Jeff Smith for Missouri

Press contact: Jeffsmith2006@gmail.com

August 25, 2009

Today, with great sadness and regret, I am resigning from the Missouri Senate.

During my 2004 Congressional race, I became aware of an independent effort to produce two mailers to benefit my campaign. Federal campaign finance law prohibits specific coordination between a campaign and anyone preparing an independent expenditure.

When the independent operator requested funding, I authorized a close friend to raise money for the effort, and my press secretary provided public information about my opponent’s voting record. I withheld my knowledge of these facts during the Federal Election Commission’s 2004 investigation, misleading investigators and filing a false affidavit.

The FEC cleared our campaign of wrongdoing. But in 2009, the government received new information and reopened its investigation. When questioned, I stood by our 2004 account and encouraged my close friend to do so, misleading the authorities. Today I am taking full responsibility for my mistakes, and have pled guilty to obstructing justice.

This event has humbled me. I have done some significant introspection and that has been the hardest part: coming to terms with my own poor judgments and mistakes.

I apologize to my constituents, my staff, my Senate colleagues, my supporters, and to Congressman Carnahan. I am sorry to be leaving an institution I dearly love and the chance to represent a City with so much potential. Most importantly, I apologize to my family for not living up to what you expect of me, or what I expect of myself.

But I’m proud of my work in the Senate. With the help of my legislative staff, colleagues, and issue advocates, I believe I positively impacted several policy areas. I worked to create the Missouri Teaching Fellows Program to bring top-notch teachers to struggling school districts, expanded early childhood education for impoverished City children, and helped add $5M in bonuses to the salaries of City teachers whose students make exceptional academic progress.

My office spent many hours working with advocates for eco-friendly policies. I led the drive to pass a Green Sales Tax Holiday for energy-efficient appliances, a tax deduction for home energy audits, and a mandate that Missouri increase its energy efficiency standard for state buildings.

Working with the Fathers Support Center of St. Louis, I sponsored and passed two bills that will transform our child-support system. One will help fathers struggling to pay child support avoid felony convictions and jail time by creating “fathering courts” to help non-violent offenders find jobs and resume support payments, saving the state millions in incarceration costs. The second will reduce erroneous paternity judgments and ensure that men with DNA tests showing non-paternity will no longer have to pay for children who are not theirs.

Finally, I helped successfully defend Missouri’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit, which has done more than any other program to revitalize formerly dilapidated urban neighborhoods, creating jobs and putting abandoned buildings back onto the tax rolls.

I hope that my Senate tenure, albeit brief, is remembered as productive and beneficial to those I served. I thank my colleagues with whom I worked on the above as well as my trusted and loyal aides: Stacy Morse, Christine Brauner, Johnny Little, and Kailey Burger.

I am saddened by the thought that some may give up on politics because I let them down. I was blessed to have so many amazing volunteers who worked to support me with no political experience and developed a passion for activism through their work. Today I fear that some of them – some of you – may feel as if your efforts were in vain. But they were not.

If you helped in my election to office, my 3-on-3 basketball tournament and community fair, my MLK Jr. Blvd. cleanup, or other programs I promoted, please don’t let my mistakes sour you on active civic involvement. There are no perfect people and no perfect candidates, but I hope you’ll find a candidate or a cause in which you believe and fight for it with the same zeal you fought for me. Because the real tragedy of my lapses would be if they discouraged people like you from civic engagement.

Mary Pickford once said that failure is not falling down but staying down. I won’t run for office again, but I’ll stay active in the causes that animate me – from urban education to preserving historic neighborhoods to providing health care for all – to try and help the City I love continue its return to the glory of its past.

Thank you for being a part of my life the last few years. I deeply regret the mistakes that have forced my resignation, but I hope you will balance them against the totality of my service, and that we can work together again in the future.

Best,

Jeff

I just returned from ten days in Israel. It was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. It took my almost 35 years to get there, and only now that I’ve been can I appreciate what a special place it is. Of course that sounds clichéd, but I would recommend it to anyone – Jewish or not – who has never been.

When I arrived, I was immediately struck by the beauty of the scenery. The land is hilly and picturesque, the architecture regal. Homes are precariously perched on terraced hillsides, giving the illusion of tilting like miniature towers of Pisa.

