By Max McCoy

Globe Investigative Writer

The top contributors to the Nodler Leadership Political Action Committee form an exclusive club.

They represent the richest and most powerful individuals and institutions in the Joplin area. Their ranks include a chief executive officer whose salary is more than 10 times the median income for Jasper County, libertarian millionaires who give lavishly to conservative candidates, the area's largest manufacturer and the region's electric utility.

The committee is named for state Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin. It was established just eight months after Nodler was sworn in for his first term in January 2003, and by the 2004 general election it was pumping tens of thousands of dollars into the state GOP machine. That was the year that Republicans took the governor's mansion and both houses of the General Assembly.

In all, the leadership PAC spent $116,000.

Now, Nodler is one of the most powerful members of the Missouri Senate - so formidable, in fact, that the local Democratic Party chairman said recently that no candidate could be recruited to run against him in the upcoming general election because he appears unbeatable.

Because Nodler also is unopposed in the GOP primary, he is virtually assured of a second and final term.

Nick Myers, a Joplin certified public accountant, is treasurer of the Nodler Leadership PAC. During a recent interview, Myers said the PAC was meant to promote the senator's leadership style. When asked to define that style, Myers referred the question to Nodler.

Nodler declined to answer that question and all others put to him in connection with the leadership committee and his fund-raising activities in general. He also refused to respond to a list of questions faxed to his Jefferson City office.

But Bill Gipson, the president of Empire District Electric Co. and one of the PAC officers who approves disbursements, did share the committee's philosophy as he sees it:

"The purpose of that PAC," he said, "is to join together like-minded business people in the area to promote the kinds of values that these individuals and their associated businesses might have in terms of trying to influence the political process and public policy."

'A similar philosophy'

The top contributors to the Nodler Leadership PAC are David and Ethelmae Humphreys, the president and chairwoman, respectively, of Tamko Roofing Products Inc., who gave $20,000 from 2003 to 2005. Ethelmae Humphreys also is a director of the CATO Institute, a nonprofit libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Members of the Humphreys family are the most generous political contributors in the Joplin area. During the past five years, according to the Federal Election Commission, they gave $211,000 to candidates and joint committees during national elections.

The Humphreys family declined a request for an interview, but they issued the following statement through Tamko spokesman Ron Cook:

"The Humphreys family supports issues of individual liberty and responsibility, lower taxes, free markets and less restrictive government regulation of people and commerce (as the most efficient regulatory restraints come from free market competition).

"We support politicians who appear to share a similar philosophy. We are hopeful that we can help in some small way to preserve and advance a freer society so that our children can enjoy the same kinds of freedoms and opportunities that we have had. And we feel some sense of duty to play some part in that endeavor."

The next three largest contributors, all of which gave $10,000 to the leadership PAC, are Leggett & Platt Inc. in Carthage, Tri-State Motor Transit Co. of Joplin, and Rudolph and Dorothy Farber. Rudolph Farber is president of Community Bank and Trust in Neosho.

Empire District gave $7,000, and the utility's own political action committee contributed an additional $2,000. Other contributors, of more than $1,000 but less than $5,000, include the Ameristar casinos in Kansas City and St. Charles, the Freeman Physicians Group PAC, St. John's Family PAC, Hunte Corp. of Goodman, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

Partnership

Terry Jones, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said the popular image of politicians being bought by interest groups is rarely true. Instead, Jones said, it typically is a relationship between like-minded individuals.

"It's a mistake to look at it as a bribe," he said, "but not a mistake to look at it as a partnership. It's a situation where one says to the other, 'I can help you get elected and stay elected.'"

Gipson, the head of Empire District, makes no bones about the fact that the utility lobbies and contributes to candidates in an attempt to influence public policy. Overall, he said, the strategy has been a success, and he cited a recent bill introduced by Sen. Jack Goodman, R-Mount Vernon, that would directly help Empire in a land dispute in Taney County.

Goodman said the bill would help Empire, but that it was simply aimed at clarifying existing law regarding adverse possession. It would not give utilities any land or rights they did not already possess, he said.

The bill, which has yet to pass the Senate, would exempt utilities from the statute of limitations for the recovery of land. Gipson said he did not consider a 2005 bill, of which Nodler was among five co-sponsors, that allows utilities automatic rate hikes for fuel and power costs, to have been a result of any influence by Empire District. The bill, Gipson said, passed with such broad support - 179 to 7 - that it simply fell into the area of common sense.

Nodler, though, was the sponsor of a similar but unsuccessful bill that would have allowed utilities automatic rate increases based on fuel costs. He also voted against an amendment that would have allowed the Public Service Commission to consider the ability of consumers to pay in setting utility rates.

'Lawful' laundering

The leading recipient of Nodler Leadership PAC money was the GOP Senate Majority Fund, at $41,500. Coming in second was the 32nd Senatorial District Republican Committee - the political committee for Nodler's district of Jasper, Newton and Dade counties - at $29,000.

Although Missouri has had limits since the 1990s on how much can be contributed to the election campaign of an individual candidate, there are no limits on how much can be moved from one political committee to another.

