Interview with Barbara Phifer, candidate for Missouri Secretary of State
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Barbara Phifer is a Democrat running for Missouri's Secretary of State. She has represented St. Louis County, District 90, in the Missouri House of Representatives since November 2020. Before that, the Columbia native was a United Methodist pastor for over 40 years.
Phifer says she believes in free and fair elections for all eligible voters in Missouri, maintaining business in the state and supports public libraries.
Phifer will be going up against Republican incumbent Denny Hoskins.
Gabrielle Teiner: What made you want to run for this job as for Secretary of State?
Barbara Phifer: This is the only state job that I would run for, because it's about democracy. Secretary of State's Office is really the engine of democracy here in Missouri, and I've been extremely concerned about how politicized this office has become in the last four years, especially, and concerned about the future of democracy for Missouri.
Teiner: Great. So my next question is, how do you think the state handled getting Amendment 3 on the ballot, and would you have handled it differently?
Phifer: Yes, I would have handled it much differently. Having correct information available to voters is absolutely crucial to democracy, and we saw that the current state, secretary of state did not give accurate information either in the proposed language for the petition itself, and then later on, what he proposed to put in each precinct for voting in November and also on the state website, and both times people had to go to court and we actually had judges write the ballot language and that's just, to me, a corruption of what the process should be. This is really a nonpartisan and impartial job, and anytime that a secretary of state allows his or her own personal views to dictate what's being written, we've got a big problem.
Teiner: Do you believe the threshold for initiative petitions should be changed?
Phifer: No. It's been this for over half the history of Missouri, it has served us well, and I think we should just continue as it has been.
Teiner: So part of the secretary of state's job is overseeing business. Do you think Missouri is currently a good state to start up a business? And is there anything you would like to see changed to help businesses in Missouri?
Phifer: That's a complex question. I think that the process for a person to open a business that is fairly open and transparent, certainly our websites all across state government need to be better. I think that there should be more information available to people about how to start businesses, especially small businesses. One of the things that libraries are beginning to do, and that's part of the secretary of state's job also, is that libraries are now giving information about how to start businesses, which is wonderful, but in the larger picture, Missouri is not really a very good state to start a business because of our health insurance issues, our education issues, maternal health issues, there's a whole list of things that make us not very attractive for people to come from out of state to Missouri to start businesses.
Teiner: So my next question is, how do you feel about sports betting coming into Missouri, and specifically with Amendment 2, where do you stand on that?
Phifer: This is a personal issue. It's not anything that directly has to do with Secretary of State, but I am personally against it. I don't believe that using betting as a means to fund public education is good public policy. We were told that, what 40 years ago or so, with casinos and all that's happened is in the ensuing 40 years, we have moved from about 22nd or 23rd in state funding for education to rock bottom. And I don't think that this would make any difference in that.
Secondly, sports betting is proven over and over again to be super, super detrimental to young people, especially young men in the 18 to 35 age bracket. Young men tend to get heavily in debt, and it's through sports betting, and I just don't think it's good for our state. Everybody says, "well, people go to other, other states and bet." That's fine, let them. I'm not sure that it's a good idea for us to invite that into our state.
Teiner: My final question is, is there anything you would like to tell the voters that you think would be important for them to know that we might not have touched on?
Phifer: Well, we haven't really talked about voting in the state of Missouri, and we have a wonderful system of voting. It's considered one of the best in the country. It's bipartisan, certification is by both Republicans and Democrats always, there's an audit after every election, so that 5% of every precinct in a jurisdiction is randomly selected to do an audit comparing a hand count of the ballots to machine counted ballots, and that's something that's open to the public and if people have questions, I would invite them to call their local election authorities and say, "'"Hey, I'd like to participate and watch this happen." It's a wonderful example of democracy in action.
My opponent wants to do hand counting of every vote, and I think it's a really bad idea. It would create chaos and delay elections and, so distrust, I think, in our system also, my opponent wants to do surveillance of every precinct, and the right to have a private ballot is sacred in our country, and so I am against that. And finally, I believe that absentee ballot, ballots are a good thing. We need to have absentee voting, and my opponent wants to get rid of it, except for a couple of exceptions, and voting is something we need to encourage. It needs to be safe and secure, but we need to make every eligible voter have the opportunity to vote if she or he wants to do so.
Teiner: Great. Do you have anything else that you'd like to say before we wrap up?
Phifer: Well, it was just lovely to talk to you, and I would encourage people to go out and vote. It is one of the great things about being an American and together, we, together we make our government, and if you don't participate, it truly is not We the People.