Upon our arrival in Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon, we were taken to the bazaar to do some shopping. This was a memorable experience for two reasons: 1) the baklava – a gooey, honey-soaked, phyllo-encrusted bundle of cholesterol that probably took 3 months off my life (but was well worth it); and 2) the old woman who shoved me in the back when I lingered a bit too long for her taste at an artist’s stand. I realized quickly that the outdoor markets in Israel are not for the faint of heart. Indeed, they are a full-contact sport for which I might recommend pads to anyone not built like an NFL player.

As sundown approached, the hustle-bustle of the market and the noisy haggling between buyers and vendors was replaced almost instantaneously by the tranquility of Shabbat; we went to the Western Wall to pray. It’s hard to describe the scene we encountered.

Click here for a photo

Thousands of people were praying, the ultra-orthodox Jews bobbing their heads up and down, chanting in fugue-like states. It reminded me of a black Pentecostal church I attended during my first campaign, when the hypnotizing preacher approached my former staffer Artie Harris and came within an inch of Artie as he exhorted him to believe; Artie trembled before collapsing to the ground in an ecstatic religious fervor. Artie, my only Jewish staffer in that campaign, had urged me to go to Israel, telling me that I would only truly understand the Jewish experience after going. While I was there, I felt more connected to him than I did while he was alive. At the Wall, I put a few prayers in the wall for special people in my life, and then put one in for Barack Obama to help him make our country a force for good in the world again. Thousands of Orthodox Jews, with long braided hair framing their unshaven cheeks, chanted their prayers next to praying young army recruits with machine guns dangling from their belts. It was mesmerizing yet surreal. The contrast between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was striking. In spiritual Jerusalem, you can hear a pin drop at 5 p.m. on Friday. In modern Tel Aviv, the heart of Israel’s technology and arts sectors, you can still hear the bass pumping at the clubs at 5 a.m. on Saturday.

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, was unspeakably sad and moving. In addition to the filmed testimonials from concentration camp survivors, I found the tribute to the “Righteous Among the Nations” particularly heart wrenching. This term of honor denotes a singular form of heroism; it describes non-Jews who put their lives at risk to save Jews from certain death. There were tributes to people such as Oskar Schindler, emorialized in the Spielberg film “Schindler’s List.” The museum contains his farewell speech to the 1,200 Jews whose lives he had saved from extermination – many of them elderly, children, or people with disabilities – by claiming that their labor was “essential” to the Nazi war effort. In fact, during the last year of its operation, Schindler’s factory produced not a single weapon that could actually be fired. He made no money; rather, he depleted his fortune entirely by the end of the war as he bribed officials to retain his workers and purchased black-market supplies to feed and clothe them. We had almost three hours there, but I could’ve stayed all day.

We traveled to the Dead Sea region to learn the story of the Masada, a beautiful fortress atop a plateau that affords hikers amazing vistas. The garrison was taken by Jewish extremists who were equallyant agonistic to both the Roman Empire and mainstream Jews living in what is now Israel. The Jewish zealots were besieged (and dramatically outnumbered by) the Romans, and, according to historians, committed mass suicide The siege occurred in 72-73 CE, when the Romans finally destroyed the fortress with a battering ram. When they entered the fortress, however, the Romans discovered that its nearly 1,000 residents has burned the garrison and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture or execution by their enemies. Because Judaism discourages suicide, historians suggest that the Jewish extremists drew lots and killed each other one at a time, down to the last man, who would be the only one to commit suicide.

Photo: Masada, from halfway up

Photo: the peak of Masada

It’s an amazing story of courage and, well, craziness. Why did the Jewish zealots attack the Roman Empire in the first place when they were so badly outnumbered, I wondered. Regardless, it is a spectacular archaeological feat – and a hell of a jog.

Upon our return to Jerusalem, we traveled to the Old City and took a tour. I was surprised to find that arguably the holiest sites of three of the world’s great religions are all within a few yards of each other: the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, the Western Wall, and the Dome on the Rock.

Photo

As we belatedly discovered, one is not allowed to approach the Dome, a gorgeous structure that is the oldest Islamic building in the world, with uncovered knees. Some of us, like my good friend Trip, purchased a cloth from the Muslim merchant strategically perched near the entrance to the Dome; the more frugal among us improvised.

Photo

The proximity of these holy sites to one another is striking, and helped me understand why, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium even, the battles wear on, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of regular people on both sides seem to long for peace.

