Missouri
Jay Ashcroft draws bipartisan attacks over comments about veterans benefits • Missouri Independent
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is facing criticism from Republican and Democratic rivals over comments he made at a candidate forum this weekend calling into question the fairness of special benefits for veterans.
During a panel for gubernatorial candidates at the annual Missouri Republican Party Lincoln Days in Kansas City over the weekend, Ashcroft was asked how the state can better support veterans and active duty military personnel.
Ashcroft said “we need to do what we promised them,” before acknowledging he was about to say something that “probably isn’t what you want for the answer to your question.”
“I don’t think we ought to treat people based on classifications,” he said. “I think we ought to treat everybody equally. And I don’t think we ought to say that if you live here, we’re gonna charge you this, but if you live here, we charge you this. I don’t think we ought to say if you’re in the military, we’ll give you this discount, but everybody else has to pay twice as much. I don’t think that’s good government.”
When someone is a member of the military and moves into the state, Ashcroft said, “it’s harder sometimes to get licensed and make sure you have licensing reciprocity. What I always said was, why don’t we just make that rule for everybody? Why don’t we just say that government is the problem, and let’s get government out of the way, let people make their own decisions and not keep picking and choosing winners and losers.”
He concluded: “I appreciate veterans. I have veterans in my family. I like what they’ve done. But what we ought to do is say, if it’s good for veterans, it’s good to do it for everyone.”
This answer from @JayAshcroftMO was the most discussed answer from the @MissouriGOP forum yesterday.
Jay Ashcroft comes out against military discounts for our state’s veterans. Shameful. #MOGOV pic.twitter.com/g1iUBym36a
— West STL Republican (@WestStLouisGOP) February 18, 2024
State Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican who served in the Air Force, responded to Ashcroft’s comments during the forum by saying he was “stunned to hear one of the candidates here say he’s not interested in looking into veteran’s issues or helping them out.”
He continued his criticism Wednesday, as footage of Ashcroft’s comments began to spread on social media.
“I lost friends. I saw the struggle upon returning to the states,” he said. “I disdain the ruling elite who send our men and women to die in their wars, all while doing nothing to ensure their sacrifice is honored when they return home.”
Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican from Jefferson City who also participated in the candidate forum, said Wednesday evening that for Jay Ashcroft to “treat our veterans as anything less than heroes is disrespectful to all veterans and their families. Communities across our state value our nation’s heroes and their service and sacrifice to our country, and they would want their governor to do the same.”
Democrats also piled on.
Emma O’Brien, press secretary for the Democratic Governors Association, called Ashcroft an “insider politician who only looks out for himself, but wants to rip away benefits from members of the military and veterans who put their lives on the line to protect our freedom.”
In a statement to The Independent Wednesday evening, Ashcroft did not address the criticism but said it is “shameful that we have failed to fulfill our commitment to our veterans.”
“No Americans make a greater sacrifice for our freedoms and security than the men and women who wear the uniform of our armed forces,” the statement read. “The sacrifices that they and their families make are unimaginable for those of us who have not served. I honor that service and as governor will make our commitment to them a priority, without qualification.”
The Missouri Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 28, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Pick 3 numbers from June 28 drawing
Midday: 0-7-2
Midday Wild: 1
Evening: 9-9-6
Evening Wild: 7
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 4 numbers from June 28 drawing
Midday: 4-5-0-4
Midday Wild: 9
Evening: 1-4-6-7
Evening Wild: 0
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash Pop numbers from June 28 drawing
Early Bird: 04
Morning: 07
Matinee: 09
Prime Time: 06
Night Owl: 15
Check Cash Pop payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Show Me Cash numbers from June 28 drawing
05-08-12-33-34
Check Show Me Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize
All Missouri Lottery retailers can redeem prizes up to $600. For prizes over $600, winners have the option to submit their claim by mail or in person at one of Missouri Lottery’s regional offices, by appointment only.
To claim by mail, complete a Missouri Lottery winner claim form, sign your winning ticket, and include a copy of your government-issued photo ID along with a completed IRS Form W-9. Ensure your name, address, telephone number and signature are on the back of your ticket. Claims should be mailed to:
Ticket Redemption
Missouri Lottery
P.O. Box 7777
Jefferson City, MO 65102-7777
For in-person claims, visit the Missouri Lottery Headquarters in Jefferson City or one of the regional offices in Kansas City, Springfield or St. Louis. Be sure to call ahead to verify hours and check if an appointment is required.
For additional instructions or to download the claim form, visit the Missouri Lottery prize claim page.
When are the Missouri Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 3: 12:45 p.m. (Midday) and 8:59 p.m. (Evening) daily.
- Pick 4: 12:45 p.m. (Midday) and 8:59 p.m. (Evening) daily.
- Cash4Life: 8 p.m. daily.
- Cash Pop: 8 a.m. (Early Bird), 11 a.m. (Late Morning), 3 p.m. (Matinee), 7 p.m. (Prime Time) and 11 p.m. (Night Owl) daily.
