Popular KC-area pastor weighing challenge to Roger Marshall hit with FEC complaint
The Kansas Republican Party on Friday filed a federal election complaint against the Rev. Adam Hamilton, alleging the popular Leawood pastor illegally used church resources to promote his exploratory U.S. Senate campaign.
The complaint, obtained by The Star, alleges that Hamilton used his church’s website, YouTube channel and internal email list to announce his potential candidacy in violation of a federal ban on direct corporate campaign donations. It calls for “appropriate sanctions” against Hamilton.
“There is reason to believe that the Church, by making its corporate resources available to Adam Hamilton so that he could announce his exploratory campaign for U.S. Senate, has violated (federal law) by making an illegal corporate contribution to a Federal campaign,” the complaint, filed by Rob Fillion, the Kansas GOP executive director, said.
U.S. Senate race in Kansas
The complaint represents the opening salvo in what could be one of the most contentious races this year in Kansas. Hamilton, the founding pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, has recently weighed a campaign to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall in November as an independent or “independent-minded Democrat.”
That decision, which Hamilton is poised to announce in the coming days, would mark an extraordinary test of whether the widely popular pastor can convert his national profile into votes and unseat an incumbent Republican closely aligned with President Donald Trump.
Hamilton spokesperson Mike Phillips, in a statement to The Star, did not address the substance of the complaint. The statement instead took aim at Marshall.
“Roger Marshall would rather attack people of faith — and the largest church in Kansas — than defend his record as a failed politician, because he knows Kansans are tired of politicians like him who aren’t listening and keep making things worse in Washington,” the statement said. “Roger Marshall knows that if Adam Hamilton runs against him, Adam will win.”
One focus of the complaint centers on a video on the church’s YouTube page. Hamilton, in that video, asked members of the congregation to pray for him as he discerned his next steps.
Cathy Bien, a spokesperson for the church, said Resurrection has been “very deliberate” in its communications about Hamilton’s political aspirations.
“The communication cited was really just an example of the regular way significant information is shared with our congregation,” Bien said in a phone interview. “The fact that our founding senior pastor was publicly considering a possible career change after thirty-five years of ministry is a significant development, and it was communicated with our church family.”
GOP response
Shortly after announcing the complaint, the Kansas GOP put out a fundraising email seeking donations. The email urged “immediate support” from potential donors to help “Pursue this ethics complaint to its conclusion,” among other goals.
“No one — regardless of their title, church size, or political aspirations — gets a free pass,” wrote Danedri Herbert, chair of the Kansas GOP, in the fundraising email touting the ethics complaint.
For his part, Marshall, who has served as an elder and a deacon in his own church, previously championed removing a federal prohibition on churches and other religious organizations directly engaging in political campaigns.
As a House member in 2017, Marshall co-sponsored legislation aimed at eliminating the Johnson Amendment provision of the U.S. tax code to “restore the Free Speech and First Amendment rights of churches and exempt organizations.”
Friday’s complaint, filed with the Federal Election Commission, specifically takes aim at how Hamilton announced his exploratory campaign. The use of church resources represented an “in-kind corporate contribution” under the Federal Election Campaign Act, the complaint alleges.
The Kansas GOP announced the complaint nearly three hours after The Star published a story on Hamilton’s exploratory campaign. The story highlighted how Marshall and his Republican allies had seized on Hamilton’s potential bid, framing him as too liberal.
Complaint echoes Missouri case
Friday’s complaint would not be the first time a Kansas City-area politician faced scrutiny over church donations. The Star revealed in 2024 that Jackson County pastor Joe Nicola’s church donated money to a political action committee that supported his successful campaign for Missouri Senate.
The Star’s reporting sparked an ethics investigation into whether the Republican senator violated Missouri’s campaign finance laws and used his church, called New Covenant Ministries, to conceal the identities of donors.
The state’s ethics panel cleared Nicola of any wrongdoing last year.
This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 1:21 PM.
