The Star’s endorsements for Missouri in Tuesday’s primary elections

There are several races too close to call heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Missouri. What follows is a guide — a roundup, if you will — of The Star’s endorsements in key races in the Show-Me State. We urge you to get out and vote in what normally are low-turnout elections. In fact, election authorities anticipate that two in three voters in the state will sit it out.

If you don’t vote, you’re depriving your fellow citizens of your wisdom and experience, as Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft told The Star editorial board Monday. Who’d want to do that?

Republican for U.S. Senate

The Star endorses Josh Hawley, the Missouri attorney general who has the backing of many party leaders to take on Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill this fall.

During his year and a half in office, Hawley has demonstrated a willingness to tackle important issues that affect everyday Missourians. He filed an aggressive lawsuit against Endo Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Purdue Pharma last year, seeking hundreds of millions in damages and civil penalties for the companies’ alleged role in feeding the opioid addiction and overdose epidemics that plague our communities. And he pursued possible open-records violations and felony theft of a veterans charity donor list by disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens, a fellow Republican.

Incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill has no serious Democratic challenger, so we are not making a recommendation in that race.

In a campaign that has placed Missouri in the national spotlight for the future of the right-to-work movement, the answer is clear: Missourians should vote no on a right-to-work proposal that will appear as Proposition A on Tuesday’s ballot.

If approved, the measure would outlaw compelling employees to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment. Supporters wrongly argue that it protects workers’ freedom.

Pro-labor organizations counter that right to work undermines collective bargaining and lowers wages while effectively hastening the decline of organized labor. We strongly agree.

Wages in right-to-work states are 3.1 percent lower than those in non-right-to-work states, according to one study. Reject Proposition A.

We recommend a yes vote on Question 1 on Tuesday’s Kansas City ballot.

We reject the argument of landlords, who insist this initiative to expand city inspections would diminish the number of affordable housing units in a city that desperately needs as many as it can get.

Is $20 a unit really so onerous, or is it that the fear of accountability and potentially major repairs talking?

Though landlords say most owners keep their buildings in good shape, the threat of a mass exodus by landlords required to pay for and submit to inspections for black mold and roach infestations suggests otherwise.

So does city data that shows more than 23,000 Kansas City tenants with one or more severe housing conditions like plumbing that doesn’t work or kitchens in which you can’t cook.

This story was originally published August 7, 2018 at 5:30 AM.