Cole County Presiding Circuit Judge Pat Joyce is "Missouri's most liberal judge," according to a recent campaign ad from the Washington, D.C.-based Republican State Leadership Committee.
The ad came to Cole County voters on a postcard, which also warns voters: "A Vote for Joyce is a Vote for the Liberal Agenda."
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. Stumpe's name is not used in the ad and, under federal law, his campaign and the RSLC are not supposed to communicate with each other about messages or the contents of the ads.
The postcard said the advertisement was paid for by the Republican State Leadership Committee-Missouri PAC - the same group that's running a television ad that says Joyce is "groovy" for "radical environmentalists."
That same claim is one of four listed on the postcard, that she "sided with radical environmentalists and against farmers and property rights" - an accusation based on Joyce's 2008 and 2009 rulings ordering Missouri's Department of Natural Resources to cancel its one-year construction permit for Saline County farmer Dennis Gessling to build and operate a 4,800-hog Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) two miles from Arrow Rock's village limit.
The Missouri appeals court in Kansas City questioned the specifics of Joyce's original judgment and two amended versions, it ultimately ruled that the orders were meaningless because Gessling had not sought to renew the challenged permit after it had expired.
The postcard's three other claims against Joyce are that she:
• Ruled against an initiative that would have given hard-working Missouri voters the option to abolish the state income tax cut.
• Ruled in the interest of political correctness instead of fair and honest elections.
• Is backed by extreme liberal groups like Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice.
The last claim involves a St. Louis-based group that, on its website, describes itself as "a group of St. Louis area progressive women established to identify, research and discuss critical issues."
In 2012, the group gave Joyce two "Thumbs Up" awards, for "toss(ing) out a voter initiative petition that, if approved, would abolish Missouri's income tax" in favor of an increased sales tax and for ruling against "ballot language on a proposed constitutional amendment to allow voter photo ID in Missouri."
Those are the other two cases the RSLC listed on its postcard.
In a 20-page, April 13, 2012, ruling on a challenge to the proposed ballot language on two initiative petitions, Joyce said the fiscal notes were "inadequate and unfair as a matter of law," and ordered State Auditor Tom Schweich's office to prepare new ones.
She found that the summaries for both petitions violated state law because they were "insufficient in that they fail to inform the reader what is certain to happen - a loss of $7.5 billion in state government revenue."
Joyce also rewrote the ballot title, ruling that the language written by then-Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's office included provisions that "the general assembly "shall pass a law,'" which she found to be "misleading and prejudicial," because "it remains the will of the General Assembly whether to adopt a law."
The judge's ruling in mid-April effectively killed the effort to get the proposal on the 2012 ballot, because initiative petitions are not counted unless they have the correct ballot title and fiscal note attached to each page - and the sponsors of the proposed amendment had only three weeks to gather valid signatures in at least six congressional districts, and submit them no later than the first Sunday in May.
The postcard's other claim involved a lawmaker-approved proposed amendment that, if voters approved, would give the General Assembly the authority to require voters to show only certain kinds of approved identification cards containing a photo of the voter - such as a driver's license - in order to vote at the polling place.
The General Assembly had written the ballot language, including the words "Voter Protection Act."
On March 29, 2012, Joyce found that title to be unfair and insufficient under state law, partly because the "Voter Protection Act" phrase appeared only in the ballot title, not in the actual amendment.
She sent the issue back to the Legislature, so it could rewrite the ballot language before the session ended in mid-May.
The House passed revised language but the Senate did not - so the proposed amendment wasn't placed on the November 2012 ballot.