Pathetic voter turnout reason sales tax passed-- Steve Helms

Jess Rollins reports in today's SN-L "Critics: Low vote boosted tax.

Presiding Commissioner Jim Viebrock said the 11 percent turnout “is not a reflection of the total population.”said that 11% voter turnout "is not a reflection of the total population."

This isn’t a game where there are winners and losers,” he said. “It’s a principled conversation about how government should be run.”

He added that his leadership changed the conversation in county government.

He said he played a big role in reducing potential tax proposals from 1/2-cent when he took office to the 1/8-cent that was passed by voters on Tuesday.

“I made them prove they needed it. I made them fight for it, I made them fight for it publicly. So, there is a victory in it for me as well.”

Viebrock also reiterated his belief that "I'm a winner too."


"Greene County Circuit Clerk Steve Helms, who also opposed sending the tax to voters, cited “pathetic” turnout and voter apathy for the sales tax success Tuesday. Helms, who is running to unseat Bentley on the commission, calculated that only about 7 percent of voters actually approved the tax increase. "It wasn’t a majority. It just passed,” he said. The final tally was 14,086 in favor, 6,909 against."

These guys just don't get it.

When Helms won the three way Circuit Court primary in August 2008, it wasn't a majority, it was barely a plurality. In August 2008 there were 183,263 registered voters in Greene County. 10,777 voted for Steve.

When Billy Long won the 8 way MO7 primary it wasn't a majority. He won 37.5% of the votes cast in the Republican primary.

When MO voters voted to repeal the individual mandate of ACA in August 2010 it wasn't a majority.. 71% to 29% voted to repeal but only about 20% of registered voters weighed in on the question.

Using Viebrock's and Helms' reasoning, we ought to throw all these results away because it wasn't a majority.

Look at the sales tax election numbers AND the school board election numbers-- it looks like those who voted no for the sales tax also voted for Aubrey.

If I were Helms, (and I'm not thank Allah!), I'd be looking very close at the voting results in the eastern district.

IF the sales tax passed there and Aubrey lost big there then that doesn't bode well for Steve Helms and he probably ought to be thinking about dropping out of the race.

Helms said he came to Springfield in the mid 1990s as an army recruiter. Six years later he bankrupted 3 companies, owed 132,000 dollars in credit card debt and a debt to his dad. He got $767,000.00 in debts wiped out leaving us holding the bag.

This is the same Steve Helms who complains about big government.... seems to me he gets his paycheck from the government and big government did him a heckuva job in forgiving his 3/4 million dollar debts.

Anyone else see the disconnect?

When Steve comes up with a plan for paying back his debts maybe then we'll start taking him seriously.

Steve is a posterboy for what is wrong with Republican politics in Greene County and MO7.

PS--Helms published an internet newspaper called the Springburg Gazette. It's off the internet now, but finding cached copies make for interesting reading.