60th Missouri House District: Dave Griffith

Party: Republican

Opponent: Joshua Dunne

Residence: Jefferson City

Occupation: Former newsroom and advertising employee at KRCG; former director of local American Red Cross; Army veteran

Previous political experience: Elected to Jefferson City Council in 2010 and to state House in 2018

Family: Wife Leigh, two children

What is your position on Amendment 3, which would roll back parts of the Clean Missouri amendment voters approved in 2018?

Well when amendment three came through the house actually in 2019 and in this past session as well, I voted no. I voted no and I did that mainly because my voters voted no.

One advantage that we have on the House floor is we've got a computer there. And so when I have questions about what my voters and how my voters stand on things. I can actually go into the clerk's office website, and I can look on there and I can see how my voters voted. I was in favor of Amendment 1. And I thought the voters were misled in having it called Clean Missouri. Many voters that when I knocked on the door they said, "Of course I want clean water." And so the voters I'm not sure knew what they were actually voting on.

I didn't really think it was gonna make the ballot because I thought it was unconstitutional, having more than one issue on an amendment. Regardless of how I felt about it, my voters voted no. And so when it came to a vote on the floor, I voted no.

A lot of my colleagues were there. They voted, when your vote is cast on the floor, it shows up on the big boards either red or green. Well, I'm colorblind so red and green I can't see. So my colleagues were sitting around and said, "Dave your vote really is pretty obvious there" and I said "Well, I'm voting along with my voters."

If (the 2018 vote on Clean Missouri) had been closer ... yes, because I can explain to (voters) why I did. But with that kind of overwhelming support of it, I didn't feel I could do that. The amendment that's coming up now, I'm in favor of Amendment 3. I am simply because of the redistricting. If we don't do that, I think a lot of the districts, especially in the metro areas, I think a lot of the African American community is going to be disenfranchised. I think the way they're going to have to draw up the districts, they're going to lose a lot of representation. And I think it's important for them to have that representation, especially in the inner city. And so for that reason, I'm in favor of it. But I, when it came to the floor I did vote against it.

How will Medicaid expansion affect the 60th District?

My district in particular, I think, I don't think it's gonna be that affected by it. I really was not in favor of Medicaid expansion either. The main reason was, if it would have come with a funding tool, I would have been all for it. I think that we got to find a way that we can expand our health care to everybody that we possibly can. But we got to be able to pay for it.

So what Medicaid expansion is going to do for us it's going to force us in the legislature and in the Senate to find other ways to pay for it so other programs are going to suffer because of that. Right now, we've got a third of our entire population in the state of Missouri that is on Medicaid and the expansion of it to include what they say are going to include children, that's been addressed. I think (Missouri Medicaid director) Todd Richardson has done a really good job as the director and has really found a lot of fraud involved with Medicaid.

I think the attorney general ... I think they've recovered over $28 million in fraud already. But I, as far as my district goes, I don't think we're really that affected by it, but I'm really concerned as to how we're going to pay for it statewide.

Has the state done enough to fight COVID-19?

I think we've done everything we possibly can do. You know, there's not a playbook that you've been given, there's not a script that you can go by, as to what you're going to do and how you do it. I think you got to take advice from the best people you can surround yourself with ...

I think when we look back on this 10 years from now, I think we're going to look and say that we did a pretty good job. I think we, when we came out and we really broke out in February in March, and they were predicting the number of deaths we are going to have nationwide on this, we found that that's not true.

I think we've taken the precautions that we need to take to prevent the spread of COVID. And I think that we're continuing to do that today. I think that we as individuals, I think we need to take personal responsibility for what we do. If you go into a place and they say to wear a mask, wear a mask. I know that when my wife and I back in ... March, when we were quarantined and we were able to go out one day a week to Walmart at 6 o'clock in the morning and be there. I'm in an older group that we were able to go there and shop at six, and virtually everybody that went in had masks on we had gloves on. And we maintain our social distance. We were respectful of other people's space, and. And I think that my part, I think that helped prevent further spread of it.

I'm really not for mandating masks. I'm really for freedom. But I think each individual community has got to make their own decision. And I'm really all about local control, and also about liberty and being able to decide for yourself what you can do. But you got to be able to protect your neighbor, protect your family.

The Missouri General Assembly took up legislation to address violent crime this summer and the issue is likely to come up again. What should the General Assembly do to address the problem?

Well, I think there are a lot of things we could do. I think the governor has some really good ideas and some of the bills that he brought forward. I think that the concurrent jurisdiction, I think that that really ruined the bill as far as the House goes. When it went through the Senate and passes the Senate pretty overwhelmingly that part was not on there. And when it came to us it was. And when our leadership looked at it, we decided we needed more time to be able to address it.

And I think that each one of those issues and important. Each one should be debated, should be heard, independently. And I think that by trying to do it in a special session when you only have two or three days and you're trying to get things done quickly, I don't think that was the right place to do it. I think that there are some issues that we need to take care of. I think that we've got to try and get guns out of the hands of children. I think we've got to be able to protect those children that are being used to be implements for violence. And where does that begin? I have no idea. I think it's a cultural issue I think. I think we've got to be able to try and address that.

Both sides of the aisle need to be a little aggressive. I think a conversation, we can have with the Republicans and Democrats, we can find a viable solution that's good for everyone. I think that's where the real change is going to happen. For us to have red flag laws and for us to take guns away from people, that's not the solution. We got to try and find some real answers to questions about what we can do inside of our communities, what we can do to try and get kids off of the street, let's let kids be kids. I mean, we're not when you got 12-year-olds, they're shooting officers, you got 12-year-olds that are shooting their own friends because they don't belong to a gang.

Those are issues that are deeper than the surface. We got to be able to dig into those. I don't know that the legislature can legislate that good behavior. I know we can't. But at least I think we can set an example.