Both Republican candidates for Missouri attorney general have worked in the governor’s office.
Andrew Bailey was general counsel for Gov. Mike Parson when the governor appointed him as attorney general.
“I served with Gov. Parson for just about four years, happened to be in the right place at the right time when my predecessor Eric Schmitt was elected to the United States Senate,” Bailey said.
Bailey is being challenged in the primary by Will Scharf, who served as policy director for then-Gov. Eric Greitens.
This is his first time running for statewide office.
“Friends of mine approached me about running, said that they thought it was really time to shake up Jefferson City and get more conservative outsiders, as opposed to establishment politicians and establishment people in the office,” Scharf said.
While this is the first campaign for both candidates, Anita Manion, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said Bailey being the current officeholder gives him an advantage.
“Particularly what we've seen from the attorney general's office in the last several years is that that officeholder, whether it's Eric Schmitt or Andrew Bailey, can really use that position and their lawsuits to get a lot of publicity and name recognition,” Manion said.
Trump’s presence
Parson and former attorney general and current U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley have endorsed Bailey.
But so far former President Donald Trump, whom both candidates have ties with, has not endorsed either. Scharf is part of Trump’s legal team. Bailey has filed a lawsuit against New York on behalf of Missouri against Trump’s recent criminal conviction there.
Bailey says Missouri has standing because the conviction amounts to election interference.
“Their goal and ambition was never to obtain a legally valid conviction of the president. It was always to take him off the campaign trail, and that harms Missourians,” Bailey said.
Scharf has touted his representation of Trump throughout the campaign.
“Having that relationship with them to the extent that there is conflict between Missouri and the federal government, I‘d hoped that that would be beneficial that I could get on the phone with him, get on the phone with his top advisers, and help the state of Missouri that way,” Scharf said.
In 2022, Trump issued a vague endorsement of “Eric” in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race. At the time, both Eric Greitens and Eric Schmitt were running for that seat.
Manion expects the candidates to highlight Trump connections as often as they can.
“At this point in our political cycle, tying yourself to Donald Trump can be a real boon in the Republican primary. And Missouri is certainly a state that has voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump,” Manion said.
Bailey touts his record
Bailey said decisions he’s made in office have created tangible results for Missouri.
“This is the Show-Me State, results matter. We've been fighting and winning for Missourians since Day 1, and I'm proud of my record,” Bailey said.
That includes his legal actions to oust then-St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner in 2023, which he said is the reason she ultimately resigned.
“Clearly the circumstances indicate that she resigned because of the lawsuit, because she was about to be ordered to sit for deposition and have to turn over mountains of discovery,” Bailey said.
Also in 2023, he filed emergency rules that limited access to gender-affirming health care for transgender Missourians.
The rules issued by the attorney general’s office prohibited providers from offering surgery, hormone therapy and other treatments to transgender people unless they had resolved all mental health issues, undergone at least 15 hours of therapy and displayed three documented years of gender dysphoria.
At the time, Missouri Republican lawmakers were working on legislation that would have barred transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone treatments.
Bailey filed his office’s rules before the legislature passed its bill that year. But unlike the new law, Bailey’s rules, before he withdrew them in mid-May 2023, affected both children and adults.
Bailey said he doesn’t regret that his rules would have affected transgender adults.
“The idea here is that we're injecting a level of safeguard into a process and into a practice in order to ensure that customers that are consuming those products or those buying those services have all the information they need,” Bailey said.
Bailey’s office is still in a legal fight with Washington University’s Transgender Center.
Earlier this month, a St. Louis circuit judge ruled that the attorney general’s office had no right to access the private health information of patients at the center.
Bailey said he believes his office still has a role to play in accessing those documents.
“I think we're evaluating the court's opinion and to determine what appellate remedies we need to engage with,” Bailey said.
Scharf criticizes Bailey’s handling of office
On several policies, Scharf’s stance is similar, if not identical, to Bailey’s.
Scharf is also against transgender minors getting gender-affirming care.
They also both disagree with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled against Missouri, and other states, which sued over how far the federal government can go to combat posts from social media companies. The court ruled the states did not have standing to sue.
Bailey inherited that case when he took over the attorney general’s office.
“This was a very important First Amendment case. My opponent, Andrew Bailey called it the most important First Amendment case in American history. And yet we have a loss instead of a win,” Scharf said.
Like with this particular case, Scharf’s criticisms of Bailey lie in how he’s run the office versus the stance he has taken on issues.
That includes how Bailey filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, which is a nonprofit, left-leaning research center, over its investigation into hate speech on X.
“I think what we've seen consistently from Bailey since he took office is that every time there's an issue that's getting press, that's getting media, that's trending on Twitter, he inserts his office into that issue, usually quite clumsily, grabs a bunch of media attention, and then moves on to the next issue,” Scharf said.
Scharf says he’s interested in what Media Matters is doing, but he’s not sure if Bailey’s office is doing a thorough investigation.
There are some differences in policy between the two candidates.
Scharf said he would not have chosen to defend three state senators who are being sued for defamation over false claims they made during the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl parade.
Sens. Denny Hoskins, Rick Brattin and Nick Schroer are being sued by a man who the senators falsely stated on X was responsible for the shooting.
Bailey is representing the senators in the suit. Parson is against that decision.
“On this point, Gov. Parson’s quite right. The taxpayer dollars shouldn't be going to fund a private defense or potentially to pay a private judgment in these cases,” Scharf said. “But I would just emphasize that I do believe that these defamation lawsuits are absolutely baseless.“
Scharf also doesn’t believe that the attorney general’s office should have a role in the Missouri Housing Development Commission, which works to increase housing options for low- and moderate-income residents.
“I'd much rather see a professional staff and people who are experienced in housing and construction and finance, making decisions based on what's best for Missouri,” Scharf said.
The rhetoric between the two campaigns has been contentious.
Bailey describes Scharf as beholden to special interests in Washington, D.C.
“This is home for me, this is where I'm raising my kids, where he showed up here with a bag full of money in order to buy a political office,” Bailey said.
Scharf said that unlike Bailey, he isn’t going to be swayed by influences within Jefferson City.
“I think Andrew Bailey is a creature of the Jefferson City establishment. He's being backed by all the lobbyists and all the special interests and all the folks who really run that city,” Scharf said.
Whoever wins the Aug. 6 primary will face Democrat Elad Gross in November.
