The Kansas City Star endorsed my reelection campaign Tuesday morning. Mayor Mark Funkhouser also endorsed me causing a bit of a stir. Dozens of leaders, organizations and unions have endorsed me. Meanwhile Rizzo has filled the mailboxes this week with blatant lies.
Kansas City Star Endorsement, Tuesday July 29thThe Star endorsed in Missouri House races this week. This election they didn't even send out the questionnaires as they have in the past they just endorsed me. I expect that the people responsible for making the decision just reviewed the past information and the decision was so obvious that they simply did the endorsement.
Here is the link to the editorial.Rizzo fills mailboxes with lies while he screams Burnett is being negative!
What a surprise. After last elections attack falsely accusing me and my family of being in the pornography industry Rizzo has bided his time while spending thousands on mailers saying "Burnett is being negative." But on Friday he finally pulled the trigger. The Republicans call this the "zinger letter." A first class stamped business letter delivered on the eve of the election making accusation when it is too late to respond. That is what he did on Friday.
After four years of campaigning against me and five public forums he suddenly on the eve of his third election challenge sends out a mailer attacking my voting record. Problem is that he did so with blatant and outright lies. His problem though is that in this age of email anyone receiving this newsletter can hear the truth instantly. So here goes:
His flyer says "John Burnett voted:"
"AGAINST a bill that would track the sale of ingredients used in the making of methamphetamine (House Bill 1619)" Then he says this bill "passed". I did vote against the bill and it certainly did not "pass" in fact it was rejected by the General Assembly because it would have created a database of everyone that bought cough syrup and that information was not given adequate safeguards. In fact in a preliminary vote in the House it got 84 votes when 83 is the bare minimum. Here is the link to the bill.
"AGAINST putting 40,000 Missourians back on Medicaid." This is the REPUBLICAN health Budget. This one did pass but Democrats voted against it. It did not "put 40,000 Missourians back on Medicaid" it gave a few people partial benefits like batteries for their wheelchairs. It only got 87 votes in the House and there are 91 Republicans! So not even all the Repubs could stomach this one. Budget bill are usually hundreds of pages thick to there is no link to the text but here is the link to the "actions" or vote links on the bill. Regular readers of this newsletter have already been treated to my rants on Medicaid. To imply I voted AGAINST Medicaid is not only a lie it is a "damned lie."
"AGAINST Stricter penalties for mortgage fraud (House Bill 2188)" This one is truly deceptive. We argued and argued and argued for tough penalties and were blocked at every turn by the Republicans. So many of us including House Minority Leader LeVota, Rep. Hughes, Beth Low, Mike Talboy and myself all voted no on this bill. We did not vote against strict penalties we voted for stricter penalties. Very complicated bill and even more complicated debate. Here is the link to House Bill 2188
"FOR ALLOWING property taxes in the Kansas City School District to continue to escalate while allowing every other school district in Missouri to cap increases. (SB 711)"
I love this one. Talk about a liar. Henry Rizzo helped amend the Missouri Constitution so the KC School District never needs to rollback like other districts. So they know perfectly well that KC cannot be forced to rollback without amending the Constitution - but this bill makes the County and other taxing authorities rollback when reassessment raises taxes. I did vote for the bill along with 146 others because it provides tax relief to citizens of Northeast. It does not provide relief from the KC School District tax but that will require an amendment of the Missouri Constitution thanks to Rizzo. Here is the link to Senate Bill 771
"AGAINST a bill that would protect school children from sexual predators. (HB1314). I love this lie. It has not even a shred of truth. The bill has nothing to do with sexual predators. The bill deals with civil immunity for bureaucrats. The bill was sponsored by an extremist Republican Jane Cunningham but even she did not claim that the bill "would protect school children from sexual predators." I guess the Rizzos believe that anything that says sexual predators will scare people even if it is an outright lie. Here is the link to the bill
"AGAINST stricter penalties for DWI offenders (HB1423)" this is great. Again a law that did not pass. Although the mailer claims "all of these bills passed" this is another one that did not become law. Truth just seems to be beside the point to this bunch. The proposed bill actually dealt with an "ignition interlock" for convicted drunk drivers and would have required expensive hardware on cars to make people stop drinking. My thinking is that alcohol problems are not cured by machines but by treatment and counseling. Here is the link to the bill.
The mailer then goes on to encourage readers to "check the Missouri House Journal" but gives the wrong link for that information. Apparently they think most people will not go to the trouble of researching the truth - especially if they give them a phony website address that does not lead to the Journal. The links I provide above lead to the real websites where the bill is linked to all the votes on it. Or if you want to start fresh here is the home page for the House http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0016omnDCUO0alLM5kYIwGmSZaKDrgiOAp40W6T9rB_6AMM_FF4xGW87XNG8uIg6EzUTc_1f4yNJtBP94MaNvBoqjyDB_EsnV95H1DwgWLI8ncAaa6F266Z4g== from there go to bill tracking here is the true link http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0016omnDCUO0anie71qy392BtQAuLXOPpAztRPjBctBuMlguW1vI2BfTJLV_QE56yqVejSQy6NgYziZ7QeOhmrbqG1bbpmtU3kh9pdHZ4Rp7iwUxSnsWWPk5b1j8Idkdzl9oUIcEi0Cbhf0W5sXm79tsw==
The Rizzos have taken a good shot at me with these outright lies. Seems to me they could dream up something they disagreed with me on that was true. Surely there is some vote or issue or bill that they could legitimately say they disagree with. Guess they would prefer to simply lie. That has been the pattern for three elections in four years and they apparently do not plan to change.
It is easy to see why it is hard to convince good people to get involved in public service. There is a culture in this district that if you stand up to the Rizzo family they will be mean and nasty to you. They have again shown that is what they are about but it has not and will not stop me. I have noticed that when good people stand up and run for public office the voters respond by supporting them.
Many have asked me to print this entire list so,
Here are my choices for the Democrat Primary:
Governor Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon
Lieutenant Governor Sam Page
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan
State Treasurer Clint Zweifel
Attorney General Jeff Harris
U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver II
State Senate 9th District Yvonne Wilson
State Senate 11th District Victor Callahan
State Representative District 40 John Patrick Burnett
Prosecuting Attorney Jim Kanatzar or Rachel Townsend
Sheriff John Bullard Jr.
Democrat Committeeman 11th Ward Will Royster
Democrat Committeewoman 11th Ward Carol J. Royster
Democrat Committeeman 12th Ward Scott Wagner
Democrat Committeewoman 12th Ward Laura Wagner
Democrat Committeeman 13th Ward Crispin M. Rea, Jr.
Democrat Committeewoman 13th Ward Regina P. Blackmon
