ST. LOUIS — Missouri will soon have a new attorney general and state treasurer as the offices' current occupants depart for new roles.
Eric Schmitt, the current Republican attorney general, won his election to be Missouri's next U.S. Senator, while Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick won his bid for state auditor.
Schmitt will take over the senate seat from Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, who announced in 2021 he would not be seeking another term.
Fitzpatrick, likewise, replaces Auditor Nicole Galloway, the only Democrat in statewide office, who also did not seek reelection.
With the current offices vacant, Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, has the power to appoint someone to serve the remainder of their terms. It's how both Schmitt and Fitzpatrick received their current posts after then-Attorney General Josh Hawley was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018, setting off a chain of vacancies in statewide offices.
Both Schmitt and Fitzpatrick will assume their new posts in January.
Parson's office has not made an official announcement regarding appointments.
As attorney general, Schmitt has sued the Biden administration to block a plan to forgive student loan debts for lower-income and middle-class wage earners, sued local school districts to persuade a judge to block their pandemic safety protocols, subpoenaed schools to investigate portions of their curriculum, filed public records requests seeking records from journalism professors and students pertaining to fact checks and appealed a court’s decision to throw out his lawsuit against China for lack of jurisdiction.
Prior to his role as treasurer, Fitzpatrick served as a state House member and led the House budget committee.
After Schmitt threatened legal action against school districts in 2021, Fitzpatrick asked the districts to sign a letter promising to comply with the attorney general's view of the law on mask mandates in schools or lose access to a money-saving state program. He has also vowed to make sure schools keep "politically divisive curriculum" such as critical race theory out of the classroom.