A special investigative House committee Wednesday deadlocked on how to address a complaint lodged against Democratic state Rep. Ford Carr over allegations that he exhibited a pattern of behavior that created a hostile work environment.
The six-member committee – three Republicans and Democrats – deadlocked on party lines to recommend a reprimand for Carr following a recent fight at a downtown Topeka pub and comments he made two years ago about another lawmaker being a “House negro.”
The committee also deadlocked along party lines on whether the complaint against Carr should be dismissed. The committee did agree – after some discussion – to deliver a report to the full House about its deliberations.
The committee’s action came about a month after the committee similarly couldn’t agree on whether to a dismiss a complaint that Carr filed against Republican Rep. Nick Hoheisel for directing a profanity toward him and disrupting House proceedings.
The select committee could have dismissed the complaint outright or recommended a reprimand, censure or expulsion to the full House chamber. In five similar types of complaints dating to 1951, none of those actions have been taken.
The committee made its decision after hearing more than two hours of testimony Wednesday from Carr and Republican state Rep. Leah Howell of Derby.
Howell’s complaint accused Carr of repeatedly exhibiting “a pattern of violent rhetoric and behavior creating a hostile work environment inside and outside the statehouse.”
She cited the “House negro” comment that Carr made on the House floor during a late-night session of the Legislature in April 2023 that many believed was directed toward the late Democratic state Rep. Marvin Robinson of Kansas City
She also cited the confrontation Carr had with Wichita City Councilman Brandon Johnson last January in the Celtic Fox where she said Carr used the “N-word” five times during the incident in which state Democratic Rep. Henry Helgerson was shoved to the floor.
“Each time Rep. Carr engages in misconduct, he doubles down, expressing his intent to continue and even escalate his behavior,” Howell told the committee.
“This is evident in his interviews, writings, and public statements at the well,” she said.
“His actions have targeted colleagues and officials across party lines as well as staff members.”
Democratic state Rep. Dan Osman supported dismissing the complaint, saying that the “House negro” issue raised in the complaint was dealt with by Republican leadership in 2023 and the fight was already addressed by the Democratic House leadership.
“I don’t think every single incident that takes place is fair game for a complaint,” the Overland Park lawmaker said.
“A complaint can be filed for any reason whatsoever. Both of those matters had been settled.
“I guess the question becomes, is any matter ever settled?
“Or can anything be always brought up at a future time?” Osman said.
Republican state Rep. Bob Lewis of Garden City, chair of the committee, said the case was about the “institutional integrity” of the Legislature regardless of race.
“I do believe there is a standard of integrity that applies to everybody in the body regardless of their makeup – Black, white, yellow, woman, man, homosexual, whatever,” Lewis said.
“We’re all people and we’re all elected to the House and the rules make it clear there is a standard of conduct that everybody in the House is expected to obey,” he said.
“I reject the notion that there’s a different standard for different people,” he said.
“I didn’t quite understand the standard that Rep. Carr thought was applicable to him, and I find that troubling,” he said.
After the hearing, Carr said he wouldn’t change how he works in the Legislature.
“I represent my people the way I represent my people,” he said. “I am going to continue to be me. I can’t be any other way.”
During the hearing Wednesday, Carr suggested it would easy to treat a Black lawmaker differently than a white lawmaker.
“It’s amazing that when someone who’s Black says certain things, they can be looked at one way,” he said.
“However, we don’t look at them the same way when it’s someone who is white.”
He suggested at one point that white lawmakers shouldn’t be establishing what constitutes appropriate conduct for an African American lawmaker.
“I do believe there is a standard of conduct,” Carr said in response to a question from Republican state Rep. Shannon Francis of Liberal.
“However, I do not believe that you as a white representative can dictate what my conduct should be as a Black representative,” he said.
“That sounds awfully 1950ish to me, you know, 1930ish maybe,” he said. “It’s not your place to dictate what takes place in my culture,” he said.
“I know you feel like it might be,” he said. “But it’s not.”
Francis pressed further, asking Carr about the standard of conduct for a lawmaker.
“There is a standard in certain situations,” he said. “However, there is also a First Amendment to the Constitution that allows the freedom of speech.”
He added later, “What’s on trial here is racism in a Black man.”
“There are certain things that I’m not supposed to be able to say or that I am not supposed to be able to do because you don’t feel like they’re acceptable,” he told the panel.
“Some of the things I do are cultural,” he said. “Just like you have things you believe in that come from your background, so do I.
