Eric Greitens
American politician (born 1974) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Eric Robert Greitens (/ˈɡraɪtənz/ GRY-tənz;[2] born April 10, 1974) is an American former politician who was the 56th governor of Missouri from January 2017 until his resignation in June 2018 amid allegations of sexual assault and campaign finance impropriety.[3][4]
Eric Greitens | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait, 2017 | |
| 56th Governor of Missouri | |
| In office January 9, 2017 – June 1, 2018 | |
| Lieutenant | Mike Parson |
| Preceded by | Jay Nixon |
| Succeeded by | Mike Parson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Eric Robert Greitens (1974-04-10) April 10, 1974 (age 49) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican (since 2015) |
| Other political affiliations | Democratic (before 2015) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Duke University (BA) Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (MPhil, DPhil) |
| Civilian awards | President's Volunteer Service Award |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Navy |
| Years of service | 2001–2021[1] |
| Rank |  Lieutenant commander |
| Unit |  U.S. Navy SEALsU.S. Navy Reserve |
| Battles/wars | Iraq War War in Afghanistan |
| Military awards |  Bronze Star Purple Heart Joint Service Commendation Medal Navy and Marine Corps Commendation MedalComplete list of decorations |
Born and raised in St. Louis, Greitens graduated from Duke University in 1996 and received a doctorate from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar in 2000. During his four tours of duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer, he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander, commanded a unit targeting al-Qaeda, and was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Later, after being a White House fellow, Greitens founded a nonprofit organization, The Mission Continues, to benefit veterans. In 2013, Time included him in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
A Democrat during his early life, Greitens announced in 2015 that he had become a Republican. He ran for governor of Missouri as a Republican in 2016. Greitens prevailed over three opponents in the Republican primary and then defeated Democratic Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster in the general election. He was Missouri's first Jewish governor.[5][6] One of Greitens's signature accomplishments in office was signing Missouri's right-to-work law,[7] which was later repealed by statewide referendum.[8]
In February 2018, Greitens was charged with felony invasion of privacy and later with campaign-related offenses. He was indicted on felony charges of computer tampering in April 2018;[9] all charges were dropped in May 2018. Greitens resigned from office on June 1, 2018,[10] after the Missouri General Assembly commenced a special session to consider impeachment.[11] In early 2018, Greitens's former hairdresser accused him of sexual assault. A bipartisan Special Investigative Committee in the Missouri state legislature found the woman "overall credible" and issued a report on the incident.[12]
Greitens later unsuccessfully attempted a return to public office, running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring incumbent Roy Blunt in the 2022 election; he lost the Republican primary to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt,[13][14] who won the general election.
Greitens was born on April 10, 1974, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Becky and Rob Greitens.[15] Greitens's mother was a special education teacher and his father was an accountant for the Missouri Department of Agriculture.[15] His mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic, and Greitens was raised Jewish.[16][17] He grew up as a Democrat.[18] Greitens graduated from Parkway North High School in 1992.
After high school, Greitens majored in ethics, philosophy, and public policy at Duke University. He graduated in 1996 with an A.B. summa cum laude.[19] Greitens won a Harry S. Truman Scholarship and was selected as a Rhodes scholar,[20][21][22] which allowed him to pursue graduate studies at Oxford University. He was a member of Lady Margaret Hall and studied development studies, receiving a M.Phil. in 1998 and a Ph.D., for research on humanitarian organization efforts on behalf of children in war-torn countries, in 2000.[23]
During his 2016 campaign for governor, Greitens said, "I have worked in Cambodia with kids who lost limbs to land mines and are survivors of polio. I've worked in Bolivia with children of the street. I've worked in one of Mother Teresa's homes for the destitute and dying."[24] For six weeks as a college student, Greitens worked at two refugee camps, the Puntizela camp outside Pula, Croatia, and the Gasinci camp outside Osijek, Croatia. Both are described in his book. Refugee camps in Croatia were temporary homes for Bosnians crossing the border.[25] Greitens also traveled to Rwanda and Zaire as a volunteer U.N. photographer.[26]
Greitens matriculated at the United States Navy's Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, in January 2001, graduating in May of that year as an ensign in the United States Navy Reserve.[27][28] He then began Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL (BUD/S) training in Coronado, California,[29][30] graduating with Class 237 in February 2002.[31]
