The Society’s resources are limited. Our preference is to support cases that can not only provide relief for aggrieved parties but result in precedent setting case law discouraging similar activities in the future. Below are legal cases the Society is currently supporting:
This legal action challenged a “Guaranteed Basic Income” program of the City of St. Louis. Since January, 2024 that program had been providing $500 per month to persons with children in St. Louis City Schools, selected by a lottery. The premise of the legal action is a Missouri constitutional provision that forbids granting public money to private individuals.
In 2024, Circuit Judge Joseph Whyte issued a Temporary Restraining Order and later a preliminary injunction agreeing that both “the Missouri Constitution and the St. Louis City Charter forbid the City from giving gratuitous, no strings attached cash payments of public funds to private individuals.” Judge Whyte’s Order effectively stopped the “Guaranteed Basic Income” program in its tracks. Owing to the lawsuit’s success, the City shifted to use only private funds for the program. The City has agreed to a final judgment permanently enjoining the program’s use of public funds.
This action sought to invalidate the City Charter Commission of the City of St. Louis, created as a way to bypass the Board of Aldermen and the initiative process in revising or amending the City Charter by means of an unelected body answerable to no one. As a result of the suit, the City has admitted that all City Charter amendments must be proposed only by the voters or the Board of Aldermen and not by some unaccountable group appointed by the Mayor. The plaintiff is asking the Missouri Court of Appeals to order a permanent injunction to prevent a change of position by the City in the future.
This action seeks to challenge the legality of the City of St. Louis’s custom and practice of so called “Aldermanic Courtesy” whereby land use and other administrative decisions are controlled by a particular alderman without regard to the law. A successful outcome would benefit residents, commercial establishments, and developers trying to navigate the City’s Byzantine land use regulatory process. Adverse rulings on procedural grounds will be appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.
This action seeks to invalidate extra-legal budget practices of the City of Pine Lawn, involving expenditures without a lawful budget. A successful outcome would force some 90 municipalities in St. Louis County to present honest annual budgets. The recent experience of criminal diversion of funds by the Mayor of Velda City illustrates the need to compel these municipalities to conform to proper financial procedures.
This suit by a taxpayer seeks to recover sums of public money unlawfully expended by the former school superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools, some former board members, and other persons and entities involved in unlawful expenditures due to lack of proper authority or valid contracts. This suit is in response to a State Auditor’s report (urged by the Society) which found numerous instances of faulty spending and accounting in the St. Louis City Public School District.
This ouster suit is being prosecuted by the Attorney General of Missouri to oust the City Sheriff due to misconduct in office. The Society was among the first to urge that the Attorney General bring such a suit in response to flagrant misconduct by the Sheriff, who is now in jail due to federal indictments.