Missouri’s 7th Congressional District is a Republican Masada, a GOP stronghold where deeply held faith guides many voters on issues, none more so perhaps than abortion and the question of when life begins.
The race this year has taken a curious turn on that issue.
Each of the 10 candidates from the major parties identifies himself as anti-abortion, including Democrats Scott Eckersley and Tim Davis.
Click here to learn more about Missouri Right to Life.
But in the Republican race, two front-runners to replace U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt — state Sens. Gary Nodler, of Joplin, and Jack Goodman, of Mount Vernon — get only a “mixed” rating from Missouri Right to Life, one of the leading anti-abortion organizations in the state.
Yet both Nodler and Goodman have introduced bills during their political careers aimed at restricting abortion; both oppose embryonic stem cell research; and both say they have never supported any bill advancing abortion rights.
“My record is 100 percent consistent,” said Goodman. “Unblemished.”
Despite their track records, Missouri Right to Life has endorsed Billy Long, of Springfield.
The fact that two longtime foes of abortion got “mixed” reviews despite scars from their anti-abortion battles has raised eyebrows around the state.
Goodman called the group’s rating of him “disingenuous.”
Nodler’s language packed more buckshot.
He said Missouri Right to Life is “lying” about his record, called the group “dishonest” and disparaged it by adding: “If I was a candidate endorsed by them, I don’t know that I’d market it.”
Long, an auctioneer and businessman in his first run for office, said his opposition to abortion and embryonic stem cell research is no secret. He said he has opposed abortion ever since it was legalized in 1973. In a phrase he repeated at news conferences Monday announcing the Missouri Right to Life endorsement, Long said: “It was jaw dropping to me then, and it is jaw dropping to me now.”
A former radio talk show host, he said he used his microphone to warn listeners in Southwest Missouri about what he considered the dangers of Amendment 2, which allows Missouri stem cell researchers to conduct any research permitted under federal law, including research involving human embryos, without interference from the state Legislature.
Missouri voters approved the amendment to the state’s constitution in 2006.
‘Planted our flag’
For a decade, Dave Plemmons has been chairman of the Missouri Right to Life Political Action Committee, and he now is the Southwest Missouri director for the group. Before 2006, he said, both Nodler and Goodman might have served as his group’s poster children.
Amendment 2 changed that.
While Missouri Right to Life has not backed off in its opposition to abortion, the group has been pushing legislators since 2006 to do everything in their power to oppose embryonic stem cell research and to make sure no taxpayers dollars fund such research.
“We have planted our flag in that (issue) the last few years,” said Plemmons, who introduced Long at a news conference Monday at the Joplin Public Library. “I don’t want to de-emphasize the abortion issue. Both of them are of equal importance to us.”
In making its endorsements, Missouri Right to Life takes a look at the four-year voting records of legislators, candidate surveys, public statements, and any contributions and endorsements from abortion rights advocates.
Plemmons said Long was a vocal opponent of Amendment 2, which he said did “enshrine protection for human cloning” into the Missouri Constitution.
“He was not hesitant to call human cloning out for what it was,” Plemmons said of Long. “If anyone can say the same about his two closest rivals, I have yet to see it.”
Yet Nodler and Goodman both say they not only voted against Amendment 2 but spoke out against it.
Jackie Winship, executive director of Missourians Against Human Cloning and now state director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said she remembers Goodman helping her group get its message out on Amendment 2. She said that being based in St. Louis, she was not aware of all the efforts made by everyone in Southwest Missouri to block the amendment’s passage, including those of Long and Nodler.
Nodler said he spoke out against Amendment 2 at GOP events and debated proponents of the research on the floor of the Missouri Senate.
“Right to Life had a lobbyist in the gallery,” Nodler noted.
Legislator votes
But Nodler and Goodman and Missouri Right to Life parted company after passage of Amendment 2, when the anti-abortion group wanted legislators to take additional steps to block the possibility that state funding might be used for embryonic stem cell research.
In 2007, for example, Missouri Right to Life issued a “legislative scorecard” that counted it as a strike against Nodler and Goodman because they supported Senate Bill 389 — Nodler’s bill — which used proceeds from the student loan fund operated by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority to fund construction of buildings on state campuses, including a health sciences building at Missouri Southern State University.
Missouri Right to Life “concluded that SB 389 would facilitate cloning and unethical research,” and that it might be used to fund the buildings, salaries, equipment and administration where such research could take place, Plemmons said.
Similar appropriations votes that year resulted in a scorecard that gave legislators such as Sen. Joan Bray, a St. Louis Democrat and abortion rights advocate, a better rating than longtime anti-abortion allies such as Nodler and Goodman.
All of it, according to Nodler, was unnecessary.
“There is no abortion language or stem cell research language in the bill. None. It has nothing to do with abortion,” Nodler said. “What you have here is a misrepresentation of the legislator. ... They are applying ratings to votes that have no relation to embryonic stem cell research or abortion.”
Goodman called it “disingenuous” for Missouri Right to Life to use that and similar legislation to give him a “mixed” rating. He characterized Missouri Right to Life’s 2007 report as “flawed” and added: “It is misleading the grass roots of Missouri.”
Plemmons responded: “There is no difference between funding unethical research on human life in these kinds of instances versus funding abortion indirectly through giving government money to Planned Parenthood, which legislators have fought alongside us in opposing.”