Greitens rose to be a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy Reserve. During his active duty career, he was deployed four times, to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Southeast Asia. He was the commander of a joint special operations task unit, a Mark V Special Operations Craft detachment,[32] and an al-Qaeda targeting cell.[33]
In 2005, Greitens left full-time active duty to take a one-year White House fellowship.[34] Appointed by President George W. Bush, Greitens developed a program to get architecture and engineering students involved in rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina.[35] He remained a Navy reservist and led a program that recruited advisers for special military operations around the world.[26] As a White House fellow, he also worked in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).[36]
After his fellowship, he volunteered for a six-month tour in Iraq that began in October 2006.[35] On March 28, 2007, two suicide bombers detonated trucks carrying chlorine gas at the Fallujah government complex where Greitens and other military personnel were sleeping. The attack was the seventh chlorine bombing in the Al Anbar province of Iraq by Al-Qaeda. Greitens was among about 15 who were wounded,[35] and he received a Purple Heart after sustaining injuries from the bombing.[37] He was also awarded the Bronze Star and Combat Action Ribbon.[38]
During a deployment in Thailand, Greitens learned of drug use by Navy personnel and initiated an investigation that led to their removal. In the Philippines, his crew effectively shut down a transit site for a terrorist organization, according to an evaluation report.[26]
In January 2019, Greitens (then in the Individual Ready Reserve) sought to be reinstated to the Navy's Selected Reserve. Navy officials, including Vice Admiral Robert P. Burke (then the Chief of Naval Personnel) and Brendan McLane (then the head of the Navy Recruiting Command) did not want to give Greitens a "major misconduct waiver" that would allow him to return, due to the allegations of sexual assault against him; the SEALs told Navy leadership that "he would not meet criteria for re-entry to the SEAL community given his age and unfavorable promotion likelihood."[39] But under pressure from Vice President Mike Pence, the Navy allowed Greitens to return, granting him a "red carpet" medical clearance.[39][40] Upon his return, however, the Special Warfare Command denied Greitens reentry into the SEALs.[40][41] He was instead a general unrestricted line officer, a classification for reservists tasked with office duties.[40] After spending two years as an active member of the Navy Reserve, Greitens resigned his commission in the Navy Reserve on May 1, 2021, two months after he launched his U.S. Senate campaign.[40]
Greitens taught public service at the Truman School of Public Affairs and was an adjunct professor of business ethics in the MBA program at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.[42][43][44]
Nonprofit work
After returning from Iraq, Greitens founded The Mission Continues, a nonprofit organization that places veterans with volunteer organizations to encourage public service, build community connections, and improve career skills.[45][46]
In total, as CEO of The Mission Continues, Greitens received $700,000 in compensation from the nonprofit.[47] He worked without pay in 2007 and 2008;[47] was paid $150,000 from mid-2010 through 2011 after receiving a grant from the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation;[47] and was paid $200,000 in each of the years 2011, 2012, and 2013.[47][48] He stepped down as CEO in 2014 and left the board of the organization in 2015.[47][48][49] Greitens's compensation as head of the nonprofit became an issue in his subsequent political campaigns.[47] Experts on nonprofit compensation said that his salary as head of the nonprofit was higher than similarly situated activities, although not extravagant in light of the organization's mission, as well as Greitens's education and career background.[47][48][50]
The Associated Press reported in March 2018 that Greitens had used the charity's email account to arrange political meetings about his gubernatorial campaign, which is prohibited by federal tax law.[51] He was also accused of using the charity's list of donors to raise money for his campaign, a violation of campaign finance law.[52] On December 28, 2018, The Kansas City Star reported that the Missouri attorney general had dropped the investigation against the nonprofit.[53]
Books
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Greitens's military experience formed the basis for his career as a speaker at corporate events and as author of three books:[41]
- Strength & Compassion: Photographs and Essays (2008): a collection of photographs and essays with a foreword by Rwandan humanitarian Paul Rusesabagina and an introduction by Bobby Muller, cofounder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.[54][55] Photographs by Greitens were displayed at an exhibition at the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in December 2014.[56] Strength and Compassion won the grand prize winner of the 2009 New York Book Festival.[57]
- The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011): a memoir focusing on Greitens's humanitarian work and military experiences.[58] The book ranked 10th on The New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction in May 2011.[59][60] The next year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt also released a young adult edition, The Warrior's Heart.[61]
- Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015): The book is structured as a series of 23 letters that Greitens says he wrote to a fellow SEAL struggling with PTSD.[62][63][64][65] In a June 2018 letter, Representative Jay Barnes, the Republican chair of the special state House committee that investigated allegations of misconduct against Greitens, said that the committee had evidence suggesting that Greitens "may have engaged in criminal fraud" related to a grant he received to write and promote the book.[65][64] Barnes also said, "Though not criminal, other documents in the Committee's possession raise suspicions of literary fraud regarding Resilience."[65][64] According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, an early manuscript of the book was arranged as a collection of "thoughts" rather than a compilation of letters to a veteran.[64] Danny Laub, a former political aide to Greitens, testified that in 2015, he was paid from grant funds from the John Templeton Foundation, administered by Washington University in St. Louis, to promote the work while simultaneously setting up Greitens's gubernatorial campaign.[66][67] A university investigation concluded, "Based on the materials available to us and within the scope of our review, we found nothing improper about the administration or use of the grant funds."[67] But Barnes said that his committee had access to additional evidence the university lacked, and released a memorandum in 2018 "asserting that Greitens had misrepresented how much he worked on the book, used grant funds for political purposes and failed to fully disclose his income sources on conflict-of-interest forms filed with the university."[67]
Greitens was a popular speaker before his political career.[44] His second and third books displayed the SEALs insignia on their covers, and he charged as much as $75,000 for a speech in Asia.[48] In 2016 an anonymous group charged in a YouTube video that he had exaggerated his record in books and television appears and was unduly benefiting from his time in the SEALs; Greitens responded by releasing his military records and publishing a video he uploaded to his channel with testimonials from SEALs and Marines with whom he had served.[48]
Greitens grew up as a Democrat. In 2015, he wrote a Fox News op-ed announcing that he had become a Republican. He said he had been raised in the tradition of Harry Truman and had even been recruited as a Democratic candidate for Congress, but was pushed rightward after seeing the Department of Veterans Affairs fail to help many of his brothers in arms. He recalled being angered at how the Democrats' only solution was to "spend more money" on the VA. "The problem is that most Democrats seem to think more money and bigger government are the solutions to virtually every single problem", he wrote. He said he believed Democrats no longer had the right ideas to stand up for the middle class.[18]
On September 26, 2015, Greitens announced his candidacy for governor of Missouri[68] as a Republican.[69] Shortly after a June 30, 2016, quarterly deadline for filing campaign contributions, he received the largest ever single contribution in a Missouri campaign, $1.975 million, which meant he did not have to reveal it until October, months after the primary. The source was a previously unknown Superpac, "SEALS for Truth".[70] SEALS for Truth had received the money from the American Policy Coalition (APC), another Superpac, on the same day APC received the entire amount. Greitens had assured voters he intended to increase transparency while reducing corruption in state politics as a campaign focus.[71] APC, about which there was almost no information online, was headed by Ohio lawyer David Langdon, who had incorporated it in Kentucky in 2015.[71] Between the 2010 election cycle and early 2015, at least 11 groups connected to Langdon spent at least $22 million on ballot initiatives against abortion and same-sex marriage and on federal and state elections around the country, as tabulated by the Center for Public Integrity.[72] On March 12, 2017, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Kansas City Star editorial boards published a joint editorial criticizing Greitens for "secret fundraising and secret spending" and for tactics such as ordering that "[s]ecurity staffers block reporters from getting close to him".[73] In 2018, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, announced the opening of an investigation of Greitens's 2016 campaign financing.[74]
Greitens won the August 2 Republican primary with 236,250 votes (34.6%) to businessman John Brunner's 169,425 (24.8%), Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder's 141,498 (20.7%), and former Speaker Catherine Hanaway's 136,350 (19.9%).[75][76] Democrat-turned-Republican Greitens faced Republican-turned-Democrat Chris Koster in the general election on November 8, 2016, and won with 51.3% of the vote to Koster's 45.4%.[77]
On April 28, 2017, the Missouri Ethics Commission fined Greitens's campaign $1,000 for violating state campaign ethics rules regarding campaign disclosure. Greitens did not contest the fine.[78]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Eric Greitens | 236,481 | 34.56 | |
| Republican | John Brunner | 169,620 | 24.79 | |
| Republican | Peter Kinder | 141,629 | 20.70 | |
| Republican | Catherine Hanaway | 136,521 | 19.95 | |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Eric Greitens | 1,424,730 | 51.3 | |
| Democratic | Chris Koster | 1,261,110 | 45.4 | |
