Nearly three years ago, Missouri voters made Eric Greitens the victor of the most expensive governor’s race in state history.

All told, Greitens and his opponents spent more than $70 million in pursuit of the state’s top elected office — more than twice any collection of candidates for governor ever had before.

It was supposed to be the end of an era. With nearly 70 percent of the vote, Missourians also approved Amendment 2, imposing a $2,600 limit on how much someone could donate to a politician's campaign committee.

But as the Show-Me State revs up for another election year in 2020, big money is still flowing freely.

Candidates are abiding by the new rules, to be sure, but the same restrictions don't apply to independent political action committees, or PACs, some of which explicitly support certain politicians.

That means powerful donors are still writing big checks to support favored candidates, and there's nothing stopping them.

"Money is like water," said Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "It's going to flow to where it has the least resistance."

The target of a lot of that money is Uniting Missouri, a PAC formed to support Gov. Mike Parson as he runs for a full term as governor.

Parson, a Republican who took over when Greitens resigned last year, is officially walled off from the committee per ethics rules.

But its backers, including former state GOP Chairman John Hancock, are clear boosters for the governor, and the PAC has done its job.

In the last three quarters on record, its receipts have included a $1 million check from St. Louis megadonor Rex Sinquefield, who is perhaps best known for his support for repealing the state's income tax, and $25,000 donations from utility Ameren Missouri, insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City and Springfield's Phoenix Home Care. All told, the committee had nearly $2.5 million as of the last report date in July, more than double what Parson had in his personal campaign account.

Parson's not alone.

State Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat challenging Parson for his seat in 2020, has a PAC called Keep Government Accountable backing her.

Since Galloway announced her campaign last month, Keep Government Accountable has raised $115,000, including a $50,000 donation from the United Auto Workers Union in Detroit, a $30,000 donation from a pipefitters union in Kansas City, and a $10,000 donation from Kansas City law firm Robb & Robb.

Galloway's regular account had $132,907.48 as of its last report in July.

John Hancock, who helps run the Parson-supporting PAC, said in an interview that the dodging of the limits was inevitable given the costs of running effective campaigns.

"The restrictions that are in place on campaign contributions are such that in order to actually deliver a message to the people of Missouri, these PACs are an unfortunate necessity."

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Hancock also pointed out that unlike his predecessor, Parson can say his allied PAC is transparent.

Indeed, all donors to Uniting Missouri are listed in reports available on the Missouri Ethics Commission website. Greitens' allied nonprofit, A New Missouri, did not disclose its donors, a decision that attracted plenty of scrutiny for alleged misdeeds.

But that hasn't stopped the flow of large donations, even closer to home, in less prominent political races.

When Springfield Republican Lincoln Hough decided he wanted to run for an open state Senate seat in June 2017, Lincoln PAC was there to take checks over the limit.

The day before Hough told the News-Leader he wanted to succeed former Sen. Jay Wasson, R-Nixa, the committee took a $20,000 check from Pinegar Chevrolet founder Ed Pinegar and a $10,000 check from the Missouri State Council of Fire Fighters.

In the weeks leading up to the 2018 general election, it spent more than $100,000 on media buys and commissioned two voter surveys of Hough's Senate district.

House Speaker Elijah Haahr, another Springfield Republican, has teamed up with an allied PAC formed in June.

When the Greene County Republican Party sent out a flyer for a reception at Reverie last month, the "paid for" line listed both Haahr's campaign committee and BOLD PAC.

"Corporate contributions and donations larger than $2,600 may be made to BOLD PAC," the invitation reads, noting the contribution limit for candidate committees.

In political circles, there tend to be a few common perspectives on the issue.

To Hancock, who helps run the Parson-supporting PAC, measures enacted to prevent politicians from being bought by donations are wrongheaded because ethics can't be legislated.

"Ethics don't flow from the outside in, ethics flow from the heart out," Hancock said.

To Hough, who's run for office before and after the contribution limits were enacted, the limits also make things less transparent by routing donations through PACs while doing little to stop the flow of money.

"I think it creates an extra barrier for people to see where the money comes from," he said.

For reformers like Craig Holman, a campaign finance expert with the nonprofit ethics group Public Citizen in Washington, D.C., though, that's nonsense.

"It’s a bogus argument," Holman said. "It’s just an argument to loosen any restrictions on money in politics."

Holman, for his part, said the correct answer had more to do with strengthening anti-coordination laws to keep candidates and their allied PACs truly separate and ultimately overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that removed restrictions on corporate money in politics.

"The solution to the problem of money in politics is not to walk away from the battle," Holman said.

Robertson, the St. Louis political science professor, said progressive cities like Seattle were experimenting with public financing of elections to counterbalance the influence of large donors as well.

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In Seattle's experiment, voters were mailed $100 "democracy vouchers" allowing them to transfer public money to their candidate of choice.

Holman said Washington, D.C., recently inaugurated a similar system that left him very optimistic.

"It’s an excellent way to try to mitigate some of the damage of unlimited donations," he said. "It means that people who are not wealthy can play the game just like the wealthy, and it changes who the lawmakers are accountable to. Instead of searching for the wealthy people, politicians now are accountable to people who give them $50."

But it's not clear public financing is foolproof. After Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang endorsed Seattle's plan on the debate stage in Houston earlier this month, a Seattle Times columnist pointed out that outside PACs had raised more money for city council elections in 2019 than in any other year on record.

And Robertson, the UMSL professor, offered his own caveat to his suggestion.

"When you think about the money that’s flooding into elections, you’re going to need Noah’s Ark to float above that," he said.