By Marshall Griffin, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – The Missouri Republican Party has filed a lawsuit against the State Ethics Commission over its closed-door meeting in Jefferson City last week.
Members of the commission met in private for over an hour before voting to notify candidates that they may have to return campaign contributions that exceed reinstated limits.
The Missouri Supreme Court recently overturned a law that had listed campaign contribution caps.
Jared Craighead, Executive Director of the Missouri GOP, says they're asking for a temporary restraining order against the Ethics Commission.
"(We want) to make sure that any action that was transacted in violation of the Sunshine Law be declared invalid. We want to make sure that if the MEC is going to take action, and they're going to make public policy decisions that the public is entitled to hear and to participate in, that they do that in open session," Craighead said.
Members of the Ethics Commission commented after the closed session that they were consulting with their attorney, which they claimed did not violate the state's open meeting law.
The suit was filed in Cole County minutes before the court's offices closed Monday afternoon.