Commissioners pepper federal officials’ staffers with tough questions

By Buck Collier, Special Correspondent
Posted 5/25/22

HERMANN — Memo to federal legislative aides making a courtesy call to the Gasconade County Commission and asking what questions the local officials might have: Be careful what you ask for …

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Commissioners pepper federal officials’ staffers with tough questions

Posted

HERMANN — Memo to federal legislative aides making a courtesy call to the Gasconade County Commission and asking what questions the local officials might have: Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it.

Such was the case in recent weeks when in-state staffers for one of the state’s U.S. senators and the local U.S. representative paid a meet-and-greet call to the county Commission. They left clearly after receiving a lot more questions about what their bosses are doing — or not doing — than they were able to answer.

At Thursday morning’s session, Jennifer Hoskins, district office director for 3rd District U.S. Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer stopped by to introduce herself and ask if the county administrators had questions about what her boss was doing. Indeed, they did.

Especially Southern District Associate Commissioner Jerry Lairmore, R-Owensville, who suffers no hesitancy at grilling legislative aides about what he sees as a lack of action by their bosses on the issues of the day — issues that, as he points out, are affecting residents of Gasconade County. Basically, the questions from Lairmore, Presiding Commissioner Larry Miskel, R-Hermann, and Northern District Associate Commissioner Jim Holland, R-Hermann, boiled down to a single question: “What is he doing?” about the issues of the day.

Lairmore, a good Republican, is as quick to criticize members of his own party as those across the political aisle for what many people see as inaction on issues at the federal level. Everyone is complaining, he said, but no one is offering a solution to the problems.

“That’s the issue I have with the Republicans,” Lairmore said. “And I’m a Republican.” He said there are “no answers being offered, no discussion about solutions” among the members of Congress.

“There are a lot of problem and Republicans have done very well pointing them out,” added Miskel.

“Yeah,” replied Lairmore, “but, there’s no solution being offered” by members of either political party. “To me, if you don’t bring anything to the floor, bring anything to light, what good is it? I’m tired of the blame game.”

Miskel noted that he regularly receives Luetkemeyer’s newsletter but has become disappointed with the generalities and lack of specifics offered by the congressman in the newsletter.

As for the veteran 3rd District representative, a fellow Republican, Lairmore isn’t impressed — at least at the present time. “I’m not hearing anything coming out of Mr. Luetkemeyer and I would like to,” he said.

Hoskins, a Sikeston-area native whose legislative aide experience goes back to then-8th District Congresswoman JoAnn Emerson, noted that Luetkemeyer has been busy working to ease regulatory restrictions on small businesses through his efforts to reform the Small Business Administration. 

That’s all well and good, Lairmore said, but he asked what Luetkemeyer is doing to deal with issues such as runaway gasoline prices, ongoing immigration problems and record levels of inflation. “We’re out here in rural Missouri and the gas price is affecting everyone out here,” he said. “It’s just frustrating,” he added, “because we hear from the people.”

Hoskins, who works out of Luetkemeyer’s Franklin County office in Washington, left the meeting with a smile on her face and the parting words that discussions such as this one are good. “It’s is very helpful” to hear the local officials’ comments, she said.

A few weeks earlier, it was Payton Ruddy, Columbia-based field representative for U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who was on the receiving end of similar questions from the commissioners. She, too, thanked the local officials for their questions but, like Hoskins, could offer few answers to the queries put to her about Republican Blunt, who is retiring at the end of this year.