Who will be appointed MO-A.G. and MO-Trea.?

[MarkD]

This thread is not about any statewide race in Missouri this November, but it's about the consequence of two statewide races.
Current Attorney General Eric Schmitt is very clearly going to win the US Senate election this year, and current Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick is going to win the state Auditor's election. So within two months after this November election, both of them are going to resign from their respective positions in order to assume their new offices. That will mean Gov. Parson will be able to appoint replacements for Atty. Gen. and Treasurer, like he did - for those same two offices - a little under four years ago. Obviously he will appoint Republicans.
Will he choose current state legislators who will NOT be holding any office next January? Senators or Representatives who were term limited this year, who were ineligible to run for reelection, and who were not (successfully) elected to another office, or who for certain other reasons did not run for reelection, but did not win election to any other offices? State Senators in even-numbered districts who are not going to be any office next January include: Dan Hegeman (Dist. 12 - Andrew County), Bob Onder (Dist. 2 - St. Charles County), Jeanie Riddle (Dist. 10 - Callaway County), Dave Schatz (Dist. 26 - Franklin County), Paul Wieland (Dist. 22 - Jefferson County), and Bill White (Dist. 32 - Jasper County; he ran for reelection this year but just lost the primary). There will be over 20 state representatives who will not be returning to the House next January; they either did not run for any office this year, or they ran for certain higher offices and a few are going to win while others have already lost. Some interesting options among those 20+ reps are: David Gregory (Dist. 96 - St. Louis County) who just lost the primary race for Auditor, Shamed Dogan (Dist. 98 - St. Louis County) who just lost the countywide race for County Executive, Rob Vescovo (Dist. 112 - Jefferson County) Speaker of the House for two years, John Wiemann (Dist. 103 - St. Charles County) Speaker Pro Tem for four years and just lost a primary for the state senate, and Sara Walsh (Dist. 50 - Boone County) she originally filed to run for MO-04 then withdrew from the race when she saw the new congressional district map and her district was not in MO-04 at all.
Or maybe Parson will chose someone who IS still scheduled to be in a state legislative office next January, which is what he did a little under four years ago when he picked Fitzpatrick to be Treasurer.
Or maybe he will pick someone who is not in any office at all, like 2018 Republican nominee for Auditor Sandra McDowell, or any body else who has simply never ran for any office before, but who have latent qualifications to be A.G. or Treasurer.
What do you think Gov. Parson might do?

[NewYorkExpress]

I would guess Sarah Steelman for Treasurer seeing as she's served in the job before.

For Attorney General, I'm not as certain, but I'm going to tentatively guess D. John Sauer, who is currently serving as Solicitor General of Missouri, largely because I don't think Parson will want to give a possible 2024 Gubernatorial candidate a leg up (the reason he'd go with Steelman for Treasurer is she's DOA in Gubernatorial Primary).

[JMT]

I would guess Sarah Steelman for Treasurer seeing as she's served in the job before.

For Attorney General, I'm not as certain, but I'm going to tentatively guess D. John Sauer, who is currently serving as Solicitor General of Missouri, largely because I don't think Parson will want to give a possible 2024 Gubernatorial candidate a leg up (the reason he'd go with Steelman for Treasurer is she's DOA in Gubernatorial Primary).

It doesn’t seem like Parson would appoint Steelman to anything; he asked her to resign her previous position in his administration without explanation. So it seems like he doesn’t like her.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/shake-up-in-missouri-state-government-as-parson-announces-cabinet-changes/article_29024cdf-f53b-5692-afa5-c6caf06145ce.html

Also, just out of curiosity: does anyone know if Schmitt and/or Fitzpatrick would have been term limited in their current offices in 2024? I believe Missouri has a two term limit, but I’m not sure if partial terms count towards the limit (both Fitzpatrick and Schmitt were appointed in 2019 before being elected to full 4 year terms in 2020). Mike Parson found himself in a similar situation (he was elevated to Governor when Greitens resigned in 2018 and then won a full term in 2020), and I believe he is term limited in 2024, but I wasn’t sure if this also applied to Treasurer and AG.

[MarkD]

 - snip -

Also, just out of curiosity: does anyone know if Schmitt and/or Fitzpatrick would have been term limited in their current offices in 2024? I believe Missouri has a two term limit, but I’m not sure if partial terms count towards the limit (both Fitzpatrick and Schmitt were appointed in 2019 before being elected to full 4 year terms in 2020). Mike Parson found himself in a similar situation (he was elevated to Governor when Greitens resigned in 2018 and then won a full term in 2020), and I believe he is term limited in 2024, but I wasn’t sure if this also applied to Treasurer and AG.