- Show Me Cash: 8:59 p.m. daily.
- Lotto: 8:59 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday.
- Powerball Double Play: 9:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Missouri editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Missouri
UPDATE: Well-known mid-Missouri attorney charged after sting expected to request home detention | 93.9 The Eagle
A prominent mid-Misssouri attorney has pleaded NOT guilty to a felony charge of enticement or attempted enticement of a child.
56-year-old Daniel Walter Follett is charged in Boone County Circuit Court. He had served as the Missouri Department of Revenue’s (DOR) general counsel until he was fired after last week’s arrest.
Court documents filed by Boone County prosecutors say Follett was allegedly using a prostitution website “to solicit sexual services from a person whom he believed to be a 16-year-old child.” The Boone County Sheriff’s Department’s probable cause statement says Follett allegedly arrived at an address in Boone County last week to pay money to have sex with a female whom he believed was under the age of 17.
Follett, who is currently jailed without bond, is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon before Judge Kimberly Shaw and is expected to request home detention, based on online court records.
939 the Eagle News contacted the Missouri Department of Revenue (DOR) after Follett’s arrest. DOR released a statement about Follett’s arrest and status last week. It reads: “The Department is aware of an out-of-office incident involving a staff member who was arrested and charged with criminal activity. Following departmental procedures, employment has been terminated with the individual.”
What’s next: Follett is scheduled to appear in Boone County Circuit Court on Tuesday at 1 pm for a bond hearing before Judge Kimberly Shaw. Follett is represented by defense attorney Jessica Caldera, a former Boone County assistant prosecutor. Follett is expected to request home detention from the court until his trial. Boone County prosecutors have described Follett in a court filing as a flight risk.
Sarah Laub tried everything to get her son with learning disabilities a better education.
She drove him to a private school an hour and a half away from their home in rural Missouri before being directed to the local public school. When he continued to struggle, she tried homeschooling.
The local school district in Stockton, a town with a population under 2,000, just couldn’t provide everything her son needed, despite teachers’ best efforts.
“They really did not have the funds to provide him with everything he needed, and he really, really struggled,” Laub told The Independent.
As her son approached high school, she researched schools near Kansas City and decided to move her family to Blue Springs, a growing suburb with 20 schools awarded a National Blue Ribbon by the U.S. Department of Education. There, her son learned to enjoy his education and immerse himself in activities like theater.
“Seeing the difference that funding made and the difference in resources that a rural school versus a suburban school had was so infuriating,” Laub said. “All kids deserve to have access to those resources.”
For years, she fought for her son to get what he needed, but now she’s bringing her anger to a larger fight — one she believes has vast implications for public schools statewide.
Laub is part of a coalition called Parents for Missouri Public Schools that is organizing families against a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow state lawmakers to raise sales and use taxes in order to repeal the state’s income tax. Fueled by parents worried about the future of their kids’ schools, the organization is one of many groups labeling Amendment 5 an affront to public education.
The fight over Amendment 5 has largely been framed as a tax debate, with those in favor of the proposal pitching it as a way to drive more business to Missouri. But for public school advocates, the central question is what happens to classrooms if the state phases out a tax that supplies a major share of general revenue and replaces it with sales taxes under the purview of the state legislature.
“Amendment 5 could dramatically harm the bottom line of public education funding in a time in which public schools cannot take another hit,” Molly Fleming, a professional organizer behind Parents for Missouri Public Schools, told The Independent.
State funding of public schools came up $138 million short this fiscal year due to the state budget’s overreliance on lottery and gaming taxes, reducing the amount of per-pupil funding by a couple hundred dollars. The discrepancy has a disproportionate effect on schools who rely more heavily on state support, which tend to be Missouri’s rural districts.
The budget lawmakers passed this spring, which has yet to be signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe, keeps funding flat, coming $190 million under what the state’s formula for determining aid to public schools called for. And officials are predicting lean years ahead as the state reserves dwindle.
“The cut to public-school funding was a very serious thing for me to want to be able to get involved,” Sierra Kilpatrick, a mother of five in North Kansas City and regional organizer with Parents for Missouri Public Schools, told The Independent. “I need to do something, so I don’t feel helpless. I can go out and talk about this.”
Supporters of Amendment 5 argue Missouri should move away from taxing income and toward a system they say would make the state more competitive, attract investment and let residents keep more of what they earn. They have framed the proposal as a way to force lawmakers to modernize the tax code while giving them flexibility to replace lost revenue.
“Other states with no income tax have grown at a pace much faster than Missouri,” Gov. Mike Kehoe said in a recent radio interview. “We’re losing population, they’re gaining population. That isn’t sustainable.”
But opponents say the measure asks voters to trust lawmakers to replace the state’s largest revenue source without guaranteeing that public schools will be protected if the math does not work.
A woman at a pro-Amendment 5 town hall in Grandview earlier this month asked if public schools would face additional cuts, saying she worried lawmakers might not prioritize stable education funding if given more control over taxation.
