Kansas Senate top spot may come down to Bruce vs. Wagle

Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce will likely challenge Senate President Susan Wagle for the presidency of the Kansas Senate after the November election.

In an interview with The Eagle on Friday, Bruce, R-Hutchinson, confirmed in a roundabout fashion that he intended to seek the top spot in the Senate.

“I think a large number of the Republican Senate caucus hope to see that happen,” Bruce said when asked whether he planned to challenge Wagle, R-Wichita.

Asked whether he was one of the caucus members who would like to see that happen, Bruce laughed and then replied, “I’m here to serve.”

“And the first thing I have to do is serve the people of Reno and Kingman counties, so my attention is focused squarely on my re-election campaign at the moment,” he said.

Bruce faces a primary challenge from former Hutchinson Community College president Ed Berger. The winner of that contest will face Democrat Homer Gilson in the general election.

Wagle has no primary challenger. She will face the winner of a Democratic primary race between Anabel Larumbe and Nathan Tokala in November.

Wagle, who indicated she had been aware since May of Bruce’s plans to seek the presidency, said in an e-mail that being Senate president “is a privilege I have been humbly granted by my colleagues. They will ultimately decide who leads the Senate after the November elections. Re-election must be earned. It is never a right.”

“However, that is a fight for another time,” she said, adding that she is “laser-focused on helping Republican Senators win re-election. I am traveling the state to meet with our candidates, help them campaign and raise them money.”

Perceived rift

Bruce and Wagle have repeatedly clashed in recent years.

Wagle was open to rolling back an income tax exemption for some business owners last year, but Bruce vehemently opposed it. The standoff between the two helped prolong the Legislature’s efforts to pass a tax plan during the longest session in the state’s history.

Asked whether he had thoughts about the perceived tension on the leadership team, Bruce jokingly replied, “Oh, I have plenty of thoughts.”

He then said that the perception of the rift may be exaggerated.

“We do have different roles, and typically those roles in and of themselves kind of, maybe, exaggerate the differences that exist there,” he said.

He said his job as majority leader is to represent the concerns of rank-and-file members to the rest of the leadership team.

“When you’re in that type of a position, you learn really quick it’s really hard to swim upstream,” he said.

Brownback role?

Wagle became Senate president four years ago after conservatives took control of the chamber by ousting nine moderate incumbents, including former Senate President Steve Morris.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, has long maintained that Gov. Sam Brownback played a role in that effort. He saw Bruce’s leadership challenge as another way to shore up Brownback’s control in the Senate.

“Sam Brownback would very much like to have Terry Bruce as the next Senate president, because Susan Wagle has challenged him on a number of the different issues,” Hensley said.

Wagle criticized the governor last month over the state’s budget problems at a meeting of the State Finance Council, and they’ve traded barbs in newspapers on fiscal issues for much of the past year.

Bruce opposed Wagle’s efforts to override Brownback’s veto of a bill that would have prevented the governor from spending state money to demolish the Docking State Office Building in Topeka.

The demolition of the building, which houses the power plant for state offices, became a political football between the governor and the Legislature earlier this year after the Brownback administration brokered a $20 million deal with Bank of America to finance the construction of a new power plant.

Many lawmakers wanted to override the veto for assurance even after Brownback ended the deal, but Brownback contended a veto override would put the state’s credit rating at risk. Bruce was one of the main voices for the governor’s position on the floor.

“I personally respect and like our governor. I think he’s an honest and decent man,” Bruce said when asked about his relationship with Brownback.

But he pushed back on the notion that he’s in lockstep with the governor, saying he just prefers to resolve policy disputes in private.

“I learned early on it never pays to publicly criticize the one person who has a veto pen. … So typically if I have an issue, I’ve found that the current administration has a pretty open door and I’ve been able to air my grievances with them in a respectful fashion and not air it in the press,” he said. “And I think it serves everybody better that way.”

Clash with conservatives

Bruce was also among 17 signers of a petition to reinstate Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, R-Shawnee, as Public Health Committee chairwoman after Wagle ousted her following a rules dispute, a move that rankled some conservatives.

Pilcher-Cook put out a lengthy critique of Wagle after losing her chairmanship in February, hinting that there would be an attempt to oust Wagle in the future. “Just like President Morris and Speaker Boehner, the Senate president will soon learn that power plays of this scale against conservatives do not work,” Pilcher-Cook wrote, referring to Morris and former Speaker of the U.S. House John Boehner.

Hensley pointed out that it’s theoretically possible that neither Wagle nor Bruce would win the presidency.

Right now, he said, he is the frontrunner for Senate president because four of the seats held by Democratic incumbents are uncontested, while every Republican incumbent faces at least a general election challenger.

“I’m ahead 4-0,” Hensley said.

This story was originally published July 9, 2016 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Kansas Senate top spot may come down to Bruce vs. Wagle."