A Smug Meeting

I sent my husband a screenshot from my Dexcom app a few days ago — my blood sugar was spiking over 200 and still rising.

I install a new Dexcom device on the back of my arm every fifteen days so I can better track my diabetes and my sugar levels. The app has been helpful in tracking what makes my blood sugar spike, and things I should stay away from.

I know to watch all sugar and most carbohydrates, but I learned that coffee — even black coffee — spikes my sugar levels, and I have had to give it up, which has been quite the adjustment. And like everyone else, I have heard that stress can spike blood sugar, but now I have the data to prove it.

Every time I speak in public, I can watch my blood sugar rise in real time.

It’s not because I am nervous…I got over that years ago. It’s because what I speak about makes my blood boil, and that causes a spike. Weird that abortion bans and voter purges and defunding schools and ICE raids and Trump Republicans can do that to a body, right?

So, when I sent my husband that Dexcom screenshot, he asked what I had eaten or if I’d snuck a cup of coffee because it was only 10 am. I told him I hadn’t had a morsel of food or a sip of coffee. Instead, I had listened to my State Senator lie and make excuses for an hour at a public hearing in town.

I ran into my friend and fellow activist, Pam, in her “POOL” shirt at the legislative meeting.

I arrived on time for the public town hall of sorts put on by the local Chamber of Commerce, hosting my State Rep, Jeff Farnan, and my State Senator, Rusty Black.

The meeting started off with the Chamber organizer announcing the lawmakers to the crowd of about 100 people…who remained silent. This was stunning. I speak all over the heartland several times a month, and I have never been introduced to a silent audience. It was both embarrassing and well deserved. These two lawmakers have not been representing their constituents, and their constituents gave them an apt welcome.

Silence.

My State Representative was first to speak and had a list of bills that had passed. He remarked on one that made my head spin. First, he asked the crowd if we knew that pregnant women in Missouri could not finalize a divorce in the state until a bill was passed this year to allow it. He was proud to say that in 2026, pregnant Missourians may be granted a divorce.

Yes, Representative Farnan, I did in fact know that was a law. When I filed for divorce from my first marriage 17 years ago, the first question my lawyer asked me was, “Are you pregnant?” I was taken aback, and asked him why that mattered. He told me that I should not get pregnant in the interim before my divorce finalized, or I would be stuck married for quite a bit longer because Missouri did not finalize the divorces of pregnant women.

That’s how I knew about the law, but since my Rep is not capable of pregnancy while living under the tyranny of a “pro-life” state, this may have been news to him…

My State Senator, Rusty Black, was characteristically smug with the crowd.

He admitted that he wants Missouri to adopt a no-income tax law, which will trigger a regressive sales tax that would harm over 80% of Missourians, including retirees and those working for the lowest wages.

He admitted that he is “unpopular” for defunding schools and, at one point in the meeting, asked the crowd to raise their hand if they “hated Rusty Black.” Several hands went up all over the room while he smiled.

He admitted with a smirk that Missouri is ranked 49th in starting teacher pay, and we now rank 48th in the nation for education funding sent by the state to local districts. He shrugged it off as no big deal — he said it had been like that since he was a public school teacher…

And that right there should be the thing that should shock you. My State Senator was a public school teacher for over 30 years, teaching in several rural districts around me. It’s shocking because this same man has sold his soul to the Herzog Foundation.

The Herzog Foundation, in my opinion, is currently the most dangerous organization to Missouri public schools.

The official mission of the Herzog Foundation is to “catalyze and accelerate the development of Christ-centered K-12 education.” That sounds benign, but it’s more complicated. The Foundation is one of six organizations in the state to dole out taxpayer dollars to private religious schools. And yes, 98% of Missouri vouchers go to private religious schools.

Since funding school vouchers is against the Missouri Constitution, the scheme to siphon taxpayer money to religious schools had to start at the statehouse, and that’s where things got very convenient…

The Herzog Foundation quite literally employs a State Representative. Rep. Josh Hurlburt (R-Smithville) works as a Scholarship Coordinator for the Foundation, and in his first term in Jeff City, he wrote bills to help send taxpayer money to private religious schools.

Seems like a conflict of interest, but it gets worse.

The Herzog Foundation Chairman, Todd Graves, is my Congressman’s brother. My Congressman — who also received thousands in donations from Herzog entities — is retiring and the man favored to win the Republican primary in my district is Chris Stigall…a full-time employee of the Herzog Foundation.

I hope Chris doesn’t win the seat, but if he does, the Herzog Foundation will have a member of Congress in their corner, if not on their payroll.

And this isn’t the half of it, but I can’t take you on a deep dive without writing 20,000 words about this foundation. The Missouri Independent has already done the work here.

I realized the meeting with my Reps was about over after the Chamber organizer said there was time for only one more question, and she didn’t call on me…and that’s when I decided to let decorum go, and demand to ask a question of my Senator.

I raised my hand and said I had tried to speak with Rusty Black on several occasions through multiple emails and calls and that I was going to take my chance at that meeting to ask him why he had taken $250,000 from the Herzog Foundation.

I asked him if he thought it was a conflict of interest to have a PAC in his name for a quarter of a million dollars from an organization that wants public dollars for private schools, while he sits on the School Funding Task Force in the Senate that has shorted Missouri public schools $190 million while sending $60 million to private religious schools.

Sen. Black stated that I needed to get my facts straight. My facts came straight from the Missouri Ethics Commission. He then told me that organizations like the Herzog Foundation can’t fund political candidates.

That’s a lie. It’s a work around. We all know about Citizens United and dirty money.

But Sen. Black was right about something. My facts were wrong. I accused him of taking $250k in Herzog donations, and I was wrong. In front of everyone. I did my due diligence, but I still made a huge mistake.

Senator Rusty Black did not accept $250k from the Herzog Foundation and related entities…he accepted $335,600 in donations in one election cycle alone.

My god.

Organizations like the Herzog Foundation help normalize a rigged system where public money is funneled into private religious schools and legislators with dark money connections are used to write legislation to defund public schools.

I may get another letter from Herzog lawyers for speaking the truth, but so be it. I’m still at the same address, boys.

I am also done pretending that men like Senator Black deserve the benefit of the doubt when every vote and every donation and every smug little smirk means the same damn thing.

They don’t care about us.

They are governing for themselves and the billionaires who bankroll them.

~Jess