Three former county Republican leaders on Tuesday urged a judge to throw out subpoenas issued as part of a wide-ranging ethics commission investigation that appears to center on GOP consultant Jared Suhn.
A lawyer for David Thorne, Scott Bishop and Cheryl Reynolds urged Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson to dismiss the subpoenas, which were among many circulated earlier this year when the ethics investigation first exploded onto the scene at the Capitol last spring.
All three are volunteers.
Thorne has previously served as chair of the Sedgwick County Republican Party, Bishop is the former treasurer of the Sedgwick County Republican Party and Reynolds is former chair of the Shawnee County Republicans and is treasurer of the state Republican Party.
Suhn’s lawyer was not immediately prepared to comment Tuesday night.
While the hearing focused on whether Thorne, Bishop and Reynolds should answer the subpoenas, it did shed some light for the first time on the nature of the ethics probe.
Testimony indicated that ethics officials are looking at whether there was an effort to circumvent campaign finance limits from political action committees to a state party.
Donations from political actions committees to state parties are capped at $5,000 each calendar year. County parties can contribute up to $15,000 to the state party.
Testimony indicated there was a request that a contribution made to the Johnson County Republican Party be passed on to the state GOP, allowing more money to flow to the state party than would have otherwise been allowed by the PAC.
“There is suspicion that there is a violation of the contribution limits from political committees to a party committee,” ethics commission general counsel Brett Berry testified on Tuesday in explaining the scope of the subpoenas.
The subpoenas seek communications that Thorne, Bishop and Reynolds had with any number of Republican leaders across the state including texts, emails and social media messages about various financial transactions involving county parties and PACs.
They were among several that have been litigated in court in recent months, including subpoenas issued to former Sedgwick County Republican Chairman Dalton Glasscock and former Johnson County Republican Party Treasurer Dustin Morris.
Another hearing is set for next month in Shawnee County District Court where former Johnson County Party Chairman Fabian Shepard is set to challenge a similar broad subpoena in court but in front of a separate judge.
Watson said it would be a couple weeks before she would rule on whether the subpoena should be enforced.
The ethics commission asked the judge to close Tuesday’s hearing, noting that its investigations are confidential under state law. The judge rejected the request.
Watson said she could only close the hearing unless there was an identified safety, property or privacy interest or a public or private harm that outweighs the public interest in access to the courts.
Watson said she didn’t believe the ethics commission demonstrated any kind of safety, property or privacy interest or a public or private harm.
“Given the subject matter of today’s proceedings, I think the public interests is very, verty strong in hearing what is being presented to the court,” she said.
Representing the three party officials, attorney Chet Compton argued the subpoenas were overly broad and effectively violated their rights to free speech and freedom of association.
Compton relied on a 2016 state law intended to discourage lawsuits aimed at limiting free speech on matters of public interest that requires ethics officials to show a likelihood of prevailing in their effort to get the court to enforce the subpoena.
“You almost couldn’t script a case any better as an example of a claim concerning a party’s First Amendment freedom than this one,” Compton said.
“There is no alleged wrongdoing by Bishop, Thorne or Reynolds,” Compton said.
“But they’re targeted because of their political association,” he said, “and they are told by the government to produce all of their communications with everyone they’re associated with politically.”
While Suhn was mentioned as a target of the investigation in court filings and in testimony, Compton said the political consultant has no connection to the party officials who were subpoenaed by the ethics commission.
Court documents indicate that the commission has labeled a communication from Suhn to an unidentified third party as a “smoking gun” in the case.
“What we’re here for today is not a case against Jared Suhn,” he said.
“The claim does not have to do with contribution limits,” he said. “The question here is about the subpoena.”
Compton suggested that the state ethics commission already has its “smoking gun” against its “target,” Jared Suhn.
“So what are we doing here requesting all of these communications from people who have no apparent connection with the target of its investigation?” Compton asked.
“Is the information available from other sources? Of course they are,” he said.
“How about Jared Suhn? Why not go after Jared Suhn?”
Berry said the investigation is still unfolding, explaining that ethics officials need correspondence to show the intent behind the financial transactions.
“It’s one of those violations of the law that really the contribution in and of itself – the record of it – is not enough,” he said.
Berry said Suhn “may well be a target” but added that the ethics commission hadn’t yet identified all of the possible targets.
He said the ethics commission didn’t have enough information to determine everyone who might be involved.
“We want to wait until our investigation is concluded,” he said.
The lengthy subpoenas, among other things, ask for communications about transactions of $5,000 each to the Republican central committees in Johnson County, Shawnee County, Sedgwick County, the Kansas Republican Party and the Republican House Campaign Committee from the Right Way Kansas PAC for Economic Growth.
They also seek information about transfers or contributions to the Right Way Kansas PAC or the Lift Up Kansas PAC from the Republican State Leadership Committee.
Formed in 2019, the Lift Up Kansas political action committee was started by Matthew Billingsley of Topeka, who once served as the chief of staff to former Revenue Secretary Sam Williams during former Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration.
The Right Way PAC for Economic Growth’s treasurer is western Kansas businessman H.J. Swender.
Court documents challenging the subpoenas question the ethics commission’s investigation into what was described as a “pass-through scheme” from a PAC to a state party.
The lawyer for the Republicans called the investigation “novel” in a court filing.
The ethics commission “does not describe on what basis a violation has putatively occurred, it simply concludes that if a transfer occurred in the mere context of mere suggestions by political actors, there must be a violation,” according to a filing on behalf of Reynolds.
“At this juncture, and with overly conclusory evidence and broad nature of the ‘findings of fact and conclusions of law’ regarding the disclosed activities at issue, the (ethics commission’s) attempt to expand the law into uncharted territory falls woefully short.
“All the while, the defendants’ constitutional rights are viewed by the agency as ‘subserviant’ to the government’s dragnet tactics.”
