Interview with Denny Hoskins, candidate for Missouri Secretary of State

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Denny Hoskins is a Republican running for Missouri's Secretary of State. He has represented District 21 in the Missouri Senate since 2016. Before that, Hoskins served in the House of Representatives starting in 2008 and was later elected to the officer of Speaker Pro Tem in 2013.

Hoskins believes in protecting the unborn, defending election integrity, protecting Missouri farmland, keeping "critical race theory" and DEI out of school curriculum, blocking taxpayer money from going to environmental, social and governance investment firms, barring transgender students from competing in sports that do not match their biological gender and fighting stricter gun regulations.

Hoskins will be going up against Barbara Phifer.

Gabrielle Teiner: What made you want to run for this job?

Denny Hoskins: Well, I think everything boils down to elections. You know, Missourians want to make sure that our elections are safe and secure. So if we don't have confidence in our elections, it doesn't matter who they say won president, who they say they won U.S. Senate, secretary of state, state representative or city council, because we won't trust in that process, so I want to make sure that our elections are safe and secure, and that's been my No. 1 priority.

Teiner: Okay. So we're going to switch gears, and so how do you think the state handled getting Amendment 3 on the ballot, and would you have handled that any differently?

Hoskins: You know, as far as Amendment 3 goes, I think that it has multiple different subjects. As far as Amendment 3 goes, I mean, part of it deals with abortion. In my opinion, when we talked about reproductive health care that could also refer to transgender surgeries. I passed the SAFE Act. The SAFE Act here in the state of Missouri, put a ban on transgender surgeries and hormone treatments for kids. Let's just let kids be kids.

And so, you know, when they gathered those signatures, I think a lot of people didn't know that it would be so extreme and that it would, Amendment 3 would allow, would not require parental notification if your 16-year-old daughter is having an abortion, it would not require parental notification if your 16-year-old son is having transgender surgery, and also, if there was a botched abortion. What Amendment 3, if it passes, you could not sue the doctor for malpractice. So there's a lot of issues with Amendment 3 and I think it's just very extreme.

Teiner: Do you believe the threshold for initiative petitions should be changed in the state?

Hoskins: You know, the threshold for initiative petitions, no I don't think as far as the threshold.

Well, when you're talking about signatures, or if you're talking about other things, you know, I did file an initiative petition bill that would change the way something is put in the Missouri Constitution. I think that it should be a little bit more difficult to put in something in the Missouri Constitution and right now we have bingo in the Missouri Constitution, marijuana is in the Missouri Constitution. So yes, I think that it should be a little bit more difficult to put something in the Missouri Constitution.

Now some states don't even have an initiative petition process, like our neighbors over in Kansas. I'm not advocating for that at all, but I think that, yes, there should be a little bit higher requirement for putting something in the Missouri Constitution.

Teiner: Okay, follow up to that would be, what would you say to those who believe it is a good thing for Missourians to have a voice in creating state law through initiative petition?

Hoskins: Yes, I don't have a problem with the initiative petition and, you know, if voters want to go out and gather signatures and things like that, but what we've seen with the initiative petition process, we've seen out-of-state and even foreign entities come in and try and force their beliefs on Missourians, and that I have a problem with, currently in the state of Missouri, a foreign entity or foreign government can influence ballot initiatives. That's not against the law. Now, it is against the law for them to participate in elections, as far as candidates go, but right now, we have out-of-state interests, out-of-country interests that are funneling money into the state of Missouri, trying to push their extreme liberal woke agenda on Missourians, and that I can't stand for.

Teiner: Okay, so part of the secretary of state's job is overseeing businesses. 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?

Hoskins: Yes, yeah I think Missouri is a great place to live and work. I think Missouri is a great place to start a small business. Most certainly, one of the things is, I've been traveling across the state, and visiting with small business owners and entrepreneurs that want to start a business is they say, "hey, the website could probably be revamped to make it a little bit easier to navigate."

And so hopefully, as your next secretary of state, if elected, then I plan on revamping the website process and making it easier for Missourians to start a business.

Teiner: So how do you feel about sports betting coming into Missouri, or at least on the ballot this year, and specifically with Amendment 2, where do you stand on that?'

Hoskins: Yeah, with Amendment 2 I do have some concerns about Amendment 2, as far as allowing sports betting here in the state of Missouri. I know that Caesar's Casinos have come out against sports betting on Amendment 2. One of the concerns that I have is I don't think that it puts enough money in for problem-compulsive gamblers. When I've talked to the Problem-Compulsive Gamblers Association, they said that they need at least $10 million to help with problem-compulsive gambling should sports betting pass here in the state of Missouri.

So that's one of the concerns I have and then if you look at the fiscal note, the fiscal note says that, hey, as far as sports betting goes to the state of Missouri, the fiscal note could be anywhere from zero dollars, zero tax dollars to the state of Missouri, all the way up to $20 million a year. Well, Amendment 2 has some extra business tax deductions that currently casinos are not able to have as a tax deduction on their business income, and so it allows additional tax deductions that aren't available now to casinos. So if ... Amendment 2 passes, then most certainly there could -- there's a chance that Missouri could receive zero tax dollars if sports betting is legalized.

Teiner: So you've answered all of my questions I just want to finally throw this out there. Is there anything you would like to tell voters that you think is important for them to know that we might not have touched on?

Hoskins: Yes, most certainly. You know what I've designed is a, is a, what I call a contract with Missourians focused on No. 1, election integrity. I think we need a robust audit of our voter rolls. We just saw in the state of Texas, they audited their voter rolls. They found 1 million ineligible voters on their voter rolls, including 6,500 noncitizens. The State of Virginia just did an audit of their voter rolls. They found 6,000 noncitizens on their voter rolls. And even a blue state like Oregon found 1,500 noncitizens on their voter rolls.

As the next secretary of state, I want to make sure that only eligible voters vote here in the state of Missouri, and I'm committed to do that with a robust audit of the voter rolls.

Second part of my contract with Missourians would be to help protect kids. Unfortunately, in some of our public libraries, there's X-rated material in the kids' section. No. 1, it's not appropriate for kids. And No. 2, your state taxpayer dollars shouldn't be paying for it. So as your next secretary of state, any funding that comes through the Secretary of State Office that goes to our public libraries, I would withhold if they have that X-rated smut in the kids' section.

Teiner: Okay, and do you have anything else that you'd like to touch on before we wrap up?

Hoskins: Just, you know, I've always said that I believe the most secure elections are in person on Election Day with a photo ID and a paper ballot. And yes, I do have some concerns about the election machines, we saw in Puerto Rico in 2024 in their primary and just in June of 2024 where they used election machines, and after the election, they weren't able to reconcile the difference between the election machines as well as the paper ballots. So you know, we need to make sure that we do a full forensic audit of any election machines to make sure that they're actually counting the votes correctly.