Is pro-Gromowsky PAC for Jackson County prosecutor trying to ‘split the Black vote’? | Opinion
In the final days before the Aug. 6 primary, a political action committee that has been supporting John Gromowsky’s campaign for Jackson County prosecutor sent some mailers and texts supporting one of the other Democrats in the race, Stephanie Burton, and criticizing another Democratic rival, Melesa Johnson.
“The intent to me seems pretty clear,” Johnson told us in an interview. “It’s to split the Black vote.” Through the Stop Gun Violence Now PAC, she said, Gromowsky is “essentially pitting two Black women against each other.”
The three candidates are competing in the primary to replace longtime prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who is not seeking reelection. Burton is a defense attorney; Gromowsky is an assistant prosecutor for violent crimes in Baker’s office and Johnson is Kansas City’s director of public safety.
Campaigns can have no contact with any PAC, and Gromowsky responded to a request for comment by saying that the allegation “that my campaign is colluding with Stephanie Burton’s campaign is a lie. … As for the Stop Gun Violence Now political action committee, it’s not affiliated with my campaign.”
Legally, it can’t be.
There is nothing illegal about a political action committee working to support a candidate by trying to boost one of that person’s rivals and hurt the chances of another, but this tactic is something voters do deserve to know about.
The postcard praising Burton and criticizing Johnson calls Burton “a force for justice” with “experience you can trust.” Then it quotes from our editorial board’s endorsement of Johnson completely out of context.
It quotes this part of the editorial: “Each of the candidates promised to prosecute property crimes at a higher level than Baker. Each made comments about the importance of establishing a robust conviction integrity unit. Only Burton has actual experience in this realm.”
But what the editorial actually said was this: “Only Burton has actual experience in this realm, which worked for and against her in this process. Burton worked in (Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark) Dupree’s office for less than nine months, and its conviction integrity unit has been criticized for slow-walking a number of innocence cases.”
Rightly so, since the unit completely fell apart at one point, and quickly lost the respected attorney later hired to run it. Now, according to an attorney in the office, there is only one junior attorney working part-time in the CIU.
Of Melesa Johnson, the mailer says: “No experience. No plan. Just politics.”
Here’s some politics for you: The postcards praising Burton and criticizing Johnson do not seem to have been sent to households in Kansas City’s mostly white Brookside neighborhood, but were sent to residents in the urban core.
Burton did not respond to a message about the PAC’s mailers on her behalf, and neither did Kevin Regan, the criminal defense attorney who started the PAC on July 15. The PAC’s latest filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission says it supports both Gromowsky and Burton and opposes Johnson.
After the Stop Gun Violence Now PAC sent out a mailer for Gromowsky that featured a photo of Gromowsky with U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the congressman’s office released a statement saying Cleaver had not endorsed him or any other candidate in the race. “Any representations to the contrary are simply false,” Cleaver’s campaign spokesman Phil Scaglia said.
