Rex Sinquefield

Rex Sinquefield (born 1944)^[1] is an American financial executive, active in Missouri politics and philanthropic causes. As a co-founder of an investment firm, he supports an end to the income tax.^[2]

Background

Rex Sinquefield was raised in the Saint Vincent Home for Children in St. Louis, Missouri.^[3] and graduated from Bishop DuBourg High School in 1962.^[4] He received a business degree from Saint Louis University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago, where he studied under Nobel Prize winner Eugene Fama.^[3] In 1973, he helped create the first Standard & Poor's index funds.^[5] In 1981, Sinquefield co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors, which manages more than $310 billion in assets as of September 30, 2013.^[6]

Sinquefield founded and serves as the president of the Show-Me Institute, a public policy research organization based in St. Louis that has been labeled libertarian,^[7][8][9] conservative,^[10][11] and free-market.^[12]

Sinquefield is a director of St. Vincent Home for Children in St. Louis, and a life trustee of DePaul University. He serves on the boards of St. Louis University, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri Botanical Garden,^[13] the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis^[14] and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.^[15]

Along with Yale School of Management professor, Roger G. Ibbotson, he authored the book Stocks, Bonds, Bills and Inflation, a study of stock market returns.^[16]

Political campaign contributions

Sinquefield became a major financial contributor to political campaigns of both political parties in Missouri politics after the Missouri legislature ended campaign finance limits in 2009.^[17] According to a 2015 Governing Magazine article, "big majorities" in both houses of the Missouri legislature have received campaign contributions from Sinquefield.^[18] He has particularly focused on altering public education, tax reform, and accountability in government.^[19]

Sinquefield advocates replacing Missouri's and Kansas' income tax with a state sales tax^[18] on things like childcare, restaurants, and hotels.^[2] Sinquefield is the founder of the Show-Me Institute, a pro-free market think tank.^[18] Sinqufield also supported financially the group Kansans for No Income Tax which helped governor Sam Brownback lower the state income tax significantly.^[20] As a result, Kansas had a 50 million dollar deficit and sales tax was raised, affecting disproportionately the poor.^[21]

In 2014 and 2015, he donated $1 million to Republican Bev Randles' 2016 campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Missouri^[22] and three quarters of a million to Kurt Schaefer, a Republican candidate for Attorney General.^[23]

Tax policy activism

Much of Sinquefield's efforts in recent years have been devoted to changing tax policy throughout Missouri. He advocates eliminating the state's income tax and replacing it with a more comprehensive sales tax.^[24]

He also is the primary financial supporter of the Let Voters Decide committee.^[25] The committee successfully placed a statewide initiative on the Missouri ballot in 2010. this initiative, called Proposition A, would prevent all Missouri communities except Kansas City and St. Louis from imposing earnings taxes. It would also allow Kansas City and St. Louis voters to vote on whether to retain their earnings taxes.^[25] Missourians passed proposition A with a large margin – 68.4% YES / 31.6% NO (1,294,911 YES votes to 598,010 NO votes).^[26]

On January 5, 2011, Let Voters Decide submitted nine initiative petitions to the Missouri Secretary of State calling for a repeal of the state's income tax – with a top rate of 6 percent. The petitions also called for a higher sales tax, capped at 7 percent, that would be applied to virtually any good or service transaction involving individuals.^[25] Sinquefield and Let Voters Decide President Travis Brown say that replacing the income tax with a sales tax would help create jobs, promote economic development and make state revenue collection less volatile.^[27]

Local control of St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department

Sinquefield has supported an effort to return local control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to the City of St. Louis.^[28] The police department is run by a five-person board that includes four gubernatorial appointees.^[29] The system has been in place since 1861.^[29]

Sinquefield donated $300,000 to "A Safer Missouri", a group supporting the campaign for local control.^[30] A Safer Missouri endorsed state legislation in favor of local control,^[31] along with a ballot initiative filed with the Missouri Secretary of State, which will be pursued if the legislative efforts fail, according to a spokeswoman for A Safer Missouri.^[32] The ballot initiative was filed and entitled Proposition A.^[33]

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the secretary of state because of vague wording on the local control ballot measure. The ACLU claimed the bill would give the civil service commission sole authority over all disciplinary matters of police officers and seal the records from the public, which conflicts with Missouri's Sunshine Law and Racial Profiling Law.^[34] A Cole County Judge ruled that the wording of the bill does not prohibit the creation of a civilian review panel and the case was thrown out.^[35]

Local control, the Proposition A ballot initiative, received broad support,^[36] including St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay,^[33] and the Missouri Democratic Party^[37][38] On Feb. 22, 2011, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 71, the local measure in that body, by a vote of 109–46.^[38] The bill went on the Senate,Senate Bill 23, which failed. Thus the ballot initiative was filed and on November 6, 2012 Proposition A passed with 63.9% to 36.1%.^[39]

Scandals

Sinquefield has been involved in two public scandals over an alleged use of Ashley Madison and a statement on the role of the Ku Klux Klan in public schools.

Sinquefield's personal email address and a post office box registered to him were used to request services from Ashley Madison. ^[40] Later the user paid to have their digital footprint removed from the site.^[40] Sinquefield's spokesman claimed the credit card used for the transaction was not Sinquefield's.^[40]

At a speaking engagement held at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, Sinquefield made the following statements concerning the public school system:^[41] "You know what, there was a column written – and I hope I don't offend anyone – there was a published column by a man named Ralph Voss, who was a former judge in Missouri. He now owns and writes for a newspaper in Central Missouri called the Unterrified Democrat. What a name. And it's in Osage County, Missouri. And he starts off something like this: He said a long time ago, decades ago, the Ku Klux Klan got together and said, 'How can we really hurt the African American children permanently? How can we ruin their lives?' And what they designed was the public school system."

Sinquefield offered a quick apology and clarification of his comments: "I apologize for my reference to a quote from Ralph Voss of the Unterrified Democrat. The public discourse on these issues is too critical for an ill-timed, inappropriate reference. It is my sincere hope that this does not distract us from the important mission of helping all children access a high-quality education."^[42]

Philanthropy

Sinquefield and his wife, Jeanne, and their children, donate funds to a wide variety of organizations through the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. The foundation has donated in particular to the Today and Tomorrow Education Foundation, the Children's Education Alliance of Missouri, the Special Learning Center, the Dual Masters Scholarship Program at Saint Louis University, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, and the Mizzou New Music Initiative.^[43]

In 2009, Sinquefield and his wife, Jeanne, through the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, gave $1 million to the University of Missouri's School of Music.^[44] Those funds were used to create the New Music Initiative, an effort designed to encourage young people to become composers and to support new works of music composition.^[45]

Sinquefield is also a major political contributor. In 2013, Sinquefield gave $3.865 million in personal political donations as reported to the Missouri Ethics Commission.^[46]

Chess Hall of Fame

In 2007 Rex Sinquefield opened the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, a non-profit organization. An educational organization, its mission is to "maintain a formal program of instruction to teach the game of chess and to promote and support its educational program through community outreach and local and national partnerships to increase the awareness of the educational value of chess."^[47] In August 2010, Sinquefield provided seed funding to relocate the World Chess Hall of Fame to Saint Louis. The Chess Club's presence and reputation also played a role in the relocation decision^[48]

References

External links

• An interview with Rex Sinquefield explaining the investment philosophy he pioneered.
• An article on Sinquefield's receipt of the 1999 Distinguished Entrepreneurial Alumni award from the University of Chicago graduate school of business.
• Fortune article on Sinquefield's investment predictions.
• Article on Sinquefield's political activities in Missouri.
• Saint Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center