With the House tilting more conservative after Tuesday’s election, Republicans Dan Hawkins and Ron Highland are campaigning to unseat moderate Don Hineman as the chamber’s majority leader.
Conservatives appeared to have gained eight seats in the House Republican caucus after Tuesday’s election, giving them a 53-33 edge over moderates in the chamber. It’s a fluid margin that can change depending on the issue.
However, provisional ballots are still being counted, which potentially could change the outcome in a couple narrow races in which Republicans were leading after Tuesday’s vote.
Just Friday, counting of advanced mail-in ballots in Harvey County turned the race in favor of Democrat Tim Hodge.
With about 280 provisional ballots to be counted, Hodge leads former hospital executive Steve Kelly by 17 votes in Newton.
Hawkins and Highland said in interviews this week they were campaigning for the post now that the House is more conservative after several moderates were defeated in the primary or the general election.
“The makeup of the body has changed,” said Hawkins, who represents House District 100 in Wichita and was just elected to a fourth term in the House this week. He ran for assistant majority leader in 2016 and lost to a moderate.
Hineman’s leadership position has generally been viewed as precarious after he was elected majority leader in 2016 by three votes after moderates enjoyed an electoral resurgence.
But 2018 was not kind to moderate Republicans either in the primary or in the general election. They lost eight seats in the primary election and a couple more in the general, giving the conservatives firmer control on the House caucus.
Hineman said he is running again for the position. Even as the House caucus shifts to the right, Hineman said he thinks he can unite the Republican caucus against the “liberal excesses” of a Democratic executive branch.
“There will be a Democrat administration in the executive branch,” Hineman said.
“I think that argues for an amplified need for a unified majority Republican caucus. That means we need leadership that reflects the breadth of membership in the majority caucus.”
Hawkins, however, said he think conservatives were shut out with Hineman as the majority leader.
“The more moderate side of our caucus ruled on most everything,” he said. “I think this will change that.”
“We want to have the ability to be heard,” Hawkins said. “The majority leader is not just the majority leader of the right faction or the left faction of the caucus. It’s the majority leader of the caucus. You need to have the ability to cross over.”
Highland, who also was just elected to a fourth term from House District 51 in Wamego, said he thought Hineman had worked against conservatives the last two years.
Hineman said he always tried to operate the majority leader’s office in an even-handed way. “If some members felt slighted or excluded, that was certainly never the intention,” he said.
“To the extent that they’ve identified problems, I am certainly willing to work with them and adjust the way my office operates in the future,” he said.
Highland, meanwhile, described Hineman’s chances of holding onto the majority leader position as “pretty poor.”
“We have the votes to win,” Highland said. “That’s just a numerical fact, if we stay together. It’ll be interesting.”
