Former Monsanto CEO Personifies GOP's Stem Cell Rift in Swing State

One night, I overheard him talking to a group of journalists about his anger over President Bush's opposition to public funding of stem cell research.

Bush has prohibited federal funding to research of all but some already existing stem cell lines because that avoids destruction of future embryos. And he has said he would veto a bill before Congress that would provide funding for research using embryos left over from fertility treatments.

States and private entities are free to fund stem cell research.

Some conservative Republicans in Washington, including Missouri Sen. Jim Talent (R), have proposed criminalizing a certain form of stem cell research -- somatic cell nuclear transfer -- a technique commonly used to produce embryonic stem cells and known to some as therapeutic cloning.

In January, Republicans took control of both chambers of the Missouri legislature and the statehouse for the first time in 84 years. Among the first pieces of major legislation the party pushed was a total ban on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

Central to the debate over the procedure is the question of whether the process involves cloning, which opponents argue creates life for the sole purpose of destroying it.

"This is the preeminent threat to early human life we're now facing in our society," Larry Webster, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, told the Kansas City Star in April. ''Many pro-life citizens of this state recognize human cloning for what it is."

The Columbia Missourian reported earlier this spring that the controversy of Talent's position was leading to a flurry of interest among Democrats in challenging him next year when he comes up for reelection.

The business community, led by many prominent Republicans, rose up to oppose the legislation, which has stalled in Jefferson City.

The Stowers Institute for Medical Research, an influential national biomedical research corporation in Kansas City, vowed to withhold spending $250 million to $300 million on a major new campus in the city. Wealthy business and community leaders, like St. Louis philanthropist Sam Fox -- one of the biggest GOP donors in the state -- and members of the prominent Danforth family, have spoken out vociferously against the proposed legislation.

"The uncertainty that prevents the Stowers Institute from building its second facility in Kansas City will persist until the threat of anti-SCNT legislation in Missouri is finally laid to rest," William Neaves, president and chief executive officer of the institute, told the Kansas City Star in April.

Mahoney told me he had written out a campaign check to Talent, but could not bring himself to send it.