ST. LOUIS–Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, a 2024 candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in the state, told Spectrum News in an interview this week that he favored legislative efforts to put the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department under state control.

Kehoe, a St. Louis native and former State Senator who was appointed to his current office when Mike Parson became governor in 2018, has been a candidate for governor for the past two years when he opted against running for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

Parson cannot run in 2024 due to term limits. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has already announced his campaign and State Sen. Bill Eigel R-Weldon Spring is still in an exploratory phase.

House Minority Floor Leader Crystal Quade D-Springfield is among the Democrats considering a run for Governor. 

Polling touted by Ashcroft’s campaign last month showed him leading Kehoe by 18 points in late February.

Kehoe described crime as the state’s top issue.

“Getting St. Louis back to where people feel it's a safe community is gonna be extemely important. I'd like to think I'll be the law and order governor that works with communities and the police departments to figure out ways to bring their streets back where people feel safe because quite frankly, when people don't feel safe they don't feel free, and so St. Louis will be a key component of working through that issue,” he said, without offering specifics beyond the issue of state control of the police department.

“I'm a fan of state control for the police department although I will tell you I'm a big fan of the new Chief Tracy and the St. Louis police department,” Kehoe said, adding that state control is “a good tool that we could have gotten done.”

Legislation calling for the department to be run by a state-appointed board of St. Louis residents died late in the legislative session when Kim Gardner announced her resignation as Circuit Attorney. It also died thanks to lobbying efforts from St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and others, including philanthropist and megadonor Rex Sinquefield. 

The next six to seven months, Kehoe said, with a new circuit attorney will be watched to see how the needle on crime here moves. 

Democrats have pointed to the state’s lax gun laws and the fact that Missouri doesn’t require a permit to carry one as factors contributing to violent crime. Kehoe says it’s a problem for police and doesn’t get solved “by fixing one thing or another.”

“What kind of homes are these young men and women coming from? What is their life like? Are they in an area where there's hope or are they in an area where there's despair? Do they feel like they have to carry those weapons amongst the street? That's something we'll have to track down. It's a more complicated problem than simply fixing one thing or another but certainly I know the police are concerned with that,” Kehoe said.

A former car dealership owner before he was elected to the State Senate in 2010, Kehoe said he’d look to run the state more like a business, targeting bureaucratic hurdles that slow down decision-making at the department level. An ability to cut spending will be important in the coming years, he said, as COVID-era federal spending winds down.

“It's gonna change in the next year or two. It's gonna come significantly down and we need somebody who's ready to lead on day one who understands how to run a business to get in those times because it's gonna get tough.”

According to the most recent filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission in April, Kehoe has a combined $3.4 million in cash on hand between his own campaign committee and a supportive political action committee. Ashcroft has a combined $1.7 million in cash on hand. State Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, announced an exploratory campaign late last fall and has a combined $310,000 cash on hand according to the most recent reports.