KANSAS CITY - Catherine Hanaway had nothing but kind words Monday about the man who she was replacing as Missouri’s attorney general.
In an interview with The Independent shortly after taking the oath of office in a private ceremony in Jefferson City, Hanaway said now-former Attorney General Andrew Bailey was committed to upholding the constitution and protecting the rights of Missourians.
But as Missouri’s fourth attorney general in six years, Hanaway made it clear her approach to the office is “going to be a different style.”
She expressed little interest in headline-grabbing lawsuits or cable-news hits. Her focus, she said, will be things like Medicaid fraud, consumer protection and violent crimes.
“Instead of ‘we defend the state of Missouri,’ I think it’s even better to say that ‘we defend Missourians,’” she said. “Of course it’s important to defend the Constitution, but I do want to do the cases that might have an impact on just a person or a couple of people who’ve been victims.”
That kind of change would be a welcome one after years of attorneys general using the office to “make a name for themselves in the news and bow down to the Trump agenda,” said state Rep. Jaclyn Zimmermann, a Democrat from Manchester, who clerked for a federal judge when Hanaway was serving as a U.S. attorney. She said Democrats are cautiously optimistic about the change in leadership.
Bailey resigned to become co-deputy director of the FBI. His two predecessors — Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt — resigned early, too, for seats in the U.S. Senate.
Gov. Mike Kehoe appointed Hanaway with the expectation she will be the first attorney general in more than a decade to stick around for more than an election cycle. Hanaway vowed when she was announced as attorney general to serve out the rest of Bailey’s term and seek a full term of her own in 2028.
“The leadership capacity that she brings to the attorney general’s office, I would say, is second to none, and the breadth of her experience is second to none,” said John Hancock, a veteran GOP consultant and former party leader. “I fully expect that she’s going to be a remarkable attorney general.”
Longtime Missouri attorney, politician
Hanaway’s journey began as a grassroots effort.
“She was a suburban woman who basically started by going door to door and helped shift the majority in Missouri,” said Jean Evans, a former GOP lawmaker from St. Louis County who also served as leader of the state party.
After graduating from The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, Hanaway kicked off her career at a big law firm. Not long after, at the age of 34 and with a 6-month-old in tow, she was elected to the Missouri House.
Her career as a lawmaker was marked by Missouri’s shift to a Republican majority. After working as the House minority leader, Hanaway was part of the Republican celebrations in 2002 when Republicans took the majority after 48 years of Democratic control. Hanaway became the first — and so far, only — woman speaker of the Missouri House.
“When you enter the legislature, her name is like the gold standard of what it takes to be a leader in the Republican Party,” Evans said.
She ran unsuccessfully for Missouri secretary of state in 2004. The next year, President George W. Bush appointed Hanaway to be U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.
While the job requires coordination with the FBI, Secret Service and DEA, Hanaway said she made a point of connecting with law enforcement in the 47 counties outside of St. Louis that were also under her jurisdiction because “their taxpayers deserve the same level of service that people in downtown St. Louis got.”
In that role, Hanaway’s office was particularly focused on devoting more resources child exploitation cases, prosecuting those who manufactured methamphetamine and punishing Medicaid and Medicare fraud.
She also oversaw the prosecution of Michael Devlin, who was found guilty of abducting and abusing two boys in St. Louis County. It’s a case that’s stayed with her this past decade. And an example of ways she said she can help individual Missourians find justice.
“I can’t think of anybody that’s come into that position with a better pedigree,” said Hancock, noting the significance of her time managing large public and private sector legal teams as she takes over an office that has struggled with recruitment and retention.
She ran again for statewide office in 2016, losing in the GOP gubernatorial primary to the man who would go on to be governor, Eric Greitens.
When Greitens was facing impeachment and criminal charges a little more than a year later, Hanway joined his legal team.
“I didn’t defend Eric personally,” Hanaway said Monday. “I represented his campaign and his 501c4 which meant that there were a whole lot of young staffers and other people who were getting investigated, interviewed by law enforcement authorities, and I was really providing representation to them. I’m glad that none of those people ended up with any penalties. I’m proud that I was able to defend them.”
Until her appointment as attorney general, Hanaway was a partner at Husch Blackwell in St. Louis.
There, she was lead counsel representing Grain Belt Express — a planned transmission line designed to take wind farm-generated electricity across the Midwest under investigation by the attorney general’s office. The company filed a lawsuit accusing Bailey’s office of an “unlawful and politically motivated investigation.”
Hanaway, who is recusing herself from the case, said there’s not much she can comment on regarding Grain Belt.
A change in leadership
Both Republicans and Democrats are hopeful Hanaway can finally bring stability to the attorney general’s office.
“I can’t think of any attorney general in the history of Missouri who has had more experience than Hanaway in running a big law firm,” said Chuck Hatfield, a longtime Democratic attorney who called Hanaway’s resume in leadership “unmatched” and her network “amazing.”
Hatfield, who is often tapped to argue high-profile cases against the attorney general’s office, said Hanaway’s experience will likely prove valuable in an office that’s had regular issues with turnover and morale.
Most recently, Bailey faced criticism that he mismanaged the office, resulting in missed deadlines and staff turnover — including from some of the highest profile lawyers in the office.
“I’m quite optimistic that we’re going to see the quality of the legal work improve,” Hatfield said, adding: “The attorney general needs to be the spokesperson for the state in court, and the court needs to think that they’re very credible and that the attorney general is always going to have something worth saying.”
Hanaway said she hopes to make the office even more appealing to attorneys, citing the frequency with which attorneys from the office go on to become judges.
“If this is a place where you can come and get qualified to be a judge, that’s pretty cool,” she said. “So the quality of the people here, I think, is really at an all time high, and we do need more of them.”
She also commended her three predecessors on focusing on recruiting top talent for constitutional cases.
“Where you might see a little bit of a shift from me is not at all on which issues we’re doing,” she said, “it’s to focus a little bit more on the career people who do everything else in the office.”
Hanaway promised to continue Bailey’s fight against public corruption, saying that she will prioritize his cases against St. Louis Sheriff Alfred Montgomery and St. Louis County Executive Sam Page.
Hanaway said she is considering lending assistant attorneys general to jurisdictions she believes need help, including in Kansas City. She also plans to go after “Delta-8,” an intoxicating hemp product that she and others have said are being sold unlicensed and with no age restrictions in gas stations across the state.
Bailey has said that winning a $24 billion judgement against the Chinese Communist Party for the spread of COVID-19 is one of his biggest accomplishments. Hanaway said she is committed to figuring out what assets of the Chinese government can be collected on behalf of Missourians.
Bailey’s office was also aggressive in its attacks on abortion. Hanaway pointed to an ongoing lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood against the state that challenges current abortion regulations, also known as TRAP laws, as the most important abortion-related case before her.
“I support the law that is currently on the books in Missouri,” she said. “ … we just want to do everything that we can to protect life and to support women who make that really difficult choice to keep an unexpected pregnancy.”
Hanaway grew up in Nebraska and Iowa, but has long been a Missourian.
She said Missourians are the state motto — “show me” — personified.
“People are just real, and they don’t have a tolerance for you being fake,” Hanaway said. “I love that, and you got to prove it to them.”
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.