Greitens identifies himself as a conservative outsider,[2] and is a member of the Republican Party.[4] He called himself a "Make America Great Again" candidate, and often voiced opposition to leading Republicans such as Mitch McConnell for being insufficiently conservative.[81] He has opposed federal matching grants for state projects, saying they "unbalance" state budgets, and voiced support for block grants instead.[82]
Cabinet
Greitens took office as governor on January 9, 2017. His initial Cabinet was:[83]
| Cabinet Position | Name | Appointment Date |
|---|---|---|
| Administrator of the Office of Administration | Sarah Steelman | January 6, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Agriculture | Chris Chinn | December 27, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Corrections | Anne Precythe | December 21, 2016 |
| Director of the Department of Natural Resources | Carol Comer | January 18, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Public Safety | Charles Juden | January 2, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Revenue | Joel Walters | February 14, 2017 |
| Director of the Missouri Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions, and Professional Registration | Chlora Lindely-Myers | February 14, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Health and Senior Services | Randall W. Williams | February 9, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Economic Development | Rob Dixon | June 2, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Social Services | Steve Corsi | May 19, 2017 |
| Director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations | Anna Hui | March 30, 2017 |
Infrastructure
Greitens supported public infrastructure investment as a tool for economic development and to reduce unemployment.[84] As governor, he introduced a $25 million "Jobs and Infrastructure Fund" to state-sponsor construction of communications, utilities, transportation and other infrastructure at the request of private companies looking to expand into Missouri.[84] He initially opposed public funding or tax credits for construction of the Centene Stadium in St. Louis on land owned by the Missouri Department of Transportation,[85] but later said he was "willing to work with" investors.[86]
Greitens opposed the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, calling it "irresponsible socialist legislation".[87] He voiced support for continuing construction of the Keystone Pipeline.[88]
Economic, labor, and regulatory issues
In February 2017, Greitens signed a bill making Missouri the 28th right-to-work state.[7] In response, unions that opposed the law filed a referendum to overturn it,[89] and on August 7, 2018, Missouri voters voted to overturn it.[8]
The Greitens administration sided with agriculture industry in opposing the Obama administration's proposed "Waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule.[90]
Greitens supported the Missouri Steel Mill Bill, legislation that allowed utility regulators to approve lower electricity rates for industrial companies using large amounts of energy. The legislation was drafted in response to the March 2016 Noranda smelter closure.[91] During the final weeks of the regular 2017 legislative session, the Missouri House of Representatives passed an amendment by State Representative Don Rone Jr. designed to help bring industrial jobs to the state. The bill met with opposition in the Senate led by Senator Doug Libla and failed. Greitens called a special legislative session in May 2017, bringing the Missouri General Assembly back to the Capitol to pass the legislation one week after its regular session adjourned.[92] After calling the session, he held rallies urging lawmakers to approve the bill.[92][93] Ultimately, the General Assembly passed the legislation and Greitens signed it into law on June 16, 2017.[94] After the special session, Magnitude 7 Metals LLC announced that the firm would restart two of the plant's three production lines.[95][96] After the announcement, Greitens accepted an invitation to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss jobs.[97]
In 2018, Greitens proposed a package of $800 million in state tax cuts. He specifically proposed a 10% reduction in the top individual state income tax rate (reducing it from 5.9% to 5.3%) and a reduction in the state corporate income tax rate by almost one-third, from 6.25% to 4.25%, which would give Missouri the nation's second-lowest corporate rate. Greitens also proposed the creation of a non-refundable state tax credit for low-income workers, and applying the Missouri sales tax to online purchases for the first time.[98][99][100]
Abortion
Greitens identifies himself as "pro-life".[101] After the session on the Steel Mill Bill, he called a second special session to pass anti-abortion legislation. He went on a statewide tour with former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee in support of the legislation.[102] The bill required that doctors explain the risks of abortion to a patient 72 hours before performing an abortion, called for annual inspections of abortion clinics, added new whistle-blower protections for clinic employees, and heightened requirements for pathologists who provide services to abortion facilities. Greitens also specifically targeted a St. Louis law that banned employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion.[103] Alison Dreith, the executive director of NARAL Pro Choice Missouri, said the session was "political theater";[104] Greitens signed the wide-ranging anti-abortion measure into law in June 2017, at a private ceremony with legislators who sponsored the bill and anti-abortion lobbyists.[104][105] The law was unsuccessfully challenged in the courts.[106][107] Greitens also opposes embryonic stem cell research.[108] In 2022, he called the overturning of Roe v. Wade a "huge victory."[109]
