BREAKING: Ethics commission executive director departing

(Developing: Will be updated as warranted)

Mark Skoglund is stepping down as the executive director of the Kansas ethics commission, following a turbulent three years in which he came under scrutiny as he carried out a wide-ranging investigation that focused on the Republican Party apparatus in Kansas.

Skoglund said he had accepted a new role as the chief fiscal officer of the Board of Indigent Defense Services. He will start his new role on Feb. 17.

“During my tenure, I have trained thousands of state employees, worked with hundreds of candidates, increased the consistency of the commission, and sought to improve the law in many ways,” Skoglund said in a one-page letter.

“I have worked to strengthen public trust in government through transparency and effective oversight,” he said.

“I am proud of my prioritization of education and prevention, only seeking fine enforcement in those rare cases when an act was intentional or severe,” he wrote.

“Our complaint filing reflects this practice – nearly all issues were resolved by correcting mistakes and providing guidance for future compliance.”

Skoglund attended his last ethics commission meeting on Wednesday. He suggested that the commission’s general counsel, Kaitlyn Bull-Stewart, serve as interim executive director.

“I am extremely lucky and we’re all extremely lucky to have the staff in this office that we do,” Skoglund told the commission.

“They’re experienced, they’re dedicated, they’re brilliant and honestly they are some of the best people you’ll every encounter anywhere,” he said.

Ethics Commission Chair Nicholas Hale thanked Skoglund for his service.

“I know that at times it has been tough, but you persevered through that and I think that the commission in my tenure has been quite productive,” Hale said.

Skoglund is leaving following three court cases that went against the ethics commission, including two decisions that undercut an ongoing campaign finance investigation into whether campaign contributions were illegally made in the name of another.

Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson threw out two subpoenas issued by the ethics commission as part of its investigation.

She dismissed one issued to Matt Billingsley, chairman of a political action committee that supported Republican candidates, and another issued to the chief of staff of former House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr.

The judge awarded about $86,000 in legal fees in the Billingsley case although there stand to be more legal bills for the ethics commission in the coming weeks.

And a federal judge recently agreed to permanently stop Kansas ethics officials from applying the state’s definition of a political action committee to an Overland Park neighborhood group called Fresh Vision OP.

Late last year, Skoglund lost a campaign finance case he brought before the ethics commission against Patrick Kucera, who ran for Kansas governor in 2018 calling himself the “entrepreneurial evangelist.”

After a more than three-hour hearing, the commission unanimously concluded that there wasn’t sufficiently clear and convincing evidence to show that Kucera violated campaign finance law during his campaign for governor.

Kucera had been accused of paying himself more than $10,000 for personal use out of his campaign account.

In his announcement, Skoglund addressed the ongoing state campaign finance cases, something that he hasn’t done in the past.

“Much has been written about ongoing litigation in Kansas state courts. I do not typically comment out of professional decorum regardless of what other attorneys do, but will offer this one note: The commission will unquestionably prevail on appeal.

“Of this, there is no doubt.”

Skoglund and the ethics commission started to get more scrutiny three years ago when the agency started issuing subpoenas to legislators and Republican political operatives as part of wide-ranging campaign finance investigation involving some of the most influential players in Kansas politics.

In 2022, lawmakers took up a proposal that would have led to Skoglund losing his job after it was revealed that he didn’t disclose that his law license was suspended when he was identified during an ethics hearing as a “licensed attorney.”

Lawmakers considered requiring the executive director to be a licensed attorney in good standing – meaning their license wasn’t suspended – for three years before July 1, 2022 or the date of hire, whichever is later.

The bill would have immediately cost Skoglund his job after a nonprofit group engaged in a fight with the ethics commission over whether it should be labeled as a political action committee and forced to reveal its donors.

Lawmakers later backed off the proposal.

Senate President Ty Masterson had been one of Skoglund’s more vocal critics in the Legislature, suggesting that he had overstepped his bounds.

“For years, Mark Skoglund conducted himself in a way that had a chilling effect on Kansans’ free speech rights and used taxpayer dollars for lawfare in an inconsistent and often haphazard manner.,” Masterson said in a statement.

“It is my hope that the Governmental Ethics Commission will move their agency in a direction towards their original mission of promoting transparency and timely disclosure and away from infringing on First Amendment rights,” he said.

Last week, Josh Ney, who has defended clients before the commission, criticized Skoglund before the House elections committee.

He said the environment had changed at the ethics commission since Skoglund assumed the role of executive director after Carol Williams retired as director.

He  there was a “reasonableness” to the commission when Williams was the executive director, saying she didn’t think of herself in a “gotcha” role.

He said the candidates and political consultants felt comfortable calling Williams and inquiring about what they could and could not do.

“There was this, ‘We’re going to treat your right and if you call up Carol, she’ll at least tell you what to do, what not to do,'” Ney said.

That changed in the last seven or eight years, Ney told lawmakers.

“There is a culture of fear in Kansas,” Ney said.

“There are two sets of laws,” he said.

“There’s one that’s on paper and there’s the other set of laws that aren’t in any regulation, aren’t in statute, not in any advisory opinions, but they’re in the minds of staff and the prosecutors” at the ethics commission.

Skoglund also drew harsh criticism from the Fresh Vision group that sought to have an ethics complaint dismissed because he didn’t disclose that his law license was suspended when he was identified during a hearing as a “licensed attorney.”

The group said Skoglund was obligated to reveal the status of his law license when questions about whether he was a licensed attorney were raised during the hearing.

The group noted that Skoglund’s law license had been suspended since 2015.

When the controversy erupted in 2022, Skoglund said he chose not to maintain the law license because he wasn’t using it and the license is expensive to maintain.

Skoglund later reactivated the license, saying he hoped it would resolve any questions surrounding his law license.

Two years ago, the ethics commission with Skoglund at the helm took on the Legislature when it criticized legislation considered by a House committee.

In a series of social media posts, the ethics commission urged opposition against legislation,  calling the bill “shocking,” saying it would “undermine all campaign enforcement” by the agency.

Republican state Rep. Pat Proctor, chair of the House Elections Committee, said he was “deeply disappointed” that the executive director of the Governmental Ethics Commission decided to engage in “political mudslinging” on social media.

He previously practiced law at the Sanders Warren & Russell law firm in the Kansas City area.

He has a law degree from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kansas.