HANCOCK TAKES ISSUE WITH GOVERNMENT HOLIDAYS

Republican candidate John Hancock wants to open the Missouri secretary of state's office during some holidays.

Addressing the media at the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau Monday, which was closed for Columbus Day, Hancock said he'd like to go back to the way things were done before Judith Moriarty and Bekki Cook took office.

"The fact is on a day like today, Columbus Day, most people are working," Hancock said. "If they need some resource or document from the secretary of state's office today they simply can't get it."

Cook, who was appointed secretary of state after Moriarty was impeached, said this illustrates how little Hancock actually knows about the office.

"There are so many different departments that make up the secretary of state's office, which ones would you need to open?" she said. "Opening the uniform commission, which deals with loan transactions, would be a waste of time because the banks aren't open."

Columbus Day, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday and Harry Truman's Birthday are four holidays Hancock would like to see the office open. He said this could be accomplished as well as increase the time the office is open regularly to 10 hours a day, without increasing staff or expenditures. His plan would be implementing a schedule that would allow two shifts of employees to work the same number of hours per week in overlapping shifts.

Cook said the secretary of state's office already operates under a version of this schedule, and is staffed nine hours a day.

"In my 21 months in office not one person in the state has suggested that we expand the working hours," she said. "So this suggests to me that Mr. Hancock is not responding to a demand, but just pandering to what he thinks the public wants to hear."

Hancock said the office "needs to be open and accessible to people who are conducting business when they are conducting their business."

Hancock also said that $1 million could be cut out of the secretary of state's budget over the next four years by eliminating redundant positions.

"The secretary of state's budget is the fastest growing in state history. It's up 63 percent in just the last three and a half years," he said. "Compare that to a growth rate of 13 percent under Secretary of State Roy Blunt. Clearly the spending in this office is out of control."

Hancock said this growth is strictly in administrative spending and has nothing to do with the state libraries that were approved for the secretary of state's office four years ago.

Cook disagreed.

"I have reduced two employee positions, and $500,000 in operating expenses since I've been here," she said. "I don't think there is a legislature in the country that would approve a 63 percent budget increase in administrative spending."