Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Elad Gross
For almost 50 years after the passage of Missouri’s pro-transparency Sunshine Law, inquisitive citizens who asked state, county, or municipal officials in Missouri to share public records sometimes got an intimidating reply—in essence, Sure, we’ll hand them over, but you must pay our lawyer to review them first. This happened to Elad Gross, a 33-year-old civic-issues litigator living in South City. In 2018, Gross sent an extensive records request to the governor. That office demanded $3,600 in attorney’s fees before turning anything over. Gross sued. He argued the case by himself all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, taking on the considerable resources of the attorney general’s office, and, on June 27, won a unanimous decision. Gross himself has run for AG and has also advocated for inmates’ and tenants’ rights. He hosts The #EladPod, too. But the Sunshine case was his biggest win yet.
What’s the practical effect of your Supreme Court victory? If you request government records from entities even as small as local school boards, they can no longer charge you astronomical fees to pay a government attorney—whom we’re already paying—to review the records first. Before this case, those fees were being used as a weapon against people making records requests.
Aren’t your requests and related lawsuits political weapons, too? I really just want answers, and the more that I find that the government is hiding, the more questions I have. I guess someone who doesn’t like accountability would see that as a weapon, sure.
You often rail against dark money—that is, anonymous political spending—but voters don’t seem to prioritize it, according to polls. Why do you think that is? I think one reason is that we’ve not connected ethics reform to issues that touch people more immediately. But if you tell people that it will make schools better and the street safer for their kids, folks can connect with that a lot more than fixing “dark money” for its own sake.
But how do ethics reforms make schools and roads better? They ensure we get representatives who advocate for those issues—the things we really care about. Now, unfortunately, dark money flows into representatives who work on things that big donors want. Government is less about serving us and more about serving those with money and power.
Last year, you ran in a primary to be the Democratic candidate for attorney general. Why did you lose? Because I got fewer votes than the other guy. [Laughs.] [The pandemic] shut me down from meeting a lot of new people. Plus, I’ve got an interesting name, and I’m 5-foot-4 on a good day. But I had a great time! I’d love to do it again.
Republicans have an iron grip on state government. Do Dems need to change in order to win? Yeah, absolutely—but not what we stand for. I can’t tell you the number of folks who agreed with the stuff I was saying but were hesitant because I had a “D” by my name. When I went to Marshfield for the first time, this lady came up to me and said, “We haven’t had a Democratic candidate come here for 20 years.” People see that. And with the Republican policies in Missouri, there’s a huge opportunity for us to get people on our side. You’ve got to put in the work to do it.
Are there any conservative ideas you actually agree with? I don’t really look at ideas as liberal or conservative. I’m more of a pragmatist: What’s the idea, and what are the pros and cons? I campaigned on making it easier for folks to start small businesses. I don’t know why that’s a conservative issue. At the same time, if somebody falls on hard times, we should have unemployment benefits, and those should be fully funded. I just want things to work. Winning office is not my No. 1 goal. I would much rather the ideas I’m talking about become real. I’d be so happy—then I could go do something else, like start a farm for rescue dogs.
