KEAVENY TAKES THE LOW ROAD
As a candidate to be your next state senator, it has been my intention to avoid the kind of toxic, negative campaigning we so often see in national politics. By walking the neighborhoods and visiting constituents door to door, I tried to share my vision for our city and state as one citizen to another without denigrating my opponent.
Apparently my strategy must be working because Joe Keaveny has now resorted to an eleventh-hour smear campaign to hold onto the nomination he was appointed to after his predecessor went to prison. Small wonder decent people get turned off by politics as usual!
Fact: The Keaveny campaign claims that I neglected to pay my City Earnings Tax. This is a blatant lie. As a St. Louis Police Officer, my earnings tax was deducted from my pay check before I ever saw it. I couldn’t have been delinquent if I’d wanted to be.
Trying to raise a family on a cop’s salary there were times during the 1990’s when I was a month or two late on my Personal Property Tax. Perhaps Keaveny—a former corporate attorney for a large bank—doesn’t know what it’s like to get hit with an extra tax bill at Christmas time, but I suspect many working families do.
Fact: The right-wing “Club for Growth” has mailed expensive fliers to voters claiming that I want to raise your taxes by 50%. This is a ridiculous distortion of the truth.
I merely quoted an article I’d read in the St. Louis Beacon which suggested that by raising the Earnings Tax by one-half of one percent for two years, we could weather the city’s budget emergency without cutting vital police, fire and ambulance services. This was nothing more than an idea to be considered to help us get through a crisis.
Many of my supporters have suggested that I take legal action against Keaveny. That’s an idea that I haven’t ruled out. But in the end, the verdict that matters is the one that you, the voters, will deliver on August 3rd. I hope that I can count on your support.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jim Long, Candidate for State Senate
