Missouri’s Secretary of State announced he is running for the United States Senate in 2016.
Jason Kander, a fifth-generation Missourian who lives in Columbia with his wife and son, released a video announcing the start of his campaign. In the video, he explains how his parents’ commitment to service inspired him to join the Army after September 11th. He later volunteered to serve in Afghanistan, where he investigated groups and individuals suspected of corruption, espionage, drug trafficking, and facilitating Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
“For years, even with our economy suffering at home and our national security threatened abroad, too many politicians in both political parties have been more concerned with scoring political points than doing what’s right for our country,” Kander. “We can’t change Washington if we don’t change the people we send there. I believe it’s time for a new generation of leaders who’ve come of age at a time of unprecedented challenges and threats to our country, and who are committed to bringing people together and doing what’s right no matter what the personal cost.”
Kander, who completed his eight-year military career by serving as an instructor in the Missouri Army National Guard’s Officer Candidate School at Fort Leonard Wood after returning home from Afghanistan in 2007, was elected Secretary of State in 2012. As Missouri’s Secretary of State, Kander has cut his own budget by over $1 million, while providing more services than the office ever has before. He has worked to cut red tape and fees to help small businesses hire and thrive, protected the right to vote, and got tens of millions of dollars for taxpayers when he took on the Wall Street firms that helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.
Kander previously served as a state legislator representing Kansas City, where he worked with Republicans and Democrats to balance the budget each year without raising taxes, and took on both parties to pass the first major ethics reform in almost 20 years. He also helped turn Missouri’s once weak human trafficking laws into among the country’s strongest.
St. Louis City Treasurer Tishaura Jones will serve as Kander’s campaign treasurer, and he has been endorsed by all of his fellow Democratic statewide elected officials in Missouri: Sen. Claire McCaskill, Gov. Jay Nixon, Attorney General Chris Koster and Treasurer Clint Zweifel.
“There is no stronger candidate in Missouri to take on Senator Blunt than Jason Kander. And no one better to fight on behalf of Missouri’s working families,” McCaskill said.
“Washington can use some common sense from Missouri, and I can’t think of a better person to change the mentality there than Jason Kander,” Nixon said. “He volunteered to serve our country in Afghanistan and did so with great distinction, and has taken on important issues in our state like fighting for campaign finance and ethics reform, protecting survivors of domestic violence, and standing up for his fellow veterans. I look forward to working to help elect him the next United States Senator from Missouri.”
Ed Martin, Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, issued the following statement on Jason Kander’s announcement seeking the Democrat nomination for United States Senate.
“Today’s announcement is nothing short of a doubling down on the failed policies Missourians are accustomed to seeing out of Washington Democrats.
“Jason Kander has already proven himself to be a dyed-in-the-wool liberal in lock-step with the failing Obama Agenda. Kander is on the record voting against opportunity for school children trapped in failing schools. He is on the record opposing stronger self-defense protections for homeowners, and he supports raising taxes on job creators.
“Just two years into statewide office, Kander has tried doing everyone’s job but his own and can’t wait to get to Washington to continue the decline the Obama agenda has started. Kander will be a fighter for ObamaCare, Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, job-killing regulations and crippling environmental policies.
“One Claire McCaskill in Washington is too many; Missouri families and workers cannot afford another vote in support of Obamacare and the rest of the liberals’ failed big government agenda.”