Hunt family, owners of the Chiefs, donate to group opposing Missouri abortion amendment
The family that owns the Kansas City Chiefs is backing a group urging voters to reject a ballot measure that would overturn Missouri’s near total ban on abortion.
Unity Hunt, a company that oversees the assets of the Lamar Hunt family, including the Chiefs, paid $300,000 to a political action committee called Leadership for America late last month. The PAC is running radio ads on stations across the state, including in Kansas City, encouraging Missourians to vote against the measure, called Amendment 3.
The ads are a rare example of opposition to the amendment, as abortion rights groups have poured millions into the effort to reverse Missouri’s ban.
A Chiefs spokesperson said in a phone call on Friday that the donation came from Lamar Hunt Jr., who wired money from his account with Unity Hunt to the PAC. Hunt Jr., the son of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, has previously been outspoken about his opposition to abortion and in 2020 served as the master of ceremonies at a Kansans for Life banquet.
The spokesperson said the Chiefs had no comment on the donation specifically. A phone number listed for the treasurer of Leadership for America was disconnected.
Focused solely on radio ads on conservative radio stations – the Federal Communications Commission does not yet show any ad purchases on television – the buy is spread throughout the state, purchasing brief spots through the rest of this month until Election Day.
The ads cost around $70,000, according to reports filed with the FCC. A purchase with KCMO Talk Radio, running ads through November, costs a little less than $10,000.
In addition to the radio ads, Leadership for America also donated $100,000 to Vote “NO” on 3, the main group opposing the amendment earlier this month.
When contacted by phone, a representative from Unity Hunt directed questions to a spokesperson for the Chiefs.
Joe Rusch, with Epic STL LLC, which owns a conservative radio station in St. Louis, facilitated the ad purchase for the PAC. Rusch, in a phone interview, said the total ad buy was $75,000 across conservative radio stations in Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Joplin and St. Louis.
The ads call the amendment “cleverly-worded to convince you that it only allows abortions until fetal viability,” according to the Missouri Independent, which first reported the donation and ad buy.
“But it has loopholes that allow for abortions through all nine months of pregnancy,” the ads said. “Abortion proponents used to say ‘safe, legal and rare.’ But now they want abortion as common as the morning after pill.”
Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat, said she didn’t want to comment specifically on the donation’s connection to the Chiefs. But she said that opponents of the amendment were “on the wrong side.”
“Reproductive health are rights that women should be able to enjoy, and Amendment 3 will bring those back,” Washington said. “I don’t like to see as much politics coming from our non Missouri residents, whether they be…billionaire sports owners or not…this should be the voice of the Missouri residents and those of us who are most affected.”
Rep. Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat, said the ads included “disgusting” misinformation about the abortion rights amendment.
“When you have such a huge platform, the way the Hunts do, using it to sow misinformation like this around such an important women’s health issue is deeply disappointing,” she said.
Missourians will vote on Amendment 3 on Nov. 5. The amendment would overturn the state’s abortion ban, which went into effect minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The amendment would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution but also give lawmakers some room to regulate the procedure after fetal viability.
It defines fetal viability as the point in a pregnancy when a health care professional decides, based on the facts of the situation, “there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside of the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”
Opposition to the amendment comes as access to abortion remains popular, including in red states such as Missouri. Polling released over the summer from Saint Louis University and YouGov found that a majority, 52%, of Missourians support the abortion rights amendment while 34% were opposed. The remaining 14% said they were not sure.
The donation from Unity Hunt is not the first time entities connected to the Chiefs have been involved in political campaigns ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The Chiefs are also supporting a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize sports betting.
This story was originally published October 11, 2024 at 1:05 PM.
