Republican state Rep. Michael Murphy announced Friday morning that he’s running for the Senate seat now represented by Republican incumbent Mark Steffen.
Murphy, of Sylvia, revealed he filed to run for the state Senate after Steffen informed him that he didn’t plan to seek a second term representing Senate District 34.
“Sen. Steffen has done a great job but has informed me he will not be running,” Murphy said in a Facebook post.
“Our district deserves solid Christian conservative representation in Topeka. I have delivered that as a representative and will in the Senate.”
Steffen could not be reached for comment Friday morning by phone or text message.
The Hutchinson anesthesiologist had emerged as one of the more colorful members of the Senate during his term in office, whether it was being investigated by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts or encouraging a visitor to the Capitol to convert to Christianity.
Last year, Steffen made one of the biggest splashes of the legislative session when he announced he was under investigation by the Board of Healing Arts during a committee hearing in January.
Steffen said he had been under investigation for a year and a half as a way of trying to stop him from advocating for using off-label medications to treat COVID-19.
Steffen later told his followers on Facebook that he had been notified that the board had ended its investigation.
He had backed a bill requiring pharmacists to fill ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine prescriptions for treating COVID-19 while broadening a religious exemption for vaccine mandates for public schools and day care centers.
He also was stripped of a committee leadership position by Senate President Ty Masterson after holding out support for a new congressional map during the 2022 session.
Earlier this year, Steffen made more headlines when it was revealed that he was recorded trying to convert a Muslim woman to Christianity.
Steffen denied he made the remarks, but it was reported that he asked a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter if “you are interested in being converted.”
He said, “Would you like to talk about God and the emptiness in one’s life?”
Murphy would be the sixth House member to run for the Senate, joining Adam Thomas, Tory Blew, Bill Clifford, Stephen Owens and John Eplee.
Murphy now represents House District 114, which includes parts of south Hutchinson, Pretty Prairie and Abbyville. Senate District 34 covers some of the same areas.
Murphy made waves last session when he appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio show to drum up support for a bill that would have blacklisted state wealth managers who engage in ideological boycotts based on environmental, social and governance investment principles.
Beck came out in support of Murphy’s bill, which would have required the state to keep a registry of finance companies that engage in that type of boycott.
The bill also would have required the state to divest from financial companies that engage in ideological boycotts.
Beck unloaded on the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and the Kansas Bankers Association, which have urged lawmakers to take a careful approach to how they regulate businesses that might employ environmental, social and governance investing guidelines.
They have cautioned against overreacting to all the anger over ESG investing by imposing more mandates based on how those businesses choose to operate.
Beck saw that as a kind of betrayal of conservative principles.
“If you belong to the chamber of commerce, get out of the chamber of commerce,” Beck told his listeners on 300 radio stations. “They are not your small-business friend.”
Beck urged his listeners to “burn up the phone lines” calling Kansas lawmakers to support the boycott bill, which he described as “the most comprehensive” anti-ESG bill in the country.
Murphy added that listeners should call the House speaker’s office and the Senate president’s office as well.
