The Missouri House Ethics Committee on Wednesday wrapped up an investigation into an obscene text message sent from one lawmaker to another during September’s legislative special session.
State Rep. Lane Roberts, a Republican from Joplin and chairman of the ethics committee, said after the panel adjourned that he does not plan any more hearings into the matter or a second complaint that was also on the Wednesday agenda.
During the nearly five-hour hearing, state Reps. Cecelie Wiliams, a Republican from Dittmer, and Jeremy Dean, a Democrat from Springfield, testified about the Sept. 4 text.
The text was sent while the General Assembly was meeting in a special session called by Gov. Mike Kehoe to revise Missouri’s congressional district boundaries and pass a ballot measure asking voters to change how majorities are calculated for constitutional amendments approved by initiative petition.
Dean was participating in a Democratic sit-in in the House chamber when he sent the text to Williams, who was in a hearing of the House Elections Committee.
President Donald Trump pressured Kehoe and Missouri Republicans to change the district boundaries to make it likely a Republican could win the 5th District seat held by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat.
In the text, Dean included a description of an oral sex act with the president and questioned how Republicans could talk while engaged in it.
The text message became public when a screenshot of it was shared on social media by former Republican state Rep. Adam Schwadron.
Neither Dean nor Williams would comment Wednesday when approached after testifying to the committee. Hearings of the ethics committee are closed and Roberts did not say what, if any, punishment the panel’s report will recommend.
“The information will go to Rep. Dean, and then he has a period of time to determine whether or not he will object to the findings,” Roberts said in an interview after the committee adjourned.
Under the committee’s rules, it must publish a report within 45 days of concluding its investigation. The committee can dismiss the complaint if it determines it is not well founded or seek punishment ranging from a letter of reproval to a recommendation that a member be expelled from the House.
Whether there will be another hearing to complete the report, Roberts said, “depends on whether or not Rep. Dean agrees with or objects to the findings.”
The second complaint, Roberts said, will be referred to the Missouri Ethics Commission because “they’re more set up for the nature of that complaint.”
He said he couldn’t disclose any details or the name of the person who is the subject of the complaint.
At the start of Wednesday’s hearing Roberts told the other nine members of the committee that its review of the complaints will be impartial.
“Whatever decisions this committee renders will be based on the evidence, conscience and a strict, scrupulous appeal to the rule,” Roberts said. “It will not be based on some concern about threats of retaliation. It’s important to make that very clear.
“I have faith that we will make a conscionable decision.”
When the complaint against Dean was filed, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune of Kansas City said Democrats would be watching to see whether Republicans would try to make an example of him. She said she had warned House Speaker Jon Patterson that “my caucus has receipts, too.”
Aune stripped Dean of his committee assignments after the text became public.
On Wednesday, Aune declined to say whether Democrats had fulfilled that threat with a complaint, citing the confidentiality of ethics committee deliberations.
The 10-member committee is the only one in the House that split evenly between Republicans and Democrats; all other committees match the partisan ratio of the House, where there are 107 Republicans, 52 Democrats and four vacancies.
Earlier this year, the committee issued a letter of reproval to state Rep. Justin Sparks, a Republican from Wildwood, over his involvement in an appropriation related to his employment with the National Law Enforcement Foundation. The committee reported it found “no support for the claims made in the complaint,” but found Sparks took “one to three votes with an apparent conflict of interest.”
The committee’s rules were changed this year to increase its independence.
This article was updated at 3 p.m. Oct. 30 to correct the name of the committee hearing the special session legislation.