Ed Martin's History of Smearing

I was out of town and without an internet connection for the past week, so I missed a lot of fireworks in the Congressional race between Ed Martin and Russ Carnahan. One really interesting story, which unfortunately was buried by other news, was that a former employee of the St. Louis board of elections, Jeannie Bergfeld, is filing suit against Ed Martin for Martin's alleged violation of an agreement made in a previous suit. Bergfeld was fired by Martin when she worked for the the board, and she filed a complaint at the time saying she was fired by him for not being "Republican enough." Martin and Bergfeld reached an agreement in a 2006 settlement that they would not publicly disparage each other but, being a fundamentally dishonest person, Martin violated the agreement last week by saying the following:

Martin denies [the accusation Bergfeld was fired for not being Republican enough]. "She said she was a Republican; nobody ever questioned that," he tells RFT, adding that Bergfeld was a patronage employee who had enjoyed "twelve years of not having to do anything" and who "wasn't interested in changing."

Martin concludes: "We did everything we could, appropriately, to have her do her job, but it wasn't in the cards."

This story is fascinating because it reveals a pattern for Martin: engaging in the most shameless partisan hackery, settling out of court, and then continuing to smear people and lie after the settlement. It's exactly what he did in the case of Scott Eckersley: after Martin fired Eckersley for asking the Blunt administration to follow the law, Martin continues to slander him in the media.

Martin and those who carry his water deserve to be laughed out of Missouri politics. You can help make that happen by helping Congressman Carnahan's campaign.