The St. Louis-based monopoly utility company loaded up on lobbyists this year, with 49 of them listed on the Missouri Ethics Commission website. How many is that? None of the biggest companies in St. Louis comes close. Anheuser-Busch InBev has 13. Boeing has five. Monsanto has three.

Greitens didn’t mention Ameren in his news release. Perhaps that’s because the company gave him at least $130,000 in campaign donations last year. The number could be higher, but because the governor accepts donations into a nonprofit “dark money” committee that hides donors, it’s impossible to know. In his call for the special session, the governor says the legislation he is pushing is about bringing jobs to southeastern Missouri, where the closure of the Noranda Aluminum smelter has been devastating to the local economy.

But plans to re-open that plant, or lure a steel mill, are speculative at best. And if a company wanted to secure a lower rate for its electric needs, they could do so, as Noranda did, in the Public Service Commission. That process would pass on some costs to other consumers, such as small businesses and residential users, but it would also hold companies such as Ameren accountable for their costs as well.