Susan Redden: Democrats praise McCaskill's town hall

A dozen Joplin area residents attended a town hall meeting held by U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill on Friday, then stopped by the offices of two other federal lawmakers to urge them to hold public forums.

The event by McCaskill, a Democrat, attracted members of Southwest Missouri Democrats and Indivisible Joplin, a local chapter of a national organization that formed after the election of Donald Trump.

Krista Stark, executive director of the local Democratic group, said about 250 people attended the forum held in a downtown Springfield event center.

"It was a full house; I didn't see any empty seats," she said.

Stark said McCaskill spoke for about 10 minutes and spent the rest of the hourlong event answering questions submitted in writing by members of the audience.

"I've seen her use this format before," Stark said. "She picked an audience member who didn't support her, and asked him to draw the questions from a basket. I appreciated that questions were not pre-screened, and there was an open dialogue."

Issues covered included health care, Syria and North Korea, labor issues, campaign finance reform and reproductive rights.

McCaskill's response to the topic of reproductive rights sparked a standing ovation from the audience, said Nanda Nunnelly-Sparks, founder of Indivisible Joplin and chairman of the Democratic 32nd Senate District Committee.

"She praised Planned Parenthood and said every woman deserves access to birth control," Nunnelly-Sparks said. "And she said men could help out in that area, too."

Stark said McCaskill spent some time discussing the need for campaign finance reform and the impact of Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations, unions and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money to elect or defeat a candidate.

"She said people need to understand how all that money has saturated our political system and if those groups are allowed to spend unlimited resources, at least people should be able to know where the money is coming from," she said.

So-called social welfare groups and some other nonprofits formed in the wake of the decision are allowed to accept unlimited donations for political advertising and are not required to reveal the source of the funds.

While McCaskill held eight town hall meetings in recent days, none have been scheduled by other federal lawmakers representing the region. Democrats and other groups have organized demonstrations calling on U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and U.S. Rep. Billy Long to hold public events, but spokesmen for the two lawmakers have said Blunt and Long make themselves available to their constituents in other ways. 

Stark said members of the Joplin group made a stop at the Springfield office of Sen. Blunt and were told the office had no information on plans for a public forum in the near future. She said the office of U.S. Rep. Billy Long was closed.

"We're just going to keep asking," she said.

McCaskill will face a re-election challenge in 2018. U.S. Rep Anne Wagner, a St. Louis area Republican, had been mentioned as a likely GOP nominee but just in the last week several Republican leaders urged Attorney General Josh Hawley to enter the race.

A letter written by former U.S. Sen. John Danforth contends Hawley, who took office in January, would be the strongest candidate to challenge McCaskill, who was elected to the post in 2006. The letter was signed by Republicans, including former Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, and GOP donors Peter Herschend of Branson and David Humphreys of Joplin. Humphreys, president of TAMKO Building Products, donated heavily to Hawley during the November election. In December, he and his sister, Sara Atkins, contributed another $500,000 each to a future campaign. The donation came the day before the effective date of a constitutional amendment that limited the amount donors could give in election campaigns.