On the latest edition of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies welcome state Rep. Shamed Dogan to the program.
Dogan is a Republican from Ballwin. He was first elected to the Missouri House in 2014 and was re-elected in 2016. He decided to run for another House term in 2018 after mulling over whether to run for St. Louis County executive.
Unlike many of his Republican and Democratic colleagues, Dogan called on Greitens to resign soon after he was indicted on charges of felony invasion of privacy. Many lawmakers ended up following Dogan’s lead after a House report accused Greitens of physical and sexual abuse against the woman with whom he had an affair.
Last week, the House committee looking into Greitens’ conduct released a report detailing how the governor’s campaign obtained a fundraising list from The Mission Continues. That’s a veterans charity Greitens helped found before he ran for office. Soon after that report became public, members of the House and Senate collected enough signatures to call themselves into special session to possibly consider impeachment. (Greitens was charged with felony computer data tampering in connection with that situation.)
Despite the nationally-watched political turmoil, Dogan notes that lawmakers have been able to pass some bills. That includes one Dogan sponsored reducing regulations for hair braiders, which he said could help create hundreds of jobs — especially for African-Americans.
Here’s some of what Dogan said on the show:
- Knowing that Greitens “could be such a bully and such a jerk to state senators, I figured it wasn’t too much of a stretch that he could do that to a powerless woman.” Greitens is facing trial next week for taking a photo of the woman without her consent and placing it in a position where it could be be electronically transmitted.
- Even if Greitens is acquitted of felony invasion of privacy later this month, Dogan said that doesn’t affect whether he gets impeached or not. “First of all, our standards are different,” he said. “You should not have to wait for a governor to be convicted of a felony before you could move to possibly impeach. Under that standard, you could have a Gov. Harvey Weinstein or a Gov. Bill Cosby up until last week or a Gov. O.J. Simpson.”
- Legislators need to find out who paid the attorney of a key witness in the Greitens case. It was revealed last week that Missouri Times Publisher Scott Faughn delivered at least $100,000 to Al Watkins, who is representing the man who publicly revealed the affair. He is the ex-husband of the woman involved. Faughn has ties to people who benefit from low-income housing tax credits, whom Greitens greatly upset after freezing the state incentive late last year.
- Dogan is an opponent of Clean Missouri, which makes a slew of changes to the state’s ethics laws and dramatically changes how Missouri General Assembly districts are drawn. He said some parts of Clean Missouri, such as restricting lobbyist gifts and making small changes to campaign finance regulations, are a “Trojan horse” to enact redistricting guidelines that will benefit Democratic candidates.
Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter: @jrosenbaum
Follow Jo Mannies on Twitter: @jmannies
Follow Shamed Dogan on Twitter: @dogan4rep
Music: “Man Overboard” by blink-182