Greitens was condemned by both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.[110][111] Missouri Right to Life, one of the largest anti-abortion organizations in the state, endorsed Greitens's 2022 U.S. Senate campaign,[112] but did not endorse his 2016 gubernatorial campaign after finding he had accepted a $125,000 donation from embryonic stem cell researcher Julian Robertson.[113][108]
Greitens was featured in the 2018 Netflix documentary film Reversing Roe.[114]
Healthcare
Greitens staunchly opposed proposals to accept the Medicaid expansion in Missouri under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).[115][116][117] The proposals would have expanded health insurance coverage eligibility to about 300,000 Missourians.[117] Greitens also called for the ACA to be repealed and replaced.[117]
Greitens called the opioid epidemic a "modern plague".[118] In 2018, he issued an executive order to create a prescription drug monitoring program, directing the Department of Health and Senior Services to build a database to help identify suspicious patterns of prescriptions of controlled substances, including opioids.[119] Greitens was widely praised for calling attention to the epidemic, but received some criticism from state legislators who considered the order an abuse of executive power.[120] Three months after the order was issued, no prescription monitoring program was functionally operating, leaving Missouri de facto the only state without one.[121] The program was later recodified by the Missouri Senate and signed into law by Governor Mike Parson in 2021.[122]
Greitens administration officials sent notices to 8,000 doctors who were not following best practices for prescribing opioids within the state's Medicaid program, instructing them to change their prescribing patterns and consider referring people on long-term opioids to addiction programs. The Kansas City Star reported that Greitens also started filling vacancies on the medical licensing board with physicians who were "willing to get tough on colleagues who contribute to the opioid crisis."[123]
Greitens voiced his support for use of medical cannabis in some circumstances.[124]
Crime and policing
In 2017, Greitens named Drew Juden director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety (which oversees the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri National Guard, Missouri Gaming Commission, and other bodies).[125][126] Greitens's successor, Mike Parson, ousted Juden in August 2018.[127] In November 2018, Parson and his DPS Director, Sandy Karsten, asked State Auditor Nicole Galloway to conduct an audit into the department covering Juden's time as director; the request noted that an internal review had "raised concerns about questionable use of taxpayer dollars."[125][126] The audit report, released in 2019, determined that the office under Juden had "abused" the state contracting process by using a legislative grant for local equipment to steer funds to the Missouri Police Chiefs Charitable Foundation, a group with which Juden was affiliated, and that the financial maneuver cost the state "approximately $16,000 in interest."[125][128] The auditor's office also criticized Juden's use of annual leave (finding that Juden did not claim annual leave when he when on vacation, and was thus overpaid by some amount for "unused" leave) and a state vehicle (finding that his usage was 44% higher than previous or subsequent DPS directors').[125] Juden denied any wrongdoing, framing the findings as a political attack, and Greitens defended Juden's conduct.[125]
Greitens signed a "Blue Alert" law modeled after the Amber Alert system for missing children. He pursued the idea to allow public broadcasts of information that could assist in the apprehension of individuals who commit violence against police officers. The measure was part of a package of crime-related changes to state law the Missouri House and Senate approved in May 2017. It also enhanced penalties for assaults on law enforcement officers and created the state crime of illegal reentry for persons deported from the United States for committing a crime who return and commit a felony.[129]
In 2017, Greitens granted a stay of execution to Marcellus Williams, who had been set to be executed that day. DNA tests, using technology unavailable at the time of the killing, on the knife used in the killing matched an unknown male, not Williams. Greitens appointed a board of five retired judges to investigate the case and make a recommendation.[130][131]
In 2017, St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was acquitted of first-degree murder for shooting Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011. Protests erupted in St. Louis. Before the verdict, Greitens—who was openly critical of his predecessor Jay Nixon's response to the Ferguson unrest—preemptively activated the Missouri National Guard and scheduled 12-hour shifts for the St. Louis municipal police, in anticipation of civil unrest. He said he would preserve the right to peacefully protest but would oversee the prosecution of persons engaging in looting, violence, or other criminal activity.[132][133][134]