That night I lay awake wondering the same thing that so many have devoted their lives to: how can figure out a way to preserve the integrity of the holy sites and neighborhoods and peacefully coexist? The next morning I woke up and went for a run, crossing over the Green Line that roughly separates East and West Jerusalem into the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. The hills could have made San Francisco feel like Kansas. It was beautiful and squalid at the same time; the juxtaposition was jarring. People were everywhere, some stared and others glared at the outsider in their midst. While we were in Israel, the tenuous cease-fire between the Israelis and the Palestinians had broken. Dozens on both sides had been killed the day before in a retaliatory attack, and the air was thick with tension. A cab driver honked from behind me as I huffed and puffed my way up a hill, startling me. I whirled with fear and he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. It wasn’t the resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict or anything, but at that moment, completely lost in someplace called Silwan and surrounded by suspicious strangers, it felt pretty good.

Our tour guides did an excellent job of maintaining balance in the way they presented the history of the region. I want to thank all of them, along with the many new friends we made in Israel who treated us like long-lost family (which, in a way, we are.) The trip was sponsored by Ron and Pam Rubin, to whom we are all eternally grateful. I know that those of us who were fortunate enough to go will be friends for life. Below, a picture of the group, planting a tree on a kibbutz.

Photo

Dear Friends,

It’s been an eventful month since I last wrote. First, we had our biggest event of the year, our 3rd Annual Basketball Tournament and Community Fair at Fairground Park, attended by 2,000+ people and over 70 non-profit organizations. Second, after seven all-night police ride-alongs, I began to see crime in the City through new eyes. The two are related, even if I didn’t realize it at first.

Because of the stagnant economy, a lack of job opportunities, a stubbornly high dropout rate that leaves many unprepared for the jobs that do exist and lacking the social networks to find them, the widespread availability of handguns, and the nihilism of some who have seen far too much violence in their short lives and don’t expect to live past 30, the crime rate in some neighborhoods has risen sharply this summer. My law-abiding constituents have suffered a great deal; the ten neighborhoods home to the most murders this year all lie in my Senate district.

After marching with 50,000 other men on June 1st in a show of unity against this violence, I felt compelled to seek a better of understanding of crime in the City: how and why it happens, what we’re doing to address it, and how we can improve our efforts. So one night at a community meeting, I asked an officer if I could join him on his beat, and he accepted. We began in a relatively safe area, the 2nd Police District, covering the City’s southwest corner. It was quiet for a few hours, and I asked if we could check out a higher-crime area. We did, and soon stumbled upon a minor incident. By the end of the shift, I wanted to see what a whole night of action was like.

Dear Friends –
I’d like to invite you to my 3rd annual 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament and Community Fair JEFF SMITH 3on 3, on July 19th at Fairground Park. Please read about the success of the event from last year 3 on 3 Recap or 2008 Legislative report page 6.

The festivities will run from 10 am-4 pm at the park’s basketball courts, and we’re planning for it to be even bigger and better than last year. The tournament and food and drinks are free for all, and players will receive free T-shirts and back-to-school supplies. A local DJ will spin music, Pappy’s Smokehouse and St. Louis Fish and Chicken will provide pulled pork, catfish filets, and wings, and Ben and Jerry’s will supply 500 scoops of ice cream.

The winners of each age division will win brand-new bikes from Big Shark Bicycles, and runners-up will receive everything from Six Flags passes to Cardinals tickets to gift certificates for clothes and CDs. Click here to sign up to play JEFF SMITH 3on 3

The other component of the event is the Community Fair, which will focus on health, literacy and job opportunities. Dozens of local organizations plan to participate:

· the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment and the Urban League, which will help people identify opportunities for job training and employment;

· several youth literacy groups will give away children’s books and promote reading programs;

· the City Health Department will educate on prevention of STDs and lead poisoning, and provide Body Mass Index assessment and blood pressure screening;

· Derrty Entertainment, operated by Nelly, will help provide books and backpacks to tournament players while they last.

· the Missouri Optometric Association will offer free vision screenings and other health screenings and information will be available.

There are volunteer opportunities for the day of the event as well as before.

Volunteer jobs:

Pick up food the morning of the event

Return borrowed items

Referee tournament- kid or adult?

