Paul Woody Named Democratic Nominee for 15th District House Seat

Paul Woody, 31, will represent the Democrats in the Nov. 8 special election to fill the 15th District seat in the Missouri House of Representatives.

Gov. Jay Nixon called for a special election to fill the seat vacated by Sally Faith who resigned soon after she was elected Mayor of St. Charles.

The four members of the St. Charles County Democratic Central Committee who live in the 15th District approved Woody as the nominee on Saturday, said Morton Todd, Democratic Central Committee Chairman.

Woody ran against Faith in her bid for re-election to the 15th District seat in November 2010 and lost, despite the fact that Faith had acknowledged publically that she was considering running for St. Charles Mayor.

Woody took just 34.4 percent of the votes in that race, while Faith had 59.6 percent and Libertarian Bill Slantz 6 percent.

Morton said Woody expressed an interest in running again soon after he lost.

“I think Paul is a strong candidate,” he said. “He’s very knowledgeable, and he’s a good guy.”

Woody practices law at a small firm in St. Charles. Before he studied law, he was a policy and communications advisor in the Missouri House of Representatives and in the Office of the Missouri Governor, according to a press release.

On Tuesday, the eight members of the St. Charles County Republican Central Committee who live in the 15th District plan to meet at 7 p.m. at the to select a Republican nominee.

Jim Bennett, Frontier township committeeman, said that he knows of three people who are interested in running.

Republicans Chrissy Sommer, Zumbehl township committeewoman, Carl Maus, former O’Fallon city employee and , former president of the St. Charles County Young Republicans, will contend for the nomination.

“We’ve got much better candidates than the Democrats have,” Bennett said. “I think any one of those can take on Mr. Woody.”

Both Morton and Bennett expect turnout will be small for the special election.

“It’s a matter of who gets their people out,” Morton said.

But Bennett said he doesn’t think it will make much difference.

“We’re going to have a good candidate,” he said. "It should come out the same way it did last year. It’s St. Charles County, we don’t have too much of the other party.”