I'm fairly sure Fitzpatrick would have been term limited out in 2024, because he first assumed office in November 2018, which meant he was the incumbent Treasurer for slightly more than two years before he won a full term in 2020. I'm not positive, but I believe that two years or less in an office do not count as a full term in the case of either Governor or Treasurer. But Schmitt would not have been term limited; the offices of A.G., Lt. Gov., SoS, and Auditor are not term limited in the Missouri Constitution. Just two years ago, in November 2020, voters of Missouri had the option to impose term limits on those four executive offices, but with 52.84% voting "No," they rejected doing so. During my lifetime, each of those four offices has had one person win at least three consecutive elections: one person won Auditor three consecutive times, the same for Lt. Gov., one person (Jay Nixon) won A.G. four consecutive times, and one person (James Kirkpatrick) won SoS five consecutive times, starting when I was one month old, in 1964; he won four reelections and stayed in office until I was 20 years old at the end of 1984.

EDIT: I just found out that Article IV, Section 17, of the state constitution says: "No person shall be elected governor or treasurer more than twice, and no person who has two years of a term to which some other person was elected to the office of governor or treasurer shall be elected to the office of governor or treasurer more than once."

[JMT]

 - snip -

Also, just out of curiosity: does anyone know if Schmitt and/or Fitzpatrick would have been term limited in their current offices in 2024? I believe Missouri has a two term limit, but I’m not sure if partial terms count towards the limit (both Fitzpatrick and Schmitt were appointed in 2019 before being elected to full 4 year terms in 2020). Mike Parson found himself in a similar situation (he was elevated to Governor when Greitens resigned in 2018 and then won a full term in 2020), and I believe he is term limited in 2024, but I wasn’t sure if this also applied to Treasurer and AG.

I'm fairly sure Fitzpatrick would have been term limited out in 2024, because he first assumed office in November 2018, which meant he was the incumbent Treasurer for slightly more than two years before he won a full term in 2020. I'm not positive, but I believe that two years or less in an office do not count as a full term in the case of either Governor or Treasurer. But Schmitt would not have been term limited; the offices of A.G., Lt. Gov., SoS, and Auditor are not term limited in the Missouri Constitution. Just two years ago, in November 2020, voters of Missouri had the option to impose term limits on those four executive offices, but with 52.84% voting "No," they rejected doing so. During my lifetime, each of those four offices has had one person win at least three consecutive elections: one person won Auditor three consecutive times, the same for Lt. Gov., one person (Jay Nixon) won A.G. four consecutive times, and one person (James Kirkpatrick) won SoS five consecutive times, starting when I was one month old, in 1964; he won four reelections and stayed in office until I was 20 years old at the end of 1984.

EDIT: I just found out that Aricle IV, Section 17, of the state constitution says: "No person shall be elected governor or treasurer more than twice, and no person who has two years of a term to which some other person was elected to the office of governor or treasurer shall be elected to the office of governor or treasurer more than once."

Interesting! Thanks for digging into that. I honestly just assumed that because Governor is term limited that the rest of the statewide offices would also have term limits. I didn’t know term limits in MO were just for Governor and Treasurer. I wonder why it’s just Treasurer and Governor with term limits?

I guess that makes sense why Fitzpatrick would run for Auditor this cycle then, given he likely would’ve been termed out in 2024. And given Auditor doesn’t have term limits, he can stay in that office for awhile until there’s an opening for Governor or U.S. Senate (I’m assuming he’d be interested in running for higher office, given he’s pretty young).

[MarkD]

Yesterday I watched (via YouTube) another episode of This Week in Missouri Politics, a weekly show hosted by a guy by the name of Scott Faughn (a former mayor of Poplar Bluff). On the show yesterday, they discussed the upcoming vacancy in the position of Atty. Gen., and who might be appointed to replace Eric Schmitt when he gets elected to the US Senate. A name they discussed a lot was former state senator Kurt Schaefer, of SD 19. When Kurt was elected state senator from that district in 2008, he was the first Republican to get elected from that district in God-only-knows how many decades. His first win was by a narrow margin of less than 2 percentage points, and he did not get a majority of all the votes cast because of a Libertarian in the race who got nearly 5% of all the votes. But four years later, Kurt won reelection with nearly 58% of the vote. Then when he was term-limited in 2016, he ran for Attorney General, competing with Josh Hawley. Kurt got less than 36% of the vote in that primary.

But there's a scandal hanging over Kurt's head pertaining to that primary race, a scandal which might undermine the possibility that he will be appointed A.G. later this year. While serving in his last year as a state senator, he allegedly sent an email to University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe trying to pressure Wolfe into changing the rules that pertain to professors obtaining a leave of absence from their teaching duties. What then-Sen. Schaefer was apparently asking Wolfe to do was to make it much harder for Hawley to run for office that year. Wolfe also claimed that the message from Schaefer tried to pressure him into denying Hawley tenure. It was argued that if it was true that Schaefer did send such a message to Wolfe, it was a borderline criminal abuse of the power of his office as a legislator - to use his power as a legislator to try to benefit his own political ambition.

I didn't hear anything about this scandal on the show yesterday, and it might make Gov. Parson think twice about appointing Schaefer to any office.