Republican state Rep. Bishop Davidson of Republic, who sponsored the tax cut amendment, said he thinks public education would benefit from revenues being tied to consumption rather than income.
“States that rely on consumption taxes rather than income tax revenue have more stable budgets and more predictable budgets,” he said.
Davidson’s claim is largely true, with research showing that income tax revenues decline faster in a recession than sales taxes. But policy analysts have varying recommendations to fight volatility, advising states to plan ahead with large reserves or diversify its tax portfolio by not leaning too heavily on one tax system.
Amendment 5 calls for local governments to cut tax rates to keep revenue neutral, since it assumes more goods and services will be subject to both state and local sales tax. It includes a provision barring municipalities from lowering local funding of public schools under these clawbacks, but it does not prescribe any protections at the state level.
The Missouri Budget Project, a left-leaning public policy think tank opposing Amendment 5, estimates that the change could cut school budgets by 18%.
“It really does feel like a tax break for billionaires and millionaires versus safeguarding funding for public schools,” Fleming said. “There are a lot of parents who also are worried about their own bottom line, or worried about increased gas taxes, or whatever it may be.”
Fleming has an extensive background in organizing work, including the formation of a group called Parents for KC Kids which advocated for the passage of Kansas City Public Schools’ bond measure last year. Voters widely approved the $474 million bond, the first capital improvement bond to pass in the city since the 1960s.
Around 90% of those involved in Parents for KC Kids had never campaigned before, Fleming said. The group raised just over $11,000, according to Missouri Ethics Commission filings, contributing to a decisive victory through volunteer efforts and word of mouth.
The families who got involved in the campaign kept their advocacy work going, helping lay the foundation for Parents for Missouri Public Schools.
“When the bond passed, it was like a trigger went off in everyone’s head that, oh my gosh, we can do important things,” said LaNeé Bridewell, a mom in the district. “It is kind of like a bug. We got bit by the bug, and that first one gave us momentum and clarity about our ability to make change.”
Kathryn Evans, a Kansas City mom and nonprofit consultant, was used to helping charitable organizations advocate for themselves but hadn’t yet gotten involved in school matters apart from the parent teacher association. She joined the bond fight to help secure better facilities for neighborhood schools. But after the win, she hasn’t stopped seeing needs.
“Once we won that campaign, I became more aware that there are a lot of threats,” she told The Independent. “We just won a lot of money for our schools so that we can have nicer buildings and facilities, but there are plenty of threats to public education fundamentally.”
Across the state, parents in the Francis Howell School District in St. Charles County took on a similar battle this year.
In April, the county voted on a proposed property tax freeze, which would have stalled local revenue that public schools rely on, with 59% of voters rejecting the measure. The proposal was part of a bill passed by state lawmakers last year that also sought to incentivize sports teams to stay in Missouri.
Jamie Martin, who is president of a group called Francis Howell Forward, partnered with Fleming to educate her neighbors on why frozen property tax rates could harm local schools.
“Because of the property tax fight, I had learned a lot about taxes and how they’re divided up and how they work and how they fund schools,” Martin told The Independent. “So when I saw Amendment Five come on the horizon, I was like, ‘Oh, that is going to have major impacts for public schools,’ and public schools are something I care a lot about.”
Earlier this month, Martin led a training for parents in St. Charles to learn about Amendment 5. Her profession as an education researcher has put her at the front of countless training sessions, but the energy in this room stood out.
“These parents are ready, not just to hear the information and to complain, but these parents are ready to act,” she said.
Over the past few weeks, volunteers with Parents for Missouri Public Schools have held regional meetings in community centers, homes and restaurants. They ask attendees to spread information in a way that fits their schedule, whether it be in social media posts, play dates or more formal campaigning by flyering or making calls.
“The goal is to educate people on this so that they can go out into their communities and educate more people by word of mouth,” Kilpatrick said.
Although summer schedules are busy, Evans said, volunteers are finding ways to work advocacy into their schedules, motivated by the hope of helping their kids’ education.
“We as parents have the highest stakes, but we also have a lot of agency to make a difference in the outcome because of our relationships with each other,” she said. “We are going to be connected as a parent community because we all care about our kids.”
The coalition is also working to influence school boards to pass resolutions warning about potential impacts of Amendment 5. In the past week, school boards in Lee’s Summit and Kansas City have adopted such statements.
Parents for Missouri Public Schools has not taken a partisan stance, instead focusing on the impact to school funding and parents’ personal budgets.
“We are not affiliated in any way with any party,” Evans said. “There is a shared interest in protecting public schools, and that spans all kinds of differences.”
So far, the group has reported one contribution large enough to trigger 48-hour disclosure requirements: a $10,000 contribution from St. Louis-based Missouri Wins Investor Network. Smaller donations will be included in the committee’s July 15 report.
“It is pretty rare that we have an opportunity in Missouri to bring people together across such broad differences to all walk together towards something that we want to protect,” Evans said. “In this case, it is protecting public schools, protecting everyday Missourians.”
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