The state ethics commission has amassed legal bills exceeding $300,000 after a Shawnee County judge awarded legal fees to the chief of staff of the former House speaker after the agency largely abandoned an ongoing ethics investigation.
Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson awarded $70,000 to Paje Resner, who served as the chief of staff to former House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr.
Watson had earlier denied a petition from the ethics commission seeking to enforce a subpoena against Resner after finding that the state law used as the basis for enforcing the subpoena was unconstitutionally vague.
The commission has since dropped efforts to enforce the subpoena for Resner and others, signaling an end to its three-year investigation of Republican Party leaders and political operatives that had been led by former Executive Director Mark Skoglund.
Resner declined to comment, and the ethics commission has not commented on the mounting legal judgments.
The latest bill for legal fees brings to $314,285 the amount in judgments issued against the ethics commission after losing a federal case over state campaign finance law and losing efforts to enforce subpoenas in the investigation centered on the Republican Party.
Last month, a federal judge ordered the commission to pay nearly $100,000 in attorneys’ fees after an Overland Park neighborhood group successfully challenged a state campaign finance law in court.
U.S. District Judge Dan Crabtree ordered the ethics commission to pay $98,500 in fees to the attorneys for Fresh Vision OP after he agreed to block the agency from applying the state’s definition of a political action committee to the group.
Meanwhile, Watson has ordered the commission to pay $115,785 in legal fees to Matthew Billinglsey, chair of the Lift Up PAC that was the focus of the commission’s investigation.
Watson also awarded $15,000 in attorney fees to former Johnson County Republican Party Chair Fabian Shepard after the state dropped efforts to enforce a subpoena against him.
And Watson also awarded $15,000 in legal fees to former Shawnee County Republican Party Chair Cheryl Reynolds, who also had been subpoenaed as part of the investigation that was dropped against her.
The ethics commission has an $878,555 budget for fiscal year 2026, which starts July 1. About $560,000 of that money is state general fund money.
However, the agency has about $310,000 in its fund balance for 2026.
It’s not clear just how the attorney fees would be paid, but the money could be approved by the Legislature or by the Special Joint Committee on Claims Against the State.
The judgment also could be covered by the tort claims fund, although it’s not clear whether it would be or not.
Skoglund stepped down as the executive director in January for another job, 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.
“The fault for these fees lies solely with the former activist executive director who used his agency to engage in lawfare that infringed on the First Amendment rights of Kansans, and used Kansans’ tax dollars to do it, which may lead to a claim against the state,” Senate Ty Masterson said recently.
“Lawfare burdens all of us, not just those it was intended to target.”
