a 40-day report, voters would have learned that the PAC received thousands of dollars in contributions from other lobbyists, PACs, out-of-town contributors, and large businesses within two months of its first establishment. Voters were denied that information as they headed to the polls to cast absentee and early voting ballots. It is interesting to note that when Ms. Largent managed Mark Schwartz’s campaign, the 40-day report was filed.

The legislature may have had good intentions when it changed the law to prevent newly registered lobbyists from using their campaign contributions for personal gain. But it’s unlikely it intended to allow lobbyists who run for office and their campaign treasurers to manipulate the campaign finance reporting rules to create an unfair advantage over their opponent and deny voters the right to know who is supporting their campaign.

“The current system is objectively a little goofy,” said Sean Nicholson, who managed a 2018 Clean Missouri campaign that included a provision lowering donation limits for legislative candidates. “The goal of campaign finance laws is for voters to know who’s trying to influence the election and to make sure that corporate special interests don’t have outsized influence over the people who are making a decision about their district and who represents them,” Nicholson said. “I think limits and transparency are both important.”

Missouri Monitor’s mission is to educate our community about important issues such as weaknesses in our campaign finance laws. This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Voters Speak

In last week’s city council race, it was apparent that voters preferred candidates with experience relevant to the city council’s responsibility to direct and oversee the daily operations of the local government, as opposed to those with primarily political backgrounds. The ability to raise large amounts of money from PACs, lobbying firms, and outside interests can help pay for many large campaign signs, slick mailers, and other advertisements. Still, local voters didn’t buy into the idea that big money campaigns translate into assets needed on the city council.

Voters value transparency. That includes how candidates for the city council conduct their campaigns and are open and forthcoming about who is financing them. However, they also insist on openness and transparency in the council's business. That has been a big concern recently, with meetings and votes taken behind closed doors on issues that should be openly discussed in public. The new council has a unique opportunity to regain the public’s trust when new members are sworn in this coming Monday. Let’s hope they welcome the challenge and seize that opportunity.

Many thanks to all of you who stayed up to date on the election issues and went to the polls! Watch the transition of the new council members to the council on Monday, April 21, 2025 at 6 pm on the City of Jefferson’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@cojits.

What’s on your BINGO card for Schwartz, Spencer and Spicer’s last council meeting? I am guessing Schwartz will use the word “liberal” and Spencer and Spicer will use the opportunity for some campaigning. Comment below to add your guess about what will happen.

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