Embattled Missouri Speaker Dean Plocher hires former lawmaker with abusive past
Embattled Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher announced to House Republicans on Thursday that he has hired a former lawmaker with an abusive past to serve as his new chief of staff.
Plocher’s new top aide, Rod Jetton, served as speaker of the Missouri House from 2005 to 2009. After leaving office, he was charged with felony assault from a 2009 sexual encounter where he choked a woman to the point of unconsciousness. He later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor assault, according to a 2011 St. Louis Public Radio report.
Plocher, a Republican from the St. Louis area faces calls to resign for receiving government reimbursements for expenses paid for by his campaign. The move to hire Jetton was quickly met with criticism from at least one top Democrat.
“The speaker’s hiring of a man who pleaded guilty to assault for hitting and choking a woman during a sexual encounter is a gross affront to domestic violence survivors,” House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat who is running for governor in 2024, said in a statement.
Quade added that Jetton had “no business holding a position of influence” in the legislature and his hiring illustrated a failure in judgment and leadership from Plocher.
Plocher made the announcement during the closed–door winter caucus meeting of House Republicans on Thursday, several attendees confirmed to The Star. After the meeting, Plocher went out a side door, ran away from reporters asking for comment, hopped in a car and drove away.
Republicans who spoke with reporters after the meeting defended Plocher’s decision to hire Jetton, painting his career as a story of redemption.
House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican chosen by Republicans to be the next speaker beginning in 2025, said Jetton was a “great former speaker.”
“He made a series of very bad mistakes and he took action to correct them,” he said. “He’s paid his debt to society and he is really a story of resilience and kind of making amends in life.”
Jetton, formerly one of the most powerful politicians in Missouri, torpedoed his political career shortly after leaving office. He was charged with felony assault following a sexual encounter where he was accused of hitting and choking a woman to the point of unconsciousness. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was placed on probation.
The next year, in 2010, a federal grand jury investigated Jetton over a $35,000 political contribution that he received from the adult entertainment industry and whether it was connected to his decision to effectively kill a bill that regulated the industry.
Jetton in 2014 wrote a book about his political career called “Success Can Kill You: One man’s story of success, failure and forgiveness.” Most recently, he worked at the Missouri Department of Revenue as the deputy director of the motor vehicles and drivers’ license division.
Plocher’s decision to hire Jetton as his top aid comes as he faces his own controversies.
The Missouri House Ethics Committee has launched an inquiry and is investigating a complaint of “ethical misconduct” that both appear to be connected to the top Republican.
Over the last month, he has faced calls to resign from his fellow Republicans over his campaign finances. He also faces scrutiny from the ethics committee over his decision to fire his previous chief of staff, Kenny Ross, last month and alleged threats against a House staffer related to his push for the House to issue an expensive contract to an outside company to manage constituent information.
Still, the majority of House Republicans appear to be behind Plocher for now, saying they were waiting to see what the ethics committee does before they make a decision on whether he should remain speaker.
“The vast majority of the caucus feels that the ethics committee will do their investigation and then we’ll assess the situation,” Patterson said.
