Outgoing Democratic state Treasurer Lynn Rogers might not be done with politics yet.
As his term draws to a close, Rogers is considering running for chair of the state Democratic Party next year when it chooses a new leader.
Current Chair Vicki Hiatt says she plans to seek a third term leading the party, although she notes the convention is two months away and “things can always change.”
“I’ve had a lot of people call and talk to me,” Rogers said in an interview.
“I haven’t decided for sure. I do think there’s a lot of things we can build on within the party,” he said.
Democrats won the governor’s race and the 3rd District congressional race this year.
They also gained a seat in the state House this year after flipping three Republican districts in Johnson County.
There were several other races across the state won by Republicans but were decided within a range of about 150 votes.
“We need to be building the party for the future,” Rogers said.
“I’m just talking to people about that, what they want, what they would like to see and what could possibly be done,” he said.
The potential change in leadership comes at a difficult time for the party.
Earlier this year, The Kansas City Star reported turmoil at the Kansas Democratic Party where the executive director had been accused of bullying employees and fostering a toxic work environment.
Four employees told The Star they quit in part because of the executive director.
And last month, the state ethics commission fined two former volunteer treasurers of the party for signing off on the party’s campaign finance reports that failed to accurately track hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial transactions in years past.
Rogers wouldn’t place odds on his chances of running, saying he wasn’t a betting man.
Rogers, 64, said he is now transitioning out of the treasurer’s office. He said he’s not old enough to retire and thinks he could return to the private sector.
“I’ve to got finish one thing before I even think about the next,” he said.
Rogers was elected to the state Senate in 2016. He served for more than 16 years on the Wichita Board of Education.
He served as lieutenant governor to Gov. Laura Kelly for about two years before she named him state treasurer to replace Republican Jake LaTurner, who was elected to Congress.
He lost to Steven Johnson last month in a bid for a full four-year term.
Talk about his potential candidacy for party chair emerged Thursday on Twitter when he was criticized by a progressive Democrat for leaning too much to the right.
The critic has since locked down his tweets and they are now not open to the public, although several Democrats came to his defense.
“People can and do change,” Johnson County Democrat Anne Pritchett posted on Twitter.
“Lynn is a great Democrat today,” she wrote.
“In KS, we have literally hundreds of new Democrats who were GOP until Trump was elected,” she tweeted.
“I’d hate to tell them they aren’t welcome because they were once members of the GOP.”
Another anonymous poster under the handle @_R4ng3_ disagreed.
“This position requires unequivocal support for democratic values. A history of being on the right side and fighting for democratic values. A recent republican is unfit.”
Rogers said he was a Republican before running for the Senate in 2016.
He’s not the only Democrat in the Legislature who has left Republican Party in recent years.
Others include former state Sen. Barbara Bollier of Mission Hills, state Rep. Stephanie Clayton of Overland Park and Dinah Sykes of Lenexa, the top Democrat in the Senate.
Bollier was the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020 with the support of the national party. She lost to Republican Roger Marshall.
Rogers said any Republicans he supported in the past were running in nonpartisan school board races or city council races.
“I’m a big believer that municipal and school board races are nonpartisan for a reason,” he said. “We need to elect people that support public education in the school board race.”
Rogers said the Democratic Party can’t just shut out Republicans.
“If we want to win races, we have to appeal to the Republicans to get them to either switch parties or switch votes so they’ll vote blue,” he said.
“What I found in both the statewide races that I ran in was that a lot of Republicans, their party has left them,” he said.
“As Democrats, we can appeal to them,” he said.
