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March 26, 2024 |  By: Jason Hancock - Missouri Independent

Embattled Missouri House speaker switches races, now running for secretary of state

dean plocher

By Jason Hancock - Missouri Independent

Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher, fending off an ethics investigation into allegations of misconduct, announced Tuesday he will drop out of the lieutenant governor’s race and instead seek the GOP nomination for secretary of state. 

The announcement comes on the final day candidates can file to run for the August primary. And it also comes the same day as the House Ethics Committee will hold its fifth hearing of the legislative session in its ongoing investigation of Plocher, a Des Peres Republican. 

Plocher has denied any wrongdoing, largely painting his woes as a conspiracy whipped up by “leftist” media, Democrats and disgruntled staff. 

But the switch to the secretary of state race has managed to rekindle more recent criticism over Plocher’s decision to arrange a series of meetings in the state Capitol between GOP legislators and an out-of-state technology vendor that focuses on the initiative petition process. 

The secretary of state’s office oversees the initiative petition process. 

In announcing his new campaign, Plocher made only passing reference to the scandals that have dominated his final year as speaker, saying in a press release that “the liberal press can attack me all they want, but as your speaker and when I am your secretary of state, I will never stop fighting for the people of Missouri.”

Instead, Plocher focused his announcement on “ensuring only American citizens vote in state elections” and touting his legislative record on abortion, gun rights and tax cuts.

“Real leadership takes action,” he said, “and I am going to keep leading.”

Plocher joins an already crowded Republican primary that includes Valentina Gomez, a real estate investor also making her first run for office; Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller; state Sen. Denny Hoskins of Warrensburg; state Rep. Adam Schwadron of St. Charles; and Jamie Corley, a longtime GOP Congressional staffer and leader of an abandoned campaign to legalize abortion.

Plocher joined the Missouri House in 2016, winning a special election for a seat vacated when then-Speaker John Diehl was forced to resign over revelations he had been sending sexually inappropriate text messages to a 19-year-old legislative intern. 

During his time in the legislature, Plocher has championed bills to legalize sports betting, make it harder to amend the state constitution and lower the corporate income tax. He also pushed for legislation allowing the state to take over control of the St. Louis police department and prosecutor’s office.

Prior to becoming a member of the House, Plocher served as a prosecuting attorney and municipal judge in St. Louis County. He is a graduate of Ladue Horton Watkins High School and received a degree in political science with a classical civilizations minor from Middlebury College. He received his law degree from St. Louis University.

Ethics investigation

In September, Plocher was accused of engaging in “unethical and perhaps unlawful conduct” as part of a months-long push to get the House to award an $800,000 contract to a private company to manage constituent information. Nonpartisan staff accused Plocher of threatening their jobs over criticism of the proposed contract. 

A month later, The Independent reported that Plocher had on numerous occasions over the last five years illegally sought taxpayer reimbursement from the legislature for airfare, hotels and other travel costs already paid for by his campaign.

As those scandals swirled, Plocher fired his chief of staff. According to the Kansas City Star, that got the attention of the House Ethics Committee, which began looking into whether the staffer was protected as a whistleblower when he was fired.

Plocher even garnered attention from federal law enforcement, with the FBI attending the September legislative hearing where the constituent management contract was discussed and voted down. The FBI, which investigates public corruption, also conducted several interviews about Plocher. 

In December, The Independent reported Plocher spent $60,000 in taxpayer money to renovate his Capitol office, including converting another lawmaker’s office into a makeshift liquor cabinet Plocher referred to as his “butler’s pantry.” 

Most recently, Plocher drew scrutiny when his office arranged Capitol meetings between key Republican lawmakers and the owner of Western Petition Systems LLC. The Oklahoma-based technology firm signed a $300,000 contract with the Oklahoma secretary of state’s office in 2021 to offer technical assistance for signature verification in the initiative petition process. 

Plocher downplayed the significance of the meetings and said he has no position on whether Missouri should follow Oklahoma’s lead.

But the meetings, and the similarity to Plocher’s unsuccessful push outside the normal bidding process to hire a private company to manage constituent data, drew criticism. 

Republican state Rep. Scott Cupps said at the time that acting as an emissary for a potential vendor sounds more like the actions of a lobbyist than a legislator.