In June, Benjamin D. Singer participated in a Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis event alongside Missouri State Rep. Tracy McCreery, a Democrat, and John Saxton, a former member of the St. Louis Republican Central Committee. 

Since becoming communications director of Clean Missouri in February, Singer has spent significant time with officials in both parties as he tries to build support for Amendment 1, an initiative for the November ballot that would reduce campaign contribution limits, eliminate nearly all lobbyist gifts and revamp the state’s legislative redistricting system.

Singer, 30, is a resident of University City who attended Solomon Schechter Day School and grew up at Traditional Congregation. He also has promoted the amendment within the Jewish community, and groups such as the National Council of Jewish Women – St. Louis have endorsed it. 

In advance of the Nov. 6 election, Singer spoke with the Jewish Light about his interest in government reform, how he has been able to generate bipartisan support for the amendment and why he think some groups oppose the measure. His responses have been edited.

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What made you want to get involved with Clean Missouri?

Frankly, I was tired of seeing middle-class and working-class people left out of the conversation in public policy because they didn’t have big checks to give to elected officials and candidates for public office. So I decided years ago to get involved in the movement for a stronger representative democracy, to pass campaign-finance reforms and get big money out of politics so that people’s voices can be heard.

When the campaign for Amendment 1 was picking up steam, I decided that this was a campaign I wanted to be involved in, where my Jewish values and belief in a representative democracy aligned with what needed to happen in my home state of Missouri.  

Could you elaborate on what those Jewish values are?

There are some verses from the Tanakh in Exodus that really speak to me: “Do not take bribes, for bribes blind the clear sighted and upset the pleas of those who are in the right.” And there is the famous saying in Pirkei Avot: “If I am for myself alone, what am I?” These relate because making good public-policy decisions shouldn’t depend on who can pay the most money to access their elected official or to elect their candidate. It should be about what’s best for the community. That’s how a democracy is supposed to work.

You have been able to get bipartisan support for Amendment 1. How have you gone about doing that, and have you been surprised that you’ve gotten support from both Republicans and Democrats?

It’s not surprising. I’ve done bipartisan reform work for a long time. We have a broad, bipartisan coalition because Amendment 1 cleans up Missouri politics, and that’s something a majority of Republicans and Democrats and independents all agree on.

What do you say to groups such as the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry that oppose this amendment and say that this is really an attempt to introduce higher taxes and more regulation and attempt to redistrict the state to benefit Democrats?

It’s not surprising that some powerful lobbyists and a few politicians in Jefferson City want to preserve a system where the Legislature can keep taking an average of nearly $900,000 dollars a year in lobbyists’ gifts and ignoring voters back home. Amendment 1 fixes that. It stops the revolving door of legislators becoming lobbyists, with a two-year cooling-off period. And it requires fair and competitive state legislative maps so politicians of both parties are no longer protected by safe, gerrymandered districts.  

Your profile picture on Facebook features you and Jamie Allman, a local TV and radio host who lost his jobs after posting an offensive tweet about a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Why him?

I have had that as my profile picture since way before the controversy that led to him leaving KDNL (Channel 30), and I work with people all across the political spectrum to improve our democracy. He hosted a panel of people talking about cleaning up corruption in politics, and I was one of those people.