Kansas senators ask Senate President Wagle to reinstate Pilcher-Cook as committee chair

A majority of Kansas Senate Republicans have signed a letter asking Senate President Susan Wagle to reinstate Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook as a committee chair. But Wagle said Tuesday that her position has not changed.

Wagle, a Wichita Republican and the first woman to serve as Senate president, ousted Pilcher-Cook from the chairmanship of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee late last week after Pilcher-Cook tried to force a vote on Medicaid expansion on the Senate floor.

Seventeen Republican senators signed a letter this week asking for Pilcher-Cook to be reinstated. Included on the letter are Sen. Michael O’Donnell of Wichita, who Wagle had promoted to interim chair, and Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce of Hutchinson.

“Senator Pilcher-Cook has served the Senate well in her capacity as Chairman of the Public Health and Welfare Committee. Though we may not agree with every position she has taken on every issue, there is little doubt she is a person of conviction,” the letter submitted to Wagle’s office Tuesday said. “She fought courageously for a number of conservative causes, particularly to protect the unborn. We respectfully ask you reconsider your recent actions and reinstate Senator Pilcher-Cook’s Chairmanship.”

The backlash could prove problematic for Wagle if the senators who signed the letter refuse to follow her lead on other matters this session. The senators calling for Pilcher-Cook’s reinstatement make up more than half of the Republican Party’s 32-member caucus and are just four shy of a majority of the Senate.

An identical letter was signed by 26 Republican members of the Kansas House.

Wagle initially would not comment as she left her office late Tuesday afternoon, saying she was late for a meeting and calling the controversy “inside baseball.”

Pressed on whether the letter would change her decision, Wagle replied, “No.”

Pilcher-Cook of Shawnee brought an amendment to expand Medicaid during a floor debate last week. She opposes expansion and wanted the Senate to vote it down as a symbolic gesture to supporters in the Kansas House.

The Senate Rules Committee, of which Bruce is a member, decided that the amendment violated the Senate’s rules because it greatly expanded the bill’s scope.

Bruce, the only member of Senate leadership to sign the letter, said in a statement that he did so “to show support for a respected colleague with the hope it brings reconciliation between two people I hold in high esteem.”

Wagle removed Pilcher-Cook from the chairmanship late last week, saying the senator’s actions “showed complete disrespect for the body and its rules.”

Pilcher-Cook accused Wagle of playing political games and seeking to undermine conservative causes, comparing her to former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, who stepped down last year amid mounting conservative opposition.

Pilcher-Cook promised in an e-mail to the media that Wagle “will soon learn that power plays of this scale against conservatives do not work.”

Pilcher-Cook said Wagle supports Medicaid expansion and sought to block the vote because it “would have put her at odds with the vast majority of the Republican caucus.”

Wagle said in a statement last weekend that she firmly opposes expansion, which she described as “budget-busting.”

Bruce highlighted opposition to Medicaid expansion as important to Republican success in the 2016 elections in a memo sent to the caucus earlier this month titled “Converting Session Strategy into Election Results.”

“Expanding an entitlement program is the antithesis of what Republicans stand for and our base knows it. Voting to expand Medicaid as part of Obamacare would most likely doom a Republican Senate candidate,” the memo warns GOP lawmakers.

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Kansas senators ask Senate President Wagle to reinstate Pilcher-Cook as committee chair."