“I represent the people that I represent,” he said. “And because you don’t like it, because it hurts your feelings, that is absolutely no reason for us to be here.”
Republican state Rep. Susan Humphries of Wichita told Carr that the primary question at issue in the complaint is Carr’s conduct in the Legislature and whether he’s scaring and threatening his colleagues.
Humphries said Carr essentially called her a racist when he suggested that Republicans were racist.
“I didn’t call anyone racist,” he said, at which she asked incredulously, “Really?”
“Not by name, but by group certainly,” Humphries responded. “I am offended when I am called racist. I’ll be honest.”
Carr fired back, “I didn’t call you a racist.”
“The only reason that you’re offended is because you feel like somehow that it might point to you,” he said.
Earlier this legislative session, Carr made a race-related comment when questioning another GOP lawmaker at the podium on a gun education bill.
“It’s good to see that there are some members of the Republican Party that are either not racist enough that they don’t mind coming to answer my questions or not so fearful that they wouldn’t either,” Carr told Republican state Rep. Bill Rhiley.
The comment Carr made at the podium sparked the incident with Hoheisel, who called the remark “bullshit.” Carr filed a complaint against Hoheisel that was dismissed.
A letter Carr wrote on House letterhead in February 2024 said that a “racist ideology seems to be ingrained in the foundation of most members of our Republican Party.”
Carr told the committee he didn’t use the “N-word” in his confrontation with the Wichita City Council member.
He told the panel he used the “N-word” ending in an “-a” compared to the “N-word” using an “er.” He said those usages were culturally different.
“Not once did I use the word nigger,” he said. “That’s not a word that I use. That’s not a word that we use in my culture.”
He said the N-word ending in an “-a” can be a term of endearment or mean “dude,” “man” or “guy.”
“In our culture, that’s the way we communicate,” Carr said. “You may not like it, but I am not here…to do things that you might like.”
Carr also fought back against the idea that he referred to another Democratic lawmaker as a “House negro” while speaking at the podium two years ago.
Carr had raised questions on the House floor about how $250,000 came to be added to the budget for the Quindaro Ruins, once a station on the Underground Railroad that the late state Rep. Marvin Robinson advocated for long before he was elected to the Legislature.
The Wichita lawmaker accused Robinson of selling out his constituents for supporting bills favored by Republicans such as limiting food assistance and restricting the ability to vote.
He evoked the phrase “house Negro,” a pejorative term suggesting that someone would support the white slave owner at the expense of other slaves.
“I’m not saying that anyone has made those trades. I’m just saying these are trades I personally wouldn’t make,” he said that night.
“I would never sacrifice my integrity, my character or those things that have adverse effects on my people for anything that someone may be able to offer me,” he said.
“What I wouldn’t trade would be a vote for something like the James Crow Esquire version of critical race theory, nor would I sacrifice the vote for Medicaid expansion because I certainly know that would help those people in my district,” he said.
“I would never trade my vote so that those people in my neighborhood, my constituents who I support, would never have the opportunity to look at me and think that I might be one of those house Negroes,” he said.
Carr said those comments weren’t addressing Robinson, although committee members pointed to a newspaper headline over a column with his byline reading, “Yes, I called my fellow Black Kansas lawmaker a ‘House Negro’ and I regret nothing.”
Carr said he didn’t write the headline nor the story. But Rep. Lewis, chair of the House investigative committee, noted that Carr’s byline was on the story.
Lewis asked who wrote the story. Carr said he assumed it was Bonita Gooch, the editor of the publication, but said lawmakers would have to ask her.
He suggested that sometimes news articles are assembled from a “collage of information” that came from other places.
Lewis asked Carr why he didn’t call the newspaper and disavow that he wrote the piece, although Carr acknowledged agreeing with a passage within the story.
Other lawmakers on the committee said that the general consensus was that Carr’s “House negro” comment was aimed at Robinson.
“Although I’m going to grant that you did not say Rep. Robinson’s name…I knew exactly who you were talking about,” said Democratic state Rep. Barbara Ballard of Lawrence.
Carr said he could have been referring to Republican state Rep. Patrick Penn of Wichita, another Black lawmaker in the House.
But Ballard said that Robinson became very emotional that night about the comment and knew that Carr was targeting him.
Humphries also was skeptical about Carr’s claim that he didn’t address the “House negro” comment toward Robinson.
“It wasn’t just Democrats that knew who you were talking about,” she said. “I think it was everybody.
“You may not have been talking about Marvin, but you have to know good and well that’s the way it came off,” she said.
