Show-Me SecState Kander 2014 Achievements

Here's a bit of end of year bragging from one of the most beloved politicos ever to emerge from Kansas City . . .

Missouri SecState Jason Kander: My Top 10 for 2014

Before we look forward to 2015, I wanted to tell you about what I accomplished in 2014 as your Secretary of State – because without your help getting me elected in 2012, none of this would have been possible.

I am very proud of what we’ve worked on the past year, and I hope you can take some pride in it too. So, here are the top 10 things we were able to get done for Missouri in 2014, in chronological order:


10) In January, I proposed the most sweeping set of campaign finance and ethics reforms Missouri has seen in decades. Unlike in 2013, this past session we actually got a hearing on our bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Kevin McManus, so we had a new platform to explain why these reforms are important and keep moving the issue forward. I’m pleased to see several bills along these lines filed already by both Republicans and Democrats for the 2015 session, but I won’t stop sounding the alarm until we’ve passed comprehensive reform.

9) Later that month, I released a report that showed that approximately 220,000 Missourians could be disenfranchised if the legislature moved forward with their restrictive, most-extreme-in-the-nation voter photo identification bill. That debate caught the attention of a national audience and, ultimately, we were able to defeat the bill once again last year.

8) Working with Senator Gina Walsh, I proposed legislation to toughen domestic violence laws in Missouri by strengthening my office’s Safe at Home address confidentiality program. We’re going to expand on that idea this upcoming session by including victims of human trafficking in the program.

7) In March, I wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission to urge them to require publicly held companies to disclose their political spending to their shareholders. I firmly believe we should have campaign contribution limits, but at a minimum, we should have full disclosure of campaign contributions.

6) To start a busy summer, I launched www.momilitaryvote.com, a website that made Missouri the easiest and most secure state in the country for members of the military serving away from home to cast a ballot. As someone who had to navigate a challenging system to vote while I was serving my country away from home, this was a huge priority for me once taking office. I’m proud to say that Missouri is now #1.

5) As you all know, my wife Diana is a small business owner, so I know many of the challenges business owners across the state face keeping their businesses up and running. That is why I worked to expand our online business filing system to go from allowing Missourians to complete just five forms online to putting nearly every form on the web. My goal is to make it as easy as possible to do business in Missouri, and the new website helped make that happen.

4) In October, I held a symposium in St. Louis to examine senior investment protection issues. Unfortunately, seniors in cognitive decline are some of the easiest targets for fraud, so I wanted to work with the financial services industry and senior advocates in protecting the life savings of Missouri’s seniors.

3) Another one of my goals as Secretary of State is to make sure that government agencies are as efficient as possible working together for Missourians. That is one of the reasons I formed the Elections Integrity Task Force to bring election officials, law enforcement personnel and other interested parties together to ensure the integrity of our elections before, during and after Election Day.

2) This month, I announced that I wanted to cut Missouri’s business fees to the overall lowest in the nation. I am working with Senator Wayne Wallingford on bipartisan legislation to get it done this session, because I want Missouri to be the best place in the country to do business. This is another step we can take to help make that happen.

1) Sometimes as an elected official you see a need that isn’t necessarily in your job description but still needs to be met. That is why I launched #FergusonRebuild, a nonprofit initiative I started with the Regional Business Council in St. Louis and North County Incorporated to raise private money to provide grants to businesses in Ferguson and the surrounding area that were damaged or destroyed during the unrest. We’ve raised nearly $100,000 so far. If you’d like to participate or learn more, you can visit www.fergusonrebuild.us.
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