Missouri Politicos Accepting Porn Swag

JEFFERSON CITY - Legislation proposed by a Kansas City area legislator last year to crack down on the adult entertainment industry ran aground after being sent to an unfriendly committee.

But questions now are swirling around the Missouri Capitol over whether a timely political contribution from strip club operators in March 2005 played a role in the bill's fate.

Strip clubs gave $35,000 to a fundraising committee with ties to a top adviser to House Speaker Rod Jetton while lawmakers were considering the legislation proposed by Sen. Matt Bartle, a Lee's Summit Republican.

Four days after the contribution, Jetton sent the legislation to a committee whose chairman opposed the bill. The measure never made it to the House floor, prompting opponents of adult entertainment to tack less-restrictive language on another bill that later was struck down in court for technical reasons.

The top adviser, House General Counsel Don Lograsso, was a paid consultant and fundraiser for a political action committee. But Lograsso, a former Republican legislator from Blue Springs, said he did not solicit the $35,000 contribution or discuss with Jetton which committee would handle the legislation.

"The speaker made the assignment to that committee without consultation or advice from me," said Lograsso, who is commonly involved in the assignment of legislation to committees.

"Second, I don't believe the speaker knew anything about that contribution. There's nothing inappropriate."

Jetton, a Marble Hill Republican, also said he and Lograsso did not discuss which House committee would get the legislation and that he was unaware of the contribution at the time.

"It had no bearing on that bill," Jetton said.

But some lawmakers privately have questioned the timing of the contribution.

The president of a nonpartisan research organization that studies campaign contributions and ethics said the donation looked suspicious.

"Most nonelection year contributions are given for government access," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, which is based in Los Angeles. "What was the point of giving the money other than to influence the legislature?"

Elected and appointed officials legally can raise money for political action committees, even if the fundraising committee's donors have business before the state or if there is pending legislation that would affect them. However, it is against the law for public officials to perform an action in exchange for money or gifts.

Bartle's bill would have enacted admission fees and special taxes on adult businesses, requiring them to close by 10 p.m. and banning full nudity in strip clubs. Seminude dancers would have had to perform on a stage 10 feet from patrons, who would have been prohibited from tipping dancers.

Owners of strip clubs and other adult businesses argued the legislation would have put them out of business.

Bartle's bill passed the Senate on March 29, and by March 30, it was ready to be assigned to a House committee. On March 31, a political action committee called People for Private Enterprise, whose treasurer is a Kansas City strip club owner, made the $35,000 contribution to the Committee for Honest Campaigns, which was paying Lograsso for his fundraising and consulting work.

On April 4, Jetton assigned the measure to the House Local Government Committee headed by Rep. Bob Johnson, a socially moderate Republican from Lee's Summit who was not enthusiastic about the bill.

Johnson, who is considering running this year for the Senate against Bartle, flatly said the measure wouldn't make it out of his committee without major changes. The way the bill was written, Johnson argued, women's clothing stores selling lingerie and mainstream video rental businesses would have been negatively affected.

Jetton said he was trying make Bartle's bill better by sending it to Johnson's committee. He said tax provisions in the legislation bothered him.

Bartle, a conservative, was furious when he learned the bill had been sent to Johnson's committee. "I knew good and well (Johnson's) local government (committee) was an inhospitable place for an anti-porn bill," he said.

Among those who testified against the bill when Johnson gave it a hearing on April 21 was Dick Snow, a co-owner of Bazooka's Showgirls, a club in downtown Kansas City that features fully nude dancing.

Snow is also listed as the treasurer of People for Private Enterprise, formed in 2004 and which, until 2005, had given only a few thousand dollars to candidates, all Democrats. However, from Feb. 7 to March 31, the period in which Bartle's bill cleared the Senate and headed to the House, $66,800 in donations poured into that fund-raising committee, according to reports with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Many of the contributors were clearly strip clubs and adult video stores.

So why did People for Private Enterprise give the Committee for Honest Campaigns $35,000, the largest single contribution the Republican-directed fundraising committee had ever reported?

Snow did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

David Byrn, treasurer of the Committee for Honest Campaigns, said: "I don't comment on contributions that I receive and contributions that are made out of the committee."

Byrn, a Blue Springs attorney and former Jackson County Republican Party committeeman, was treasurer of Lograsso's fund-raising committee when he was in the House, and the two attended law school together.

In fact, the Committee for Honest Campaigns, which gave primarily to Republican candidates, paid Lograsso $7,700 in fees for fundraising or consulting work from November 2004 through December 2005.

Jetton said Lograsso's fundraising activities did not concern him.

"I think that lots of us raise money for different organizations and committees, and he's free to raise it, too," Jetton said.

Lograsso said he saw no conflict between his duties with the House and his work for political action committees that took money from special interests with business before the legislature.

"It's not inappropriate for me to be involved in political activity," he said.

"I do not hold a voting position or a policy-making position in the House. My job is to advise the members on procedure in the House and operations in the House - to assist the members in making the process work as smoothly as possible."

Though Bartle's original bill never reached the House floor, he successfully added anti-adult entertainment language to a drunken-driving bill - sponsored by Jetton - that eventually became law.

It prohibited full nudity at adult entertainment businesses, barred customers under 21, and required seminude dancers to refrain from touching patrons and to stay on a stage 10 feet from customers.

Restrictions on tipping dancers and closing times were eliminated, as were admission fees and taxes.

However, a Cole County judge in August struck down the law, ruling that lawmakers had violated a section of the Missouri Constitution requiring bills to deal with only one subject and to have a clear title.