In 2003, Gregg Hartley stepped down as Chief of Staff for then-U.S. Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) and began working as a lobbyist for Cassidy & Associates, where he lobbies his former boss and other Republican legislators. In 2006, Cassidy & Associates was hired by the Missouri Association of Realtors to lobby then-Missouri Governor Matt Blunt to oppose a veto recommendation of the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission for a piece of realty legislation. The Department of Justice’s antitrust division and Federal Trade Commission warned that the legislation in question would raise costs for individuals buying homes. Blunt did not follow the recommendation and signed the bill—which benefitted realtors—into law. Cassidy & Associates and their clients then made thousands of dollars in political donations to Matt Blunt. Matt Blunt joined Cassidy & Associates as a senior consultant in February 2009, less than one month after his last day as governor of Missouri.

In August 2007, then-Governor Blunt issued a directive compelling members of state law enforcement to verify the immigration status of anyone they arrested. Immigration statuses were even checked for minor traffic violations. Jorge Riopedre, secretary of the St. Louis-area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, called the plan, “an open door to racial profiling.” Blunt claimed that the Missouri State Highway Patrol would only check the status of individuals incarcerated by the police, but in at least one instance patrol officers checked the immigration status of a number of workers on a construction project on the basis of a tip from an unidentified local legislator. A representative for the construction company said that he was “puzzled” by the investigation because the site was routinely inspected by federal officials and the project itself did not receive state money.