Wichita lawmaker hired by Kansas Family Policy Council, letter says

Rep. Steve Brunk has been hired as executive director of the Kansas Family Policy Council, an advocacy group that strongly opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, according to a letter from the council.

Brunk, R-Wichita, said Monday that he had been offered a job with a nonprofit organization. He said he had not yet decided to take it. The council letter announcing Brunk’s hiring is dated Dec. 2. The Eagle obtained the letter Friday.

The council is affiliated with the national group Focus on the Family.

“I’m honored to announce that through the leadership of CitizenLink and funding from generous supporters like you, Steve Brunk has joined the KFPC team as our new Executive Director,” wrote council chairman Dennis Blick in a fundraising letter. “You may know Steve from his work in the Kansas State Legislature. … He has been a consistent champion of family values over the years, standing strong for life, marriage and religious freedom at the Kansas State Capitol.”

Brunk has been a member of the Legislature since 2003, representing House District 85, which includes Bel Aire, part of northeast Wichita, the northeast corner of Sedgwick County and the northwest corner of Butler County.

He is chairman of the House Federal and State Affairs Committee, which considers a range of topics, including abortion, guns and First Amendment issues. He played a key role in the success earlier this year of a bill that restricts the most common form of second-trimester abortion; the law has been blocked while a lawsuit is pending in state court.

In 2014, Brunk was one of the main proponents of a bill that would have allowed public and private workers to refuse to serve same-sex couples on religious grounds. It passed the state House but was scuttled by Kansas Senate leaders after it inspired international controversy.

The council letter says “hiring Steve could not have come at a better time. This next legislative term is lining up to be a challenging one. Those opposed to our values are actively promoting legislation that undermines our religious freedom — at work, in our children’s schools and in the public square.”

Staying in the Legislature?

If Brunk lobbies for the council, he would be required to resign his position in the House, leaving his chairmanship open. His Federal and State vice chair resigned last month to take a lobbying position with the National Rifle Association.

Kansas statute says that “No legislator may be hired as a lobbyist to represent anyone before any state agency,” including the Legislature.

Brunk said Monday that he had been approached by the group for a position but would not make his decision until January. He also said that taking the job would not necessarily prevent him from staying in the Legislature.

“I have just so many options that I’m considering right now,” Brunk said. “One of them is a nonprofit has approached me, but that doesn’t mean necessarily that you’re leaving the Legislature.

“One of the things that they want to do is impact legislation and so how better to do that than to have the person who handles all of that legislation actually be in the Legislature and actually be chairman of the committee?”

Carol Williams, executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, the agency that enforces the state’s lobbying regulations, said the state defines a lobbyist as “any person employed to a considerable degree for lobbying.”

“So if his job description is ‘you will represent us before the Legislature,’ then that means he’s going to have to register (as a lobbyist),” she said. The only way that a lawmaker could maintain a position as an advocacy organization’s executive director is if he refrained from lobbying, she added.

Announcement ‘premature’

In a voicemail Friday afternoon, Brunk said he was not a lobbyist. “I already said that I was likely going to be working with a nonprofit. … It’s a policy arm of Focus on the Family, and I’m helping them as a director, not as a lobbyist.

“In time if I continue to do this I might hire a lobbyist. I might hire someone to be a policy director, but I’m not helping them in that capacity.”

Brunk said the council had been premature in its announcement.

“While they made an announcement, it was based on a general agreement,” he said. “We’re still negotiating terms. They were premature. Nothing is going to happen until next year, until January.

“So there’s still no news to report. Nothing official has happened.”

House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, D-Kansas City, said a job with the council would be a clear conflict of interest. “Brunk has only one option if he accepts this position: resign from the legislature,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Patrick Miller, a political science professor at the University of Kansas, tweeted: “It would be against ethics rules in Congress & most state leg’s to be leg mmbr + head an org that lobbies on bills.”

House Speaker Ray Merrick’s chief of staff said in an e-mail late Friday that her understanding was that Brunk is still evaluating his options and that the speaker’s office has “been in discussions with the Ethics Commission as it’s important to the Speaker that all applicable statutes are carefully observed.”

The letter from Blick says that a donation to the organization will help “equip our new Executive Director Steve Brunk, and put our best offense on the field – for your family.”

The letter also criticizes Equality Kansas, a gay-rights organization that led opposition to the religious freedom bill in 2014. It also has pushed for sexual orientation and gender identity to be added to the state’s anti-discrimination statute, which prohibits racial and religious discrimination.

“This group continues to pressure legislators with policies that undermine our first freedom – religious liberty,” the letter states. “To meet them head on, and provide a voice at our state capitol, we need your partnership.”

Asked about the letter, Equality Kansas executive director Tom Witt said that in recent years “the Kansas Family Policy Council has been the least effective advocacy group in the statehouse. I don’t see that changing much with soon-to-be former Rep. Brunk as their executive director.”

The Kansas Secretary of State’s Office confirmed in an e-mail Friday that Brunk has yet to turn in a letter of resignation.

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Wichita lawmaker hired by Kansas Family Policy Council, letter says."