Opinion of Lacy Clay

[MarkD]

I lived in MO-01 from Dec. 2012 to May 2019 and I voted for him in the last general election. I vote FF, but that's only because he is NOT a HP.

I remember his career -- starting out as a state Rep. because his father hired a certain state Rep. to work for his congressional staff, thus creating a vacancy, and Bill Clay saw to it, through his political, ward-based organization (many called it the Clay Machine), that Lacy would be the Democratic nominee for the ensuing special election. Then again, approximately eight years later, Bill Clay again hired a certain state Senator in order to create a vacancy that would enable Lacy to move up to the Senate in mid-term and not have to compete in the Democratic primary to win that seat. Then when Bill Clay retired in 2000, that opened the door for Lacy to run in the Democratic primary for the congressional seat, and he won that primary with 60.6%, more than twice as many votes as the second-place finisher. That was his first time winning a race on his own merits instead of having his daddy pave the way to getting the nomination handed to him. I remember some folks in MO-01, before election 2000, speaking disparagingly about how effective Lacy was as a state legislator; in other words, they didn't think he was a particularly effective legislator.

As a congressman for the last 20 years, has he been effective, or has he been more of a back-bencher, not making national news, and not sponsoring any major legislation? I guess the latter is the answer. So maybe I ought to change my answer to HP.