Missouri Speaker Plocher faces calls to resign from fellow GOP over double reimbursements

Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher received government reimbursements over several years for expenses also paid for by his campaign — a revelation prompting calls for his resignation and kicking off a fresh round of infighting among Missouri Republicans.

The Missouri House Ethics Committee will gather Friday for a meeting widely expected within the Capitol to center on Plocher, though lawmakers aren’t releasing details. The prospect of the House probing or potentially even punishing its top leader risks dividing Republicans ahead of the 2024 legislative session.

Plocher, a Republican who was first elected to the Missouri House in 2016 and represents suburban areas of St. Louis County, received reimbursements from the House starting in 2018 for trip-related expenses also reimbursed by his political campaign on at least nine occasions, the Missouri Independent first reported on Monday. Among the expenses was a $1,199.60 plane ticket to attend a conference in Hawaii earlier this year.

“When people say ‘throw the bums out,’ they’re thinking about politicians like Dean Plocher,” state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican running for governor, said in a statement.

“This is simple – he has stolen from taxpayers and violated our trust, he should resign immediately.”

Plocher, who is running for lieutenant governor in 2024, has said the double reimbursements were accidental and that he is paying back the House. He has also said that he made his first repayment before the reimbursements drew media attention.

In a message to Republican lawmakers on Monday, Plocher wrote that his wife alerted him last week that he had been reimbursed by the House for an extra night at a hotel he stayed in during a conference when he shouldn’t have received reimbursement. After learning this, Plocher wrote that he immediately paid back the House.

“Because of this error, I reviewed all of my travel reimbursements and it revealed that I had additional administrative errors, to which I have corrected,” Plocher wrote.

But some Republicans have found the number of double reimbursements – and the fact they stretched over several years – difficult to set aside. Plocher, who by virtue of serving as speaker embodies the GOP establishment, has also handed hard-right candidates the opportunity to cast Jefferson City politics as corrupt.

It’s also not the first controversy Plocher has faced this fall. In recent weeks, he has come under scrutiny over an unsuccessful push for the House to hire a company to manage constituent information and his decision to fire his chief of staff last week.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican candidate for governor, called the reimbursement allegations “significant and serious” and said lawmakers should take action if they are proven, but didn’t directly call for Plocher’s resignation or removal. Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, who is also running, urged elected officials “to practice transparency and responsibility with Missourians’ tax dollars” without naming Plocher.

On the Democratic side, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, who is running for governor, said she is “deeply concerned that the speaker’s actions weren’t just a one-time mistake, but part of a consistent pattern over five years.” Quade, of Springfield, said corruption allegations emerge far too often in Jefferson City.

Several Missouri House speakers in the modern era have faced significant controversies. Former Speaker Bob Griffin, the state’s longest-serving speaker who served from 1981 to 1996, was indicted and later convicted on bribery charges. Former Speaker Rod Jetton, who was speaker from 2005 to 2009, was charged with felony assault from a 2009 sexual encounter where he choked a woman to the point of unconsciousness. Jetton later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge.

In 2015, then-Speaker John Diehl resigned from the post after The Star reported that he had been sending sexually-charged messages with an intern.

A potential Republican challenger to Plocher in the lieutenant governor’s race seized on the allegations this week. Bob Onder, a former hard-right senator from Lake St. Louis whose Missouri Ethics Commission paperwork indicates he’s weighing a run for lieutenant governor, criticized the speaker in two social media posts.

Onder on Tuesday also contributed $500,000 to his campaign committee, according to a report filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

“This looks and smells like embezzlement,” Onder wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “It’s documented, happened 9 times over years, and he only reimbursed after being caught. Plocher is the Swamp and should resign.”

State Rep. Chris Sander, a Lone Jack Republican, flatly said the speaker should resign. “I think he should step down or resign as a member. He doesn’t need to be there,” Sander said in an interview.

Plocher has “too much going on,” Sander said, pointing to the fact that lawmakers were discussing his campaign finances and staff instead of other issues such as the economy or violent crimes.

Sander, who is openly gay, said earlier this year he was considering leaving the Missouri Republican Party after Plocher did not call on him during a vote to restrict transgender health care for minors.

Other lawmakers vouched for Plocher. State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Branson Republican, on Wednesday said Plocher had obviously made accounting mistakes but had corrected them. He said all officials should take better care of their accounting and how they spend government and campaign funds.

The Missouri House, Seitz said, doesn’t want to end up like the U.S. House, where a protracted battle over who should be speaker paralyzed the chamber for weeks after lawmakers voted to remove U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

“So I think at this time, it’s much ado about nothing,” Seitz said.

But two high-ranking GOP legislators neither defended or criticized Plocher. House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson and House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson on Wednesday steered clear of taking a strong position on Plocher’s actions.

Henderson, a Bonne Terre Republican, said he didn’t know all the facts and needed to wait and see what happened. In a brief interview, he said he didn’t have first-hand information on the situation.

Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican chosen by Republicans to be the next speaker beginning in 2025, in a statement appeared to signal that the House Ethics Committee would review the allegations.

“The House of Representatives has a bipartisan process in place to review these matters and ensure that Missourians can have confidence in the integrity of the General Assembly,” Patterson said. “Upon the conclusion of their work, we will review and act upon their recommendations just as we have previously with similar matters.”

The House Ethics Committee, made up of five Republicans and five Democrats, reviews complaints against House lawmakers. The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Friday to “discuss a personnel inquiry” — a phrase not detailed in the Missouri House rules.

The hearing description indicates that the committee may not be discussing a formal complaint, which is typically what it reviews. However, the U.S. House ethics rules, which are used as a guide for Missouri House ethics rules, allow for House members, officers or employees to request written opinions “with respect to the propriety of any current or proposed conduct of such Member, officer, or employee.”

Four committee members The Star reached by phone said they wouldn’t know what’s going to be discussed until the hearing happens. Still, state Rep. Jerome Barnes, a Raytown Democrat on the committee, suggested the hearing would be about Plocher.

“If I was a gambling man I probably would say it’s probably gonna be something about that,” he said. “But I couldn’t really put my hand on it. I don’t know of anything else that’s been out in the news lately other than that stuff there.”

State Rep. Richard Brown, a Kansas City Democrat and vice chair of the ethics committee, said none of the committee members had been briefed on what was going to be discussed. Brown is running for lieutenant governor in 2024 as a Democrat.

The reports of Plocher double dipping come after the top House lawmaker was already facing scrutiny for unsuccessfully pushing for the House to purchase a software system to manage constituent information against the wishes of nonpartisan staff.

Dana Miller, chief clerk of the House, wrote in a September email to a Republican lawmaker about the push for the software contract. In the email, obtained through a records request, she mentioned “threats made by Speaker Plocher concerning my future employment.”

Miller 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.”

Plocher, in his Monday message to GOP lawmakers, downplayed the controversy over his push for the software, saying it was “a disagreement between elected members of the House and the administrative staff.”

Last week, Plocher fired his top aide, Kenny Ross, writing in a letter to House lawmakers that, effective immediately, the office of chief of staff was “vacated.” The same day, Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, announced he had hired Ross as his director of strategic initiatives.

“I can’t and won’t speak to why the Speaker chose to part ways with him,” Rowden said in a statement last week. “That was his decision. This was mine.”