JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri Democratic Party is taking its case to the Missouri Supreme Court after a Circuit Court judge dismissed its lawsuit challenging Gov. Mike Parson’s choice for the state’s lieutenant governor.
The appeal comes less than one week after Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem dismissed with prejudice the case to remove Sen. Mike Kehoe as lieutenant governor because the plaintiffs lacked the authority to seek Kehoe’s removal because they are not government officials.
The original lawsuit, filed by Darrel Cope and the Democratic Party hours after Parson named Kehoe to the position, sought to declare Parson’s action illegal.
Gov. Mike Parsons
Parson appointed Kehoe as lieutenant governor on June 18 to fill the office left vacant when Parson became governor after Eric Greitens resigned in May.
The legality of Kehoe’s appointment was immediately uncertain because the state’s constitution is unclear as to whether the governor has the authority to appoint a lieutenant governor. Some lawmakers argued voters must decide because the governor and lieutenant governor are separately elected positions.
Beetem’s ruling found that Parson has the authority under Article IV of the Missouri Constitution, and that Cope and the Democratic Party lacked the authority to remove Kehoe through litigation because they are not the Missouri Attorney General or an elected prosecutor.
Cope argued he had legal standing to challenge the appointment because he is a taxpayer and a voter. Beetem stated in his ruling that taxpayers can only challenge the spending of taxes, increased taxes or the loss of money due to the actions of the government, which Cope failed to do in his lawsuit.
“His allegation of taxpayer standing fails because he does not seek the only relief that a taxpayer could pray for in this context,” Beetem wrote in the ruling. “Because Mr. Cope has not requested the only relief that a taxpayer could seek in this context, he lacks taxpayer standing to pursue this action.”
The Democratic Party argued that it has direct standing to challenge the appointment because it would make it harder for them to get a party member elected to the office in 2020 if Kehoe runs as an incumbent. Beetem said the allegation was unfounded.
“This allegation is conjectural, hypothetical, and speculative. It is entirely unknown and unknowable whether Lieutenant Governor Kehoe will decide to run for the office of Lieutenant Governor in 2020,” he wrote. “This allegation piles speculation upon conjecture. It is too speculative and hypothetical to support standing. No injury in fact can arise simply from incumbency.”
Before the dismissal, the plaintiffs offered to abandon their claims and asked for a declaratory judgment finding Kehoe’s appointment illegal. The move would not have had a binding effect, but would have provided a court order “attacking the validity” of Parson’s appointment.
Beetem declined, calling the proposal “plainly inappropriate, because it asks this Court to offer an advisory opinion on the authority of the Governor to fill a vacancy in the office of Lieutenant Governor.”