10 under-the-radar St. Louis power players

Who calls the shots in the city of St. Louis, beyond the people in the headlines? We asked a short list of in-the-know St. Louisans, mostly working in politics and law, “Who would you say is the most powerful person in the city that regular people haven’t heard of?” The question yielded a list that is as idiosyncratic as it is incomplete.

Of course, compiling a list of people who wield power under the radar is inherently tricky. As one person we queried put it, “If there are any secret kingmakers out there, they’re probably too good at keeping things under wraps for me to know about them!” 

Richard Callow

It is not inaccurate to describe Richard Callow as a “political strategist,” but the descriptor is woefully incomplete. He is a trusted advisor to Mayor Tishaura Jones, as the texts that the city accidentally released last year made clear. In addition to being a political advisor to mayoral administrations going back to Vince Schoemehl (six administrations ago, for those keeping track at home), Callow serves as chair of the city’s Preservation Board, which essentially controls development in any part of town deemed historic—and if you throw a dart at a map of the city, there is a decent chance it’ll land within its purview. In addition to that role, Jones recently appointed Callow to the region’s taxi commission. He may have his thumb on the historic house you live in, and now he’ll have some say in how you get back home after a night out, too. 

Sayler Fleming 

The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri keeps a significantly lower public profile than other area prosecutors, such as Gabe Gore and Wesley Bell. This is in part due to the fact that unlike local prosecuting attorneys, the U.S. attorney position is appointed rather than elected. Fleming has been in the job since the end of the first Trump administration. In those years, she has overseen an office that’s aggressive in its prosecution of public corruption and schemes targeting seniors and medical fraud, earning the respect of her staff and observers alike. During former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s reign, Fleming found ways to implement a sort of public safety insurance policy for the cases that her office handled in the city by “stacking” federal charges on top of state ones when it looked like the state case might fall to shambles. She was also key in sending federal resources to the beleaguered Circuit Attorney’s Office in the wake of Gardner’s resignation.

Rosetta Okohson 

It’s no surprise that when a slew of young progressives were elected to the Board of Aldermen last year, three of them—Michael Browning, Alisha Sonnier, and Bret Narayan—all had their victory party at the Meyers Okohson Political Consulting headquarters in the city’s Ellendale neighborhood. Hiring Okoshon’s firm is a surefire way to get support from various progressive groups across the city, whose sway can be paramount in low turnout municipal elections. The firm’s managing partner and CEO, Okoshon has a background in fundraising and boasted prior to this year’s elections that her firm helped flip three of the only five seats in the Missouri statehouse to go from Republican to Democrat in the past three cycles.

Joe Klitzing 

Are you a pizzeria owner denied a permit to expand an in-door dining operation onto a patio? Or a contractor who couldn’t get a variance to convert a single-family home into a duplex? Well, if you feel you’ve been wronged by the Building Commissioner or any other “officer, department, board, or bureau of the city,” in the words of the Board of Adjustments website, then you’re going to have to appear—some might say grovel—in front of this board, which Klitzing chaired for years. He recently passed the torch of the chairman title but still retains his seat. That gives him a lot of sway in what does and doesn’t get done in this town. (He’s serving on a term that expired in 2021, a status that’s not uncommon on these city boards; it generally just means the appointing authority isn’t itching to give the seat to someone else.)

Jared Boyd 

Previously an attorney at powerhouse firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Boyd has become Mayor Tishaura Jones’ longtime right-hand man, serving as her chief of staff and in-house counsel when she was city treasurer. He’s now chief of staff for the mayor’s office and, despite the fighting that’s split Jones and the Board of Aldermen on numerous issues, is respected on all sides. As the mayor’s leaked texts revealed last year, Jones still very much has both Callow and her father, Virvus, in her ear. Both men are old-school creatures of city politics. In that sense, the soft-spoken Boyd is manning the progressive flank in what is an increasingly centrist Democratic administration.

