Jim Denning, Kansas Senate Republican leader, won’t seek re-election

Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, who was both condemned as an obstructionist and hailed as a bipartisan statesman, said Friday he won’t seek re-election as the Medicaid expansion compromise he fashioned with Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly remains in limbo.

Denning faced a tough race against Democratic Rep. Cindy Holscher, the only candidate who has filed to run in his district so far.

The announcement comes as the Legislature prepares to return for a single day, May 21, after the pandemic cut short the 2020 session — and with it, the chances of approving expansion. Before the coronavirus struck, Denning and Kelly had been locked in a battle with Republican opponents of their plan, which would extend health coverage to more than 100,000 Kansans.

Denning, who has served in the Senate since 2013, said in a letter dated Friday that “I have seen too much hyper partisan gamesmanship and we should not allow such partisanship to continue in this pattern.”

“There is a dire need for legislators to focus not on singular goals but rather on the big picture of each policy we are presented,” Denning wrote.

His decision means that two top Senate Republicans — Denning and Senate President Susan Wagle — are both expected to depart after this year, creating a leadership vacuum that senators will have to fill.

Denning was probably the most vulnerable Kansas senator during the 2020 cycle, said Patrick Miller, a political scientist at the University of Kansas. He noted Denning was a conservative Republican in a district that had gone for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and in 2018 backed Laura Kelly for governor and Sharice Davids for Congress.

“It was going to be more difficult for him to win this time than probably any time he’s ever run for the Legislature in the past,” Miller said.

Holscher said she spoke to Denning on Friday morning and thanked him for his service.

“Anybody who holds elected office, you do sacrifice a lot and your family sacrifices a lot,” Holscher said.

Denning had effectively staked the future of his political career on the expansion plan. At a rapturous announcement in January, he and Kelly stood side by side as they unveiled their compromise plan.

But by February, the plan was caught in a standoff over an anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution. After the House failed to approve the amendment, Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, vowed to block expansion until the amendment cleared the Legislature.

Denning urged lawmakers to allow expansion to proceed and tried unsuccessfully to untangle the two issues. He drew the ire of fellow Republican senators when he appeared in Wichita to promote the plan with Kelly, who called the blockade “immoral.”

“What you did and the title of majority leader do not go together,” Sen. Gene Suellentrop, a Wichita Republican who chairs the Senate’s health committee, told Denning at a tense meeting in early March.

The pandemic soon scattered lawmakers and paused the brewing conflict.

As the Legislature prepares to return, Denning appears to have set his sights on one last task: providing legislative oversight of the approximately $1.2 billion in federal coronavirus aid that’s flowed into Kansas.

“The most important duty delegated to our legislative body is to be the steward of taxpayer funds,” he said Thursday.

In his Friday letter, Denning touted work to stabilize the state’s pension system and helping to end a decade-long legal battle over education funding among his accomplishments, as well as efforts to improve transparency within the STAR Bonds economic development program.

“Finally, I am proud to have written a bipartisan plan to expand public and private healthcare access for Kansans this session and even though partisan politics were played, I am still appreciated of the efforts made.”

Denning’s image as a bipartisan compromiser was not always so strong. In 2019, protesters unfurled banners in the Statehouse charging Denning and other Republican leaders had “blood on their hands” for failing to expand Medicaid.

Denning also sued The Kansas City Star and former columnist Steve Rose in 2019, claiming Rose falsely attributed statement to him in a column concerning his past opposition to Medicaid expansion. A Johnson County judge tossed the lawsuit and ordered Denning to pay thousands in legal fees to The Star and Rose.

This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 11:26 AM.