Winters will be in St. Louis on March 12 to speak at the Ethical Society on the topic of dark money and its effect on income inequality. It’s a popular topic in St. Louis these days. Just last week, about the time VOTE-STL started funding ads for Reed, lawyer Elad Gross was on a panel discussing the scourge of dark money in American politics.

Like Winters, Gross believes the ability of powerful people to secretly influence the political system is leaving regular voters out in the cold.

“There’s a reason why poor kids go to poor schools, why we have hospital closures in rural Missouri, why we haven’t made a real concerted effort to ensure all city and Missouri residents have opportunity,” Gross said. “That’s because many elected officials are influenced by those who give them the most money, not by the people they’re supposed to represent. Dark money goes a step further and cleanses the names of donors so we as the public have less ability to fight back.”