In December 2017, Greitens commuted the life prison sentence of Judy Henderson, who had been jailed for 35 years after being convicted of the July 1981 robbery-murder of jeweler Harry Klein. Greitens went to Chillicothe Correctional Center to meet with Henderson, then 68, and sign the commutation papers. Authorities believe her boyfriend, Greg Cruzen, shot Klein and paid four witnesses to lie about Henderson's role; the same defense attorney represented Henderson and Cruzen at trial.[135][136] On his last day in office, Greitens granted Henderson a pardon.[136]
Low-income housing tax credits
In 2017 the Missouri Housing Development Commission voted 8 to 2 to zero out the state's low-income housing tax credit for 2018.[137] Greitens phoned into the meeting and voted to zero out the tax credits while Lieutenant Governor Mike Parson voted to keep them. Greitens wrote, "special interests abused low income housing tax breaks to make themselves rich."[137]
After Greitens's appointments to the commission and the 2017 vote, Missouri did not issue $140 million in state low-income housing tax credits. The low-income housing tax credit program was cut from over $1.3 billion over the previous decade to zero. Greitens accused the low-income housing industry of conspiring to upend his political career though legal troubles and the threat of impeachment.[138]
Missouri National Guard
In 2017, Trump appointed Greitens to the Council of Governors, an advisory group of governors dealing with issues such as national defense, the national guard and defense support to local authorities.[139][140]
In 2017, Greitens announced the Missouri Army National Guard would add nearly 800 soldiers by 2019.[141]
In February 2018, Greitens announced that members of the Missouri National Guard would train with the Israeli Home Front Command. Missouri is one of four states—along with Colorado, Illinois and Massachusetts—to train with the command, a branch of the Israel Defense Forces that focuses on civilian protection during a war or crisis.[142][143]
In April 2018, Greitens signed into law legislation allowing those in the Missouri National Guard and the armed forces reserves to deduct their military income from their state taxes.[144]
Other aspects
Greitens's first two executive orders banned employees in the executive branch from accepting gifts from lobbyists and froze all new regulations through February 2017.[115] In November 2018, a statewide referendum put heavy restrictions on lobbyist gifts, virtually banning them.[145]
In February 2017, 170 gravestones at the Chesed Shel Emeth Jewish Cemetery in University City, Missouri, were toppled and overturned.[146][147] Greitens and Vice President Mike Pence participated in the cleanup effort.[147][148]
Greitens appointed Jackson County Circuit Judge W. Brent Powell to the Missouri Supreme Court in April 2017.[149][150]
As governor, Greitens signed tort reform measures.[151]
In June 2017, Greitens signed Missouri's first Foster Care Bill of Rights, which outlined specific measures designed to improve the safety and quality of life of children in Missouri's foster care system.[152] As first lady, Sheena Greitens focused on efforts to improve the lives of foster children and foster parents.[153][154][155] The Greitens administration waived the $15 fee for foster children to obtain copies of their birth certificates;[155] made appointments to child protection boards, many of which had previously been able to function due to lack of a quorum;[156] and joined the National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise, an interstate compact to facilitate adoption and fostering across state lines.[155]
As he took office, Greitens signed an executive order banning state employees in his administration from accepting or soliciting gifts from lobbyists. The order also banned employees in the governor's office from lobbying the executive branch while Greitens was in office. The order was later loosened by Governor Mike Parson, who allowed gifts to members of the executive branch. As lieutenant governor, Parson received meals and gifts from lobbyists worth $2,752 in his first six months in office, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.[157]
In 2017, Greitens criticized fellow Republicans Denny Hoskins and Paul Wieland on social media. Hoskins and Wieland were the two Republican senators who voted to allow raises in legislative pay to take effect. (Six other senators cast no vote on the matter.) Greitens had personally pressured lawmakers to vote down the raise. Hoskins and Wieland described their meetings with Greitens as tense, with Wieland in particular characterizing the meetings as intimidation and saying that he felt insulted.[158]
Greitens approved a plan to cut more than two dozen state boards and commissions, in line with a 2017 Boards and Commissions Task Force report that outlined ways to eliminate 439 gubernatorial appointments and to eliminate or merge numerous state boards and commissions.[159] He ordered the sale of 30 cars from the state's Office of Administration General Services fleet and the sale of one of two state-owned passenger planes.[160][161] Greitens released $4 million in biodiesel facility subsidies, which was originally withheld because of concerns about a prospective state budget shortfall.[162]
Greitens ended a longstanding state policy against using tax dollars to aid religious groups. His decision came a week before the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer. The lawsuit challenged a 2012 decision by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to deny the Columbia church a grant to replace the gravel on its playground with softer, safer material. Greitens instructed the Department of Natural Resources to allow religious organizations to apply for and be eligible to receive those grants.[163]