Missouri ethics panel probes Speaker Plocher’s firing of top aide as new complaint surfaces
The Missouri House Ethics Committee’s probe into embattled House Speaker Dean Plocher has so far focused on the top Republican lawmaker’s decision to fire his chief of staff earlier this month.
The ethics panel of five Republicans and five Democrats, which typically reviews complaints against House lawmakers, last week met behind closed doors for more than four hours to discuss a “personnel inquiry.” The committee is scheduled to meet again next week.
As the committee prepares to meet, a complaint of “ethical misconduct” has been filed against an unnamed House lawmaker.
Documents obtained by The Star show that a House lawmaker on Thursday filed a complaint against another House lawmaker. Plocher, who as speaker is in charge of referring complaints to the ethics committee, recused himself from the matter. Plocher’s legislative assistant said in an email she would get back with a reporter as to why Plocher recused himself.
It’s unclear whether the complaint is related to the ethics committee’s personnel inquiry discussion on Friday.
A source with knowledge of Friday’s inquiry told The Star that the committee is examining whether House Chief Clerk Dana Miller has the authority to continue paying Kenny Ross, Plocher’s former chief of staff whom he fired earlier this month. The concern, the source said, is whether Ross was protected as a whistleblower when he was fired.
The committee is also examining whether Plocher followed proper procedure when he fired Ross, the source said.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity due to confidentiality rules surrounding the inquiry.
Emails obtained by The Star on Wednesday confirmed that Miller, the chief clerk since 2018, requested an advisory opinion from the ethics committee related to her decision to continue paying Ross and that Plocher had questioned the decision to pay Ross after he had been fired.
The communications, obtained through a records request, do not mention concerns about Ross being a potential whistleblower. However, an email from Miller to Plocher indicates that Plocher had questioned how keeping Ross on the payroll would “protect the Missouri House of Representatives.”
Missouri law prohibits public employees from taking disciplinary actions against other employees for disclosing potential wrongdoing. Ross could be considered a whistleblower because he has “knowledge of potential illegal activity that he came forward with,” the source said. That appears to be related to Plocher’s unsuccessful push for the House to hire a company to manage constituent information.
Miller wrote about Plocher’s push for the contract in an email last month to a Republican lawmaker. In the email, obtained through a public records request, Miller mentioned “threats made by Speaker Plocher concerning my future employment.” She wrote that Plocher made a statement to her “connecting this contract with campaign activity.”
In the email, Miller also expressed “growing concerns of unethical and perhaps unlawful conduct.”
Miller was in the room during several parts of Friday’s closed-door ethics hearing. She declined comment for this story.
Plocher and Ross did not immediately return calls for comment on Tuesday.
Documents obtained by The Star are letters showing that a House lawmaker on Thursday filed a complaint of “ethical misconduct” against another lawmaker. Neither of the lawmakers are mentioned in the letters. Plocher received the complaint, which was not included in the records obtained by The Star due to confidentially rules.
House rules require that when the House speaker receives a complaint against another lawmaker, the speaker has 14 days to refer the complaint to the ethics committee.
On Friday, Plocher sent the complaint to the office of House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson, a Bonne Terre Republican, saying in a letter that he was recusing himself from the matter. Henderson on Monday sent the complaint to state Rep. Hannah Kelly, a Mountain Grove Republican and chair of the ethics committee.
“The complaint shall be confidential,” the letter from Henderson said, citing House rules. “The Committee shall examine the sufficiency of the complaint pursuant to the Committee’s Rules of Procedure.”
In an interview last week with “This Week in Missouri Politics,” a state politics livestream from the Missouri Times, Plocher said that the rearrangement of staff in his office was not related to the controversy surrounding the constituent management contract.
“This has been an ongoing discussion within my office on how I was going to handle it,” he said when asked whether the two situations were related. “Perhaps it was not the best but not at all.”
On Oct. 17, the day that Plocher fired Ross, Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, announced that he had hired Ross to serve as his director of strategic initiatives.
The ethics committee’s probe into the firing comes as Plocher faces calls to resign after reports surfaced last week that he received government reimbursements over several years for expenses also paid for by his campaign. He has started to pay back the money he improperly received.
Plocher, a Republican who represents suburban areas of St. Louis County, is mounting a campaign for lieutenant governor in 2024.
This story has been updated to include information from documents released to The Star Wednesday.
This story was originally published October 31, 2023 at 2:40 PM.
