According to a television ad that started airing Tuesday, Cole County Presiding Circuit Judge Pat Joyce is "groovy" for "radical environmentalists."
The ad is part of a $78,157.50 media buy on cable television and Mid-Missouri commercial TV stations, paid for by the Republican State Leadership Committee's Missouri PAC.
There was no immediate reaction Tuesday from Joyce's campaign.
Joyce, a Democrat, is seeking re-election to a third six-year term. She is being challenged by Republican Brian Stumpe, currently Jefferson City's municipal prosecutor.
The RSLC Missouri PAC gave Stumpe's campaign a $100,000 contribution on Oct. 4, the day after it received that amount from the Washington, D.C.-based RSLC.
The RSLC gave the Missouri PAC another $100,000 last Friday, and RSLC spokeswoman Jill Bader said Tuesday that extra money will pay for the "TV ad that began running today."
The ad says Joyce "ruled against farmers and their property rights, so she could side with radical environmentalists," and Bader confirmed that's a reference to a 2007-08 controversy near Arrow Rock in Saline County.
After Missouri's Natural Resources department approved a one-year construction permit for farmer Dennis Gessling to build and operate a 4,800-hog Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation two miles from Arrow Rock's village limits, the Missouri Parks Association and the Friends of Arrow Rock sued the department in Cole County circuit court.
With rare exceptions, lawsuits against the state and its agencies are required to be filed in Jefferson City.
The lawsuit asked the court to require DNR to revoke Gessling's construction permit because odors and pollutants would threaten the health and welfare around Arrow Rock. It also said DNR has a duty to protect and preserve state parks and state historic sites.
On Aug. 25, 2008 - five days before Gessling's permit from DNR was set to expire - Joyce ruled that a CAFO should not be allowed within a 15-mile radius of Arrow Rock or any "nearby" state parks or historic sites, and that no CAFO could transport waste within that 15-mile radius.
The appeals court said the radius issue had not been raised with the court, in either written documents or testimony.
In September 2008, after Gessling's permit expired on Aug. 30 and he didn't apply for another one, DNR asked Joyce to vacate the judgment as being moot, or to reopen the case because the Parks Association had not included all parties in the suit and because Joyce had "erroneously" imposed the buffer radius.
That same day, the Missouri Farm Bureau, Missouri Cattlemen's Association, Missouri Dairy Association, Missouri Pork Producers and the Missouri Egg Council all filed motions to intervene in the case, on DNR's side.
On Dec. 8, Joyce issued an amended judgment cutting the buffer zone to two miles, denying the motions to intervene and denying the mootness argument.
She issued a second amended judgment in January 2009, after the Parks Association asked for more changes, and DNR and the intervenor groups appealed.
Although there were arguments about all three rulings, the appeals court determined that the Second Amended Judgment was the only one that counted in the appeal. And, since Gessling's permit expired five months before the Second Amended Judgment was issued, none of it mattered, legally.