The committees then distribute the money to candidates of their choice. In addition, the contribution limits on political committees are 10 times that of individuals.

Although the practice is legal, it often has been criticized as money laundering. In March, Nodler - one of many co-sponsors of a bill that would eliminate such committees in favor of unlimited contributions directly to candidates - criticized the practice as "lawful" laundering.

"For state lawmakers to be truly successful, their constituents have to trust them," Nodler said in a prepared statement issued to the media in March. "To earn that trust, legislators must assure those who elected them that their motivations are based on their districts' needs, not on the monetary contributions of interest groups."

Yet, Nodler has been associated for years with the practice of passing money from one committee to another. Since 2002, his election committee has given $25,300 to other candidates and political committees. The leadership PAC that bears his name is a top contributor to the 32nd District committee, which in turn gives money and other aid to state and local GOP candidates.

Nodler, while associated with the leadership and district committees, does not directly decide how the money is spent. In the case of the district committee, Myers said, decisions are made by a group of more than a dozen Republican Party officials from the district's three counties.

Although Nodler is welcome at the meetings, Myers said, he makes no recommendations on spending. The district committees are reorganized every two years, Myers said, and the current committee was established in September 2004. But on Jan. 11, 2004, according to records on file with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Empire District made an in-kind contribution worth $1,610.

Neither Gipson nor Myers remembered the nature of the contribution, they said. Myers said it may have been made to a previous district committee, which would explain why it is listed as occurring eight months before the current committee was formed.

District spending

During the final days before the November 2004 general election, the 32nd District committee was spending heavily. On Oct. 28, the committee gave $12,100 to Catherine Hanaway, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for secretary of state, and $7,000 to Missourians for Matt Blunt.

The same day, according to Ethics Commission records, the committee also spent $12,100 with the Dallas GOP media firm of Scott Howell and Co. and another $12,100 with Thompson Communications of Marshfield.

Reckoning that and other spending against contributions reported in chronological order - say, as one would balance a checkbook - that would have put the committee $46,600 in the red by Oct. 28.

A $48,400 contribution from the Missouri Republican Party put the committee back in the black by Oct. 29, according to Ethics Commission records.

Myers, however, said the date originally reported for the state party's contribution was a clerical error. An amended report filed April 15 - after the Globe inquiry - lists the $48,400 check as being received Oct. 27, two days before originally reported, and keeping the committee's balance from going into the red.

Leadership committee

The Nodler Leadership PAC has a committee of three who determine spending, and the three have ties to Nodler, the local business community and the Republican Party.

Gipson, chairman of the disbursement committee for the Nodler Leadership PAC, said the other officers are Rudolph Farber of Neosho and Gary Duncan, the chief executive officer of Freeman Health System.

"We're the ones that make the decisions," Gipson said. "Nick Myers generally makes the recommendations to the committee on how the money is to be disbursed."

All three have contributed to the Elect Nodler Campaign. To date, Farber has given $1,150, Gipson $850 and Duncan $350. At least two of the officers are well paid, according to public records.

Duncan's salary is $440,460, and he gets an additional $124,372 in employee benefits, according to the nonprofit hospital's federal tax records. Gipson's salary for 2005 was $300,000, and he got an additional $104,000 in bonuses, not counting stock options and long-term compensation, according to documents on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nodler is paid $31,351 a year for being a state senator, officially a part-time position.

Duncan said he has been a member of the leadership PAC for a few years but just recently was named to the PAC's spending committee. "I haven't been to a disbursements committee yet," he said.

PAC meetings, he said, are conducted at the state Capitol in Jefferson City, and they typically feature the speaker of the House or the president of the Senate as guests.

"The purpose (of the PAC) is so that we can have a local state senator in a leadership position," Duncan said. "Clearly, by (Nodler) being the chair of the state Education Committee is very helpful. I can tell you more after I go to my first meeting."

While he believes that having local legislators in leadership positions is important, Duncan said, he is careful to keep his political activity and his role as chief executive of the nonprofit Freeman Health System separate.

"The two don't cross," Duncan said.

Another Nodler supporter, Missouri Southern State University President Julio Leon, has close ties to Empire District. Leon, who makes $162,037 as the school's president, has been on the board of directors of the utility since 2001. As a director, Leon is due $22,500 in cash or stock each year, according to the SEC documents, and the compensation may be deferred.

An additional $1,000 is due for every board meeting, whether in person or by telephone. Leon has contributed $425 to the Elect Nodler Committee.

The first bill that Nodler sponsored, and which was signed into law, changed the designation of Missouri Southern State College to a university.

All three committees associated with Nodler - his campaign committee, the leadership committee and the district committee - have their checking accounts at Community Bank and Trust of Neosho, according to Ethics Commission documents.

Myers said that was simply a matter of convenience because there is a Joplin branch, and that it also was good business because the bank offered the best rates. It was not an indication, Myers said, that the committees were coordinated in any way.

Farber, the president of Community Bank and Trust, was on vacation and unavailable for comment.