JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Today, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office filed two forceful motions in the Jackson County Tax Assessment case, whose trial has yet to conclude due to the legal machinations of opposing counsel. His office filed a motion to immediately vacate the Court’s order asking him to sit for a deposition, noting that the order is wildly inconsistent with existing law and has chilling effects on his First Amendment right to speak. He also filed a motion to disqualify opposing counsel representing Jackson County defendants, asserting that since members of the Jackson County legislature agree with the Attorney General that the tax assessments were unlawful and should be set aside, there is an egregious conflict of interest involving the Jackson County legislature being represented by the same lawyers as the other Jackson County defendants who violated the law.
“The Jackson County tax assessment case is one of the most important pieces of litigation to reach a Missouri courtroom in decades, and yet, Jackson County officials continue to stonewall us at every turn. They are misleading as to the facts and the law because they know they violated Jackson County residents’ legal rights, and they have no leg to stand on,” said Attorney General Bailey. “The Court may have instituted a functional gag order that has a similar chilling effect on speech as what the New York judge did to President Trump, but I will not be silenced. This case is too important for too many Missourians. I am moving forward undeterred in the fight to obtain justice for all Jackson County residents who were unlawfully taxed.”
The motion asserts, “This Court’s Order requiring a deposition of Attorney General Andrew Bailey disregards the default rule against top-level executive depositions and renders meaningless the purpose of corporate representative depositions; the Order discusses none of these principles. The Jackson County Defendants have already deposed a corporate representative of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) who provided the Jackson County Defendants with information about the subject at issue: a brief, casual meeting between two elected officials and their campaign staffs unrelated to the lawsuit but where, at most, a passing remark was made about the lawsuit. The Attorney General, acting through the AGO’s corporate representative, has provided all material details concerning the passing remark about this lawsuit.”
The motion continues, “The Order chills the Attorney General’s free-speech rights and effectively imposes an unconstitutional prior restraint on his speech and the speech of others that talk to him, which the Attorney General cannot control … Those factors are even more pronounced given that Missouri’s primary election is less than three weeks away in which the Attorney General is publicly known to be campaigning, and the November general election will be in full swing after that. This case is not about statements made on the campaign trail. It is about vindicating the rights of Jackson County taxpayers in the assessment process.”
Also today, Attorney General Bailey called for the Jackson County Counselor’s Office to be disqualified from representing members of the Jackson County Legislature over egregious conflicts of interest with the other Jackson County defendants. The County legislature agrees with the Attorney General that the seriously flawed and unlawful 2023 property tax assessments should be set aside, which is in direct conflict with other Jackson County defendants, such as County Executive Frank White, Director of Assessment Gail McCann Beatty and the County Board of Equalization, all of which are represented by the Jackson County Counselor’s Office.
Attorney General Bailey is strongly urging the Court to vacate its highly unusual order, and to resume trial immediately so the matter can be resolved once and for all.
The motion to vacate can be viewed here.
The motion to disqualify Jackson County counsel can be viewed here.