Ed Dowd 

You may not know Ed Dowd’s name, but rest assured you’re familiar with his work. The former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District leads Dowd Bennett, the firm that represented the city in its extremely lucrative lawsuit against the NFL after the Rams were whisked away to Los Angeles. His name is also at the bottom of the city’s suit against Hyundai and Kia after a defect in those cars spiked carjackings in the city. Both Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore and City Counselor Sheena Hamilton worked for Dowd’s firm before being appointed to public office. Rounding out Dowd Bennett’s roster of attorneys are a former U.S. senator and a former governor of Missouri. But Dowd’s connections go far beyond the people that he employs: He’s actually Edward Dowd Jr., part of a legendary St. Louis family. (Dowd Sr. was the circuit attorney for St. Louis and once a candidate for governor.) A charming schmoozer, Dowd makes connections, while law partner Jim Bennett brings the legal muscle. It’s a potent combination.

Circuit Judge Katherine Fowler 

Sitting on the bench since 2017, Fowler has acted as a pragmatic progressive. She’s responded to the voices of victims’ families when they call for leniency against those found guilty in her courtroom, whether it’s a 49-year-old St. Louis man convicted of felony murder or a teenager whose drunk-driving crash took the life of his best friend. She’s shown her courtroom is open to a potent combination of common sense and mercy, creating a laboratory for other judges who may want to tilt the justice system a little more toward rehabilitation and away from pure punishment.

Mary Pat Carl

Once considered the heir apparent to former Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Carl ran for her boss’ job in 2016 and 2020 and twice lost handily to Kim Gardner. But unlike Gardner, Carl is currently working in the Circuit Attorney’s Office. Until very recently, she helmed its Homicide Division and throughout her career tried 89 cases to verdict. Now she is the office’s Chief Warrant Officer, responsible for taking cases from police and figuring out if a suspect needs to be charged, and with what. Hard to say which job is harder: arguing murder cases to juries; or being the main go between between the prosecutor’s office and police, a relationship that has a history of bringing out the worst in both.

Joe Murphy

Known as Judge Joe, Murphy is deeply steeped in city politics. His uncle, Jim, was the longtime sheriff of the city prior to Vernon Betts putting on the badge. A longtime municipal judge during Francis Slay’s tenure as mayor, Murphy married the first same-sex couple in the city. He’s no longer on the bench but still holds significant sway, particularly in the city’s LGBTQ community. He frequently holds court at Just John, the bar that serves as the political power nucleus for gay men in St. Louis. “That’s where decisions are made,” one source told us. “The stories this man tells are incredible; the bulk of them are probably true. Like any politician, he spices things up.” (Among his yarns is that he spotted Barack Obama’s political talent earlier than almost everyone else.) Nearly anyone seeking LGBTQ support in the city has reached out to Judge Joe for advice. He is currently backing Cara Spencer for mayor.

Javad Khazaeli

A former prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Javad Khazaeli co-founded Khazaeli Wyrsch in 2014. The firm specializes in immigration law and civil rights litigation. Khazaeli has been as effective in the courtroom as he has been drumming up support for his causes—and cases—in the press. Khazaeli is the son of Iranian immigrants, which has helped motivate his work resettling approximately 500 people from outside the U.S. in St. Louis. After the military’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, he also worked closely with former Secretary of State Jason Kander to bring hundreds of refugees stranded in Albania to the country. (About 50 of those folks now call St. Louis home.) On the civil rights front, Khazaeli has been the engine behind many high-profile lawsuits over bad policing, including the infamous 2017 “kettling” mass arrest and the more recent police SUV crash into Bar:PM. As far as we know, he is also the only person on this list to have a rap song named after him; St. Louis rapper Tef Poe released a track earlier this year titled “Javad.”

CORRECTIONS: A previous version of this story misidentified the first name of the city’s sheriff prior to Vernon Betts. It is Jim Murphy. Separately, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Sayler Fleming is not serving in an “acting” capacity, as a previous version of this story stated.