JEFFERSON CITY — An inquiry into potential bias in the auditor’s office and Republican lawmakers’ efforts to revamp Clean Missouri were the focus of disagreement by Gov. Mike Parson and State Auditor Nicole Galloway on Thursday.

Galloway, a Democrat pursuing the party’s nomination to challenge Parson for the governorship this fall, and Parson fielded questions from statewide reporters during separate meetings sponsored by the Missouri Press Association and The Associated Press.

Allegations of partisanship

Republicans in the House this week held a hearing to explore U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley’s allegations that Galloway’s office is deliberately making an audit of his Attorney General’s office more critical because of a staffer’s partisan political views. Galloway has said there has been no partisan bias in the process, but she did remove the auditor who was leading the investigation because he was found to have made a campaign donation to Claire McCaskill, Hawley’s opponent in the 2018 Senate election.

Parson said he thought it was important to discover if the allegations were true. He indicated concerns about an email chain publicized by Hawley, which contained language that Hawley believes indicates that a staffer was making the audit more negative.

“If we ever use (elected) positions for political gain, then it’s wrong,” Parson said. “And I don’t care who is doing it. I don’t care whether you’re Republican or you’re Democrat. There’s a lot more details to that right now, so I don’t know, but I think finding out what the details are is fair for any of us in elected positions, whether it’s her, whether it’s me, whether it’s anybody in state office.”

Galloway was asked about a bill introduced Tuesday by Sen. Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, which would require that the auditor be audited by an independent certified public accountant in 2020. Schatz indicated Tuesday that the introduction of the bill was related to Hawley’s allegations.

Galloway said the legislature has already audited her office three times without finding any discrepancies or concerns and welcomed further audits or review.

“If they would like to do an audit, I’m sure they’re going to get the exact same result they’ve gotten every other time they’ve done it,” Galloway said.

Galloway added that in past administrations, auditors have only had their offices audited once every term, while her office has been audited or reviewed five times in the past four years.

“It is what it is,” she said. “I am not immune from review, and I don’t pretend to be.”

Clean Missouri scrutinized

When faced with questions about whether he believes voters fully understood the constitutional amendment known as Clean Missouri, Parson did not give a direct answer.

Some Republicans have argued that Clean Missouri — which passed with 62% support across the state in 2018 — confused voters because it included both ethics reform and redistricting reform. As passed, Clean Missouri implements a number of changes that lower campaign contribution limits, reduce lobbyist gift limits and alter the way districts are drawn by empowering an independent demographer to oversee the process.

Parson said he believed most voters understood the ethics reform parts of the bill. He did not say the same for the redistricting reforms.

Parson also said he did not have a problem with lawmakers once again putting the redistricting issue on the ballot for a vote. Recently, Republican senators launched an effort to make drastic changes to Clean Missouri in the hopes of getting a rewritten version on the ballot in the fall. Parson said if voters disagree, they can reject the new effort.

“I don’t have a problem with the people going back and saying, ‘Hey, yep, this is what we said you guys, so do it,’” Parson said.

In contrast, Galloway voiced her support for the amendment remaining as-is, saying she trusts the will of the voters and believes people across Missouri said they wanted fair and transparent government by supporting Clean Missouri.

“It is very interesting to me that within days of Clean Missouri passing, politicians in this building did interviews saying that, ‘The voters got it wrong, they were confused, they didn’t know what they were voting for,’ and the politicians in this building are going to fix it for them,” Galloway said.

“You know, why were voters so smart when they voted these guys into office, but not so smart when they voted on things they care about in their government, like Clean Missouri?”

Gun control debate

Parson also faced questions regarding his position on a potential law that would be modeled after a federal law and prevent children, domestic abusers and violent criminals from being able to own handguns at the state level. Those were priorities included in a list created by a group of several mayors, including Columbia Mayor Brian Treece, who met with Parson on the issue. Parson at the time indicated support for the mayors‘ overall effort. On Thursday, he took a step back on the issue of gun ownership.

“I didn’t advocate for anything,” Parson said. “All we said was those were issues that were going to be talked about during the legislative session.”

Jordan Meier contributed to this report.