The Case Against the Confirmation of John Ashcroft As Attorney General of the United States: Part II

For fiscal year 1991, Governor Ashcroft vetoed $200,000 in funds to help victims of spousal abuse. (Veto Letter on HB1011, 6/21/90; Columbia Daily Tribune, June 22, 1990; Kansas City Star, June 22, 1990.) In his veto letter, Ashcroft defended his position by arguing that funding for victims of domestic violence was already available through the Department of Public Safety but he reduced to zero the amount of money available for domestic violence from the state’s general revenues. (Veto Letter on HB1011, 6/21/90.)

Again in 1992 Ashcroft vetoed $250,000 in funding for domestic violence programs, stating that a $100,000 increase in federal funds over the previous year’s level was available. Again he eliminated any funding for domestic violence from the state’s general revenue fund. (Veto Letter on HB1011, 6/26/92.) Colleen Coble, executive director of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence, called the veto "reprehensible" and noted that "[m]ost of these programs are literally struggling to stay afloat." She further noted that the federal funds that Ashcroft referred to were not technically free to be used just for victims of domestic violence. Instead, the funding cited by Ashcroft was Missouri’s portion of a federal program to assist victims of crime. Advocates for victims of domestic violence had to compete with prosecutors and other programs for access to any share of these funds. Daily Capital News, June 30, 1992.

Despite Ashcroft’s assertions in each veto letter that domestic violence funding was available from some other source, that funding was deemed woefully inadequate. Colleen Coble noted, "There are more animal shelters in the state than battered women’s shelters [in Missouri]." She further noted that every county in Missouri has some form of animal control but the overwhelming majority of Missouri counties had no domestic violence services. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 2, 1990. In an interview two years later Ms. Coble stated, "Only 20 of the 114 [Missouri] counties provide any services at all ... One-third of all the state’s shelter beds are in Kansas City. There are only 50 in the whole St. Louis area. It’s arguable that St. Louis is the least well-served city in the country." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1992.