Help with keeping food available

Assist with community fair booths

Set up tables the morning of event

Assist in signing in team(s)

Assist in signing in services & volunteers

Help with cleaning up grounds after event

Time slots: You do not need to work the whole block – we’ll take any help you can give.

Start- 8:00am-11:00am
Middle- 11:00am-3:00pm
End- 3:00pm-6:00pm

Please confirm the job __ and time slot _ that you prefer to Christine Brauner.

Christine Brauner
Office: 314.361.4333

The first 20 volunteers to sign up will receive “Democrats Work” T-shirts promoting a great non-profit that encourages Democrats to serve their communities – and not just when they’re running for office.

The event will be a great opportunity to familiarize yourself with an array of wonderful services that can really make a difference in our lives – and to watch some good basketball.

I want to thank the many businesses and people who are generously co-sponsoring this event. They are recognized on the event’s promotional material, located at www.jeffsmith3-on-3.com and, starting this weekend, in neighborhoods across the city.

If you’d like to help us defray the cost of the event, donations are tax-deductible and may be made out to “Jeff Smith 3 on 3“, and mailed to me at 1929 Alfred, 1N, St. Louis, MO 63110. And if you have any questions about the tournament/community fair or about anything else, just reply to this email or call my office at (314) 361-4333.

Also, on another note: if you’re interested in joining me to march in this year’s PRIDE parade this Sunday, June 29th and/or helping register new voters at the fair, just email Sarah @ (hunter.sarah.e@gmail.com).

Hope to see you soon!

Best,

Jeff

Dear Friends,

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes, you lose really, really badly. This is a story of a bad loss (on campaign finance legislation), a great win (on early childhood education), and the roller coaster that is life in the Missouri Senate.

When I last wrote, I told you about my efforts to transform the way political campaigns are run in Missouri. I filed Senate Bill 1071, which creates a system for voluntary public financing of Missouri campaigns, thereby eroding the role of special interests.

Dear Friends,

I apologize in advance for the length of this missive, but last Wednesday was probably the most interesting day of my first session. I want to explain why, because I think it’s important for you to know why I make the decisions I make.

Near the end of session, once each chamber of the Legislature has passed numerous bills, the Senate leadership decides to hear a handful of House bills, and the House leadership decides to hear a select few Senate bills. Except for passing the budget, neither body is bound to take up legislation passed by the other.

Dear Friends,

I know I haven’t written for a while. I try not to bombard you with emails – especially the ones asking for money. And I know you’ve probably heard all you can take about Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales, and David Vitter to last you for a while. So I won’t pile on.

Instead, I’d like to invite you to the 2nd Annual Jeff Smith 3-on-3 Basketball Tournamentand Community Fairon July 28th at Fairground Park.

Dear Friends,

Thanks to so many of you who attended the second annual Jeff Smith 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament recently. For those who couldn’t attend I wanted to let you know that the event was a huge success, and we’ve already started planning for next year. We added several new components this year: a community service fair, a variety of health screenings, and the distribution of hundreds of books and bags of school supplies to kids in attendance.

Dear Friends,

I hope this note finds you well. Let me give you a sense of what I’ve been up to lately.

First, I’ve been getting around the district. I’ve attended functions throughout the city, from the St. Louis Hills neighborhood’s Art in the Park to annual fall festivals in The Hill, Clifton Heights, and The Grove. I’ve visited dozens of non-profits across the city, touring the new homes sprouting in the historic Ville neighborhood thanks to Northside Community Housing, discussing potential legislation to address the sub-prime loan crisis with leaders from Beyond Housing, serving lunch to the clients at Food Outreach, and meeting volunteer doctors with Gateway to Hope (GTH), an unprecedented initiative by doctors to treat (at no charge) breast cancer victims who otherwise would have no other option. (If you are a medical professional who can donate time or supplies, please reply to this email and let me know how you can help. This is an exceptional program, but it will only flourish through the generosity of people like you.)

Dear Friends,

Wow. We’re back in session and it’s been hectic.

Once I finish filing all of my legislation in the next few weeks, I’ll send a more comprehensive explanation of my priorities for the session (funding early childhood education, raising teacher salaries, and providing incentives for energy conservation). And I’ll try to give you the skinny on some of the negotiations surrounding a few important bills.

But for this week’s newsletter I’d like to describe an interesting dilemma I recently faced involving an opportunity I had to appear on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report,” a humorous late-night political talk show.