A former federal prosecutor is seeking his first elective office, the Seventh District Congressional seat currently occupied by Republican Roy Blunt.

Richard Monroe, a Democrat and a native of Monett, stopped in Neosho Saturday to campaign for the post. Monroe visited party faithful Sunday afternoon at Democratic headquarters, located at 1203 Harmony in Neosho.

Monroe, a former federal prosecutor and assistant prosecutor in Greene County, said his goal was to “restore integrity” to the congressional seat.

“The Republican policies have left the country poor and weak,” he said. “We definitely do not want to think of our country as being poor and weak.”

Monroe said since 2001, the national debt has grown to more than $9 trillion.

“People are facing foreclosures at traditionally the highest rate since the Depression,” he said.
“There have been 600,000 jobs lost this year. Look at the situation in 2000. There was a budget surplus, employment was constantly increasing.”

Monroe said the budget deficit is causing America to fight the war on terror “on the credit card.”

“There has been no responsibility from the Republican Congress,” he said. “The leader throughout this has been Roy Blunt.”

Monroe said if elected, he would campaign for a balanced federal budget.

“Because we can’t live on the kindness of strangers any longer, especially when the strangers are Saudi Arabia and China.”

Monroe said he also supports health care for all Americans and getting immigration under control.
This latter means reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he said was hard on American workers and “terrible” for Mexico.

 Monroe is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Missouri School of Law. After graduation, he served as an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps for three years, trying court cases in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and Kentucky.

“As a military veteran, I want our country to be strong, and I want our military to be strong,” he said. “Right now, our Army and Marine Corps are stretched to the breaking point. We can’t provide enough soldiers for Afghanistan. We need to make sure the air Force is under adequate leadership. We need the Navy to make sure China’s blue water navy is not becoming a world challenge. And we need to increase in uniformed active duty strength of our armed forces by 100,000.

“I’d like to do all of these things, but if there is only one thing I can do, it would be to end the influence of lobbyists’ money in congressional politics. I will not accept lobbyists and PAC [political action committee] money. And I’m opposed to Mr. Blunt making a career of doing this.”

Monroe is also opposed to major portions of Blunt’s energy plan, particularly to opening a portion of the Alaskan National Wilderness to drilling and increasing off-shore drilling.

“I believe we need to have energy independence and stop our dependence on foreign oil,” he said. “We need a crash program for clean renewable sources of energy. However, I do not favor the drill here, drill now program for several reasons. First, Bush’s government itself says it would be years before we got a drop of oil from new leases. Even John McCain has said that existing wells and rigs can go into production within weeks and months. Mr. Blunt has voted against a use it or lose it bill that I would have voted for.”

Monroe said granting new oil leases to companies in ANWR or the continental shelf would allow oil companies to put proven reserves on the books, but will not provide any relief for America’s energy crisis.

“It doesn’t put a drop of gas out there,” he said. “It’s pure pork to reward the oil companies that have been making donations through PACs and lobbyists. At this point, in light of the scandal where department of energy was literally in bed with the oil companies, I don’t think new leases should be granted until that scandal is resolved.”

Monroe has ties to the area. He was one of the federal prosecutors of Joe and Shannon Agofsky, two McDonald County brothers who were convicted in the murder of Noel banker Dan Short.

“At one point, I was practically living in Noel,” Monroe said. “I spent lots of time there, lots of time in Oklahoma, not so much in Neosho, but there was lots of evidence in Joplin. I worked over here and got around quite a bit.”

Monroe was also the prosecutor in the Medicaid fraud case against Robert Dupont, owner of the ill-fated Anderson Guest House and other long-term care facilities in the area. Dupont served 19 months of a 21-month prison sentence and was then placed on three years supervised probation.

Prior to serving as a federal prosecutor, Monroe was the lead assistant prosecutor for the Greene County prosecutor’s office.

Monroe and his wife, Susan, have been married almost 31 years and have a daughter, Elizabeth, a schoolteacher; a son-in-law, Mike, an information technology manager; and a year-old granddaughter. His father, E.L. Monroe, was a prominent attorney in Monett, while his maternal grandfather, Dan McDonald, served as Monett’s chief of police for several years.