Dean Plocher’s final weeks as speaker saw push for new hires, loss of liquor pantry

by Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent
February 7, 2025

Jon Patterson still had three weeks before he officially took over as speaker of the Missouri House, but in mid-December he was already busy putting out fires from his soon-to-be predecessor. 

The Lee’s Summit Republican had caught wind that staff for then-Speaker Dean Plocher were making moves to fill open legislative jobs before Patterson took over. 

Plocher had endured more than a year of scandal, including allegations that he threatened to fire nonpartisan staff who raised concerns about his conduct. Now, it appeared his office was trying to make final personnel moves while he had one foot out the door.  

Patterson wrote to Plocher on Dec. 17, accusing his chief of staff, Hampton Williams, of “subverting the authority” of the House’s incoming chief clerk, Joe Engler.

“Mr. Engler has also indicated to me that Mr. Williams intends to collect resumes, conduct interviews and make position selections,” Patterson wrote in the email obtained by The Independent through Missouri’s Sunshine Law. “Before anything moves forward, I am requesting a phone conversation this afternoon with you to discuss this matter further.”

The hires never happened, and Plocher left office due to term limits when the new legislature convened in early January. 

Records obtained by The Independent, however, show the drama over last-minute hiring wasn’t the only behind-the-scenes turmoil playing out as Plocher was gearing up to leave office. 

Plocher’s office steadfastly refused to pay the attorney who was hired by the House to assist the investigation into his alleged misconduct last year, ignoring the recommendation of the chamber’s general counsel. And he brushed aside attempts by Patterson’s office to get him to sign off on a small pay hike for lawmakers, calling the increase unconstitutional. 

Perhaps most notably, Plocher’s office scrambled to line up lawmakers for a hearing in November to change House policy in order to prohibit the type of ethics complaint that landed Plocher in hot water in the first place. 

Since taking over last month, Patterson paid the ethics attorney, enacted the pay raise and replaced the chairman of the administration and accounts committee who was at the center of one of the scandals that swirled around Plocher. 

He also turned room 306B in the Capitol back into a legislative office, reversing Plocher’s decision to convert the space into a makeshift storage room stocked with liquor, beer, wine and soda back in 2022. 

Then this week, the House adjusted its ethics rules to address problems that emerged while Plocher was under investigation.

“I believe there are some housekeeping issues that we’ll take care of right away,” Patterson told reporters last month, soon after taking over as speaker. 

Meanwhile, the House is facing two separate lawsuits filed by legislative employees over alleged threats and retaliation by Plocher. One was dismissed in December, though an appeal is expected this week. A second was filed Monday.

Plocher did not respond to a request for comment. 

In November, the speaker’s office worked to assemble a quorum for the administration and accounts committee under the outgoing chairman to meet and sign off on proposed policy changes for the chamber. 

Among the proposals was an alteration of the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction in regards to legislative expense accounts. 

In late 2023, The Independent reported 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.

A fellow Republican lawmaker filed a complaint against Plocher over the expense reports, kicking off a months-long investigation by the House Ethics Committee that also looked into Plocher’s pursuit of a lucrative software contract for a private vendor. 

Plocher denied any wrongdoing, and the ethics committee ultimately dropped its inquiry with the Republican chairwoman accusing Plocher of obstruction and witness intimidation.

Under the proposed changes to House policy that were set to be considered in November, a complaint against Plocher would have been prohibited because he agreed to go back and amend his false expense reports.

But the November meeting never took place. 

Despite the speaker’s office’s best efforts — which included calls to Democratic lawmakers urging them to attend — the committee couldn’t reach a quorum and the public hearing had to be cancelled. 

Around the same time the administration and accounts meeting was falling through, the speaker’s office was engaged in a back and forth with the House’s general counsel over whether to pay the private attorney who was hired in 2023 to collect evidence and interview witnesses as part of the ethics committee’s investigation of Plocher. 

The attorney produced a report laying out examples of legislative employees who feared retaliation from Plocher’s office, adding that “the level of fear expressed by a number of the potential witnesses is a daunting factor in completing this investigation.”

For her work, the attorney submitted a bill for $14,000 that Plocher’s office refused to pay. 

In a Nov. 18 email to Williams, who was serving as Plocher’s chief of staff, House General Counsel Bryan Scheiderer forwarded a message from the attorney requesting an update on when she would be paid. 

He noted that Williams is also an attorney and said that he hoped that would help him understand “the narrow window we still have to pay this invoice and avoid a collection lawsuit as well as payment of interest.”

Williams responded that he felt the contract with the attorney was improper, and therefore, “I cannot in good conscience authorize payment.”

Schneiderer agreed not to bother Williams with the issue again and wrote that he instead “will simply plan on briefing the next administration on this issue in January.”

At that point, Williams accused Schneiderer of insulting his legal expertise. 

“Time and time again,” Williams wrote, “I have invited your legal analysis and opinion only to suffer baseless insults.”

The entire email exchange was eventually forwarded to Patterson’s chief of staff. Last month, after Patterson took over as speaker, the attorney was paid.

The process of investigating Plocher for alleged ethical violations was far from smooth. 

The speaker plays a key role in the process, and nothing in the House rules contemplated what would happen if the speaker was the one under investigation. For example, the speaker’s office must sign off on any subpoenas issued by the ethics committee, and three times over the course of several months last year Plocher refused. 

This week, the House officially signed off on changes aimed at requiring the speaker to recuse themselves from the process if they are the subject of a complaint. The changes also make it official that the chair of the ethics committee can move to retain outside counsel. 

Patterson didn’t mention Plocher when explaining the changes to reporters, saying only that they are an attempt to clean up language where there was confusion last year. 

For decades, room 306B in the Capitol was reserved for the chairman of the House budget committee, but in more recent years was occupied by senior Republicans. 

While not the biggest office in the statehouse, it was the only one besides the speaker’s with direct access to the House Lounge — a room adorned with a Thomas Hart Benton mural where conference committees, leadership meetings and press conferences are often held. 

As part of a $60,000 renovation of the speaker’s office in 2022, Plocher converted the space into a storage room where he kept liquor, beer, wine and soda to complement the supply in his main office. After the media took note of what was jokingly referred to as Plocher’s “butler’s pantry,” the booze moved out and interns moved in. 

In the space-starved statehouse — where staff often work out of musty, windowless rooms, and many lawmakers are stacked on top of each other in non-ADA compliant mezzanines — Patterson wasted little time turning 306B back into much-needed office space. 

The office was assigned to state Rep. Bishop Davidson, a Republican from Republic who was named by Patterson as vice chairman of the budget committee — putting him in line to assume the gavel of the powerful committee in 2027.

In an email statement to The Independent before Plocher left office, Williams as his then-chief of staff protested any use of the phrase “butler’s pantry,” calling it “both misleading and inaccurate.” 

“The space was used during the legislative session to support operational needs of the House and Office of the Speaker,” Williams said, “specifically as an office for college interns receiving semester credit for working at the Capitol.”

Regardless of what it was called, the demise of the “butler’s pantry” is a good sign for the Capitol, said House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat.

“When I’m putting staff in essentially closets to work, but they have entire offices used for liquor, yeah, that’s a huge slap in the face,” she said. “I’m really glad to see that it’s back to being used as office space.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.