Using MOHELA money for campus buildings was an initiative proposed by Republican Gov. Matt Blunt and opposed by many Democrats for reasons that had nothing to do with abortion. But Nodler and Goodman both believe that anyone looking at the 2007 scorecard would conclude that they favored abortion rights, and that Bray, for example, was anti-abortion.
Plemmons said the 2007 rating was one of the reasons the group has changed is policy regarding scorecards.
Nodler said that in the years since Amendment 2, no state money appropriated for higher education, health care or economic development, for example, has funded embryonic stem cell research, and he characterized the fears of Missouri Right to Life as unfounded.
“Not one dollar of state money went to embryonic stem cell research,” he said.
Plemmons doesn’t disagree with that, but he responded: “That’s like saying if a town has never been hit by a tornado, they shouldn’t invest in tornado sirens.”
Nodler went to on say that Missouri Right to Life’s position on the funding bills has cost it credibility with many in the anti-abortion movement, and that he and others court the endorsement of groups such as Missourians United for Life.
“I have no respect for them,” Nodler said of Missouri Right to Life. He said his “repudiation” of the group is no new development stemming from the recent endorsement of Long, but that it began more than a year ago.
“We are not a party apparatus,” Plemmons responded. “We are accountable to our members and to our conscience.”
Contributions
At the news conference Monday, Plemmons also said that Goodman and Nodler each received at least $10,000 from groups that “expressly” support embryonic stem cell research. He said the money came from “two cloning PACs, Supporters of Health Research and Treatments based in St. Louis, and the Life Sciences Fund of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.”
“They have been public about their support of embryonic stem cell research,” Plemmons said.
Asked about the donations, Goodman said the money from the Kansas City group was unsolicited and went to a committee that chose to use it to get anti-abortion legislators elected.
“I did not solicit it,” he said. “It did not come into a committee that I controlled.”
He also said he never heard of the St. Louis-based group.
Nodler noted that he has accepted money over the years from many people who have differences of opinion with him on embryonic stem cell research, citing former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo.
The issue is a critical one, Plemmons said, because whoever Southwest Missouri residents send to Congress will likely be voting on similar questions of funding for embryonic stem cell research, which President Barack Obama has said he supports.
As for the rest of the candidates in the 7th District race, Plemmons said they are not considered serious contenders.
Not all of them responded to Missouri Right to Life’s questionnaire, and some, like Steve Hunter, of Joplin, were “very late in the game” when they announced for the race and don’t have the money to be contenders, said Plemmons.
“It’s between the three of them,” he said of Long, Goodman and Nodler.
Several of the other candidates took issue with that, noting that they may not have the money or name recognition, but as Republican Jeff Wisdom, of Springfield, said, endorsements can become a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“It’s odd to me that they endorsed the guy (Long) who has the most money but has no voting record,” said Hunter, a former state legislator.
“The fact is,” replied Plemmons, “there was one of three front-runners who had a record in public and didn’t have the disadvantage of voting records that were less than what we desired.”
Plemmons said this issue isn’t restricted to Southwest Missouri.
“There are many legislators who have chosen to believe that tax credits and economic development incentives for research — loosely defined — do not necessarily need pro-life protections in the language. ... These guys vote as if they do not agree with Missouri Right to Life’s desire to protect human embryos in the business environment.
“The reason we have taken such a hard line is because human cloning is now protected in Missouri’s constitution.”
Closing the door
Plemmons said legislators left the door open to potentially funding such research on embryonic stem cells.
It is the position of Missouri Right to Life that life begins at conception or, in the case of a laboratory, at inception.
“The taxpayers deserve that door to be closed,” Plemmons said. “The sanctity of life demands that door be closed.”
Initially, because of the way Amendment 2 was written, legislators thought there was little they could do to restrict funding, so in Plemmons’ words, Missouri Right to Life “didn’t want anything going to research until it was clarified.”
“We cannot support any kind of funding that could be used for that research,” he added.
Said Nodler: “The door, if it is closed, was closed by the voters of Missouri. And I voted against it.”
But a couple of years ago, a state judge ruled that it was permissible to include restrictive language in appropriations bills and other legislation, and that is what Nodler says has been happening. He also noted that Missouri Right to Life’s own lobbyists at times advised legislators that it would do no good to put restrictive language in spending bills because of the way Amendment 2 was written.
Nodler said Missouri Right to Life’s “extremist” position would mean the state couldn’t fund universities, for example, or provide economic development money, because the money could end up in the hands of university or private-sector scientists doing research on embryonic stem cells.
“If you accept their position, all appropriations would be unconstitutional,” Nodler said. “Their purpose is to hold the state hostage to repeal Amendment 2.”
Asked how Long would vote on economic development bills or education bills that do not include such protective language, such as the MOHELA measure, Plemmons acknowledged that he hasn’t asked Long that directly. He said he believes Long would demand the language before supporting a bill, even it ran afoul of party leadership.
“He has assured me he doesn’t believe you sacrifice human life for economic development,” Plemmons said.
Asked on Wednesday how he would have voted on the MOHELA legislation or on other issues that cost Goodman and Nodler the Right to Life endorsement, Long would only say: “I don’t want to get into it. ... I am not going to comment on something they voted on.”
Abortion rate
The abortion rate in the United States was at its highest in the late 1970s and early 1980s, peaking at 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 1981, as abortion became mainstreamed after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
