JEFFERSON CITY — Days before a closed-door meeting of House Republicans in the capital city, another GOP state representative called on Dean Plocher to resign as House speaker.
In an emailed letter to colleagues Sunday, state Rep. Adam Schwadron, a St. Charles Republican who is running for Missouri secretary of state, said Plocher should quit his post.
It’s the latest public fallout for Plocher, a Des Peres Republican, after House staff this year raised concerns about his involvement in an effort by a private company to land an $800,000 software contract with the House without going through standard bidding procedures.
Plocher has also faced calls for his resignation in recent weeks after he began paying back thousands of dollars in House expense reimbursements that had been covered by his campaign.
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The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday with Plocher expected to be on the agenda.
Schwadron, meanwhile, has joined a relatively short list of fellow GOP state representatives to publicly call on Plocher to leave his post as speaker.
Schwadron said Monday he was only asking Plocher to resign as speaker, not his House seat, which Plocher won in a special election in 2015. Plocher is term-limited next year and is running for lieutenant governor.
Schwadron said he would like to see more information from the House Ethics Committee “to determine whether or not he needs to resign his House seat.”
Reps. Mazzie Boyd, R-Hamilton, and Doug Richey, R-Excelsior Springs, have also called for Plocher’s ouster as speaker. Rep. Chris Sander, R-Lone Jack, said last month that Plocher should “step down or resign as a member.”
Schwadron said Monday he had spoken to at least a dozen fellow Republican House members who hadn’t yet spoken out publicly but who believe Plocher should resign.
At the meeting of the House Republicans on Thursday in Jefferson City, called the winter caucus, Schwadron predicted Plocher’s controversies “will take up a lot of discussion time.”
“He’ll still have some of his supporters speaking on his behalf, and then there will be people like myself and Doug Richey — and hopefully some other people,” Schwadron said.
Schwadron said the winter caucus meeting is usually spent figuring out priorities for the legislative session that begins in January.
“However, this is just another demonstration of the distraction that all of these issues are having amongst us and affecting our ability to legislate next year,” he said.
In his letter to colleagues, Schwadron referenced the reimbursements at issue, by Plocher to Chief Clerk Dana Rademan Miller regarding her employment, and Plocher’s termination of his chief of staff as well as “allegations of violations of whistleblower protection.”
The Kansas City Star reported last week that the committee was assessing whether the former chief of staff, Kenny Ross, could be paid after his firing given concern that he was protected as a whistleblower.
Schwadron said the controversy swirling around Plocher looks “horrible and will certainly fuel campaign attacks against our Republican Majority this coming election cycle. Exactly how many seats will this cost us, I don’t know.”
Blowback against Plocher hasn’t been limited to House Republicans.
Other Missouri Republicans have spoken out against the speaker, including state Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, who is running for governor; former state Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake Saint Louis, who has signaled a run for lieutenant governor; state Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, who is running for state treasurer; and Will Scharf, who is running for attorney general.