Former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway appointed attorney general

Catherine Hanaway talks to reporters on Aug. 19 after being announced as the state's next attorney general (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent).

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe announced Monday that Catherine Hanaway will replace Andrew Bailey as the state’s next attorney general.

Bailey, 44, resigned Monday after a little more than two years on the job to become co-deputy director of the FBI. 

Hanaway, 61, will be the fourth person to serve as Missouri attorney general since 2018, with her three predecessors leaving the job early for positions in Washington, D.C.  She can serve out Bailey’s term, which runs until the end of 2028.

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A former federal prosecutor, Hanaway was the first and only woman to ever serve as speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives. She twice ran unsuccessfully for statewide office, losing to Democrat Robin Carnahan for secretary of state in 2004 and finishing fourth in the Republican primary for governor in 2016. 

After she left public life, Hanaway focused on her law practice and eventually became a partner at the Husch Blackwell. In 2018, she garnered headlines after joining the legal team representing the campaign committee of the man who beat her in the ugly 2016 GOP primary, Eric Greitens.  

Her highest profile client in recent years has been Grain Belt Express, a planned transmission line designed to transport electricity generated by wind farms in Kansas across four states, including Missouri.

In the works for more than a decade, the transmission line has drawn fierce criticism from GOP officials and agriculture groups like the Missouri Farm Bureau over the company’s use of eminent domain to take land or easements from unwilling landowners and compensate them.  

Those critics include Bailey, who has used the attorney general’s office to target the project. 

Grain Belt Express filed a lawsuit against the attorney general’s office last month over a demand to hand over documents, and Hanaway is the company’s lead counsel. 

“Grain Belt Express seeks to bring an end to the (attorney general’s) unlawful and politically motivated investigation,” Hanaway said in a statement last month. 

This story will be updated.