State Rep. Jeremy Dean should be ordered to stay 50 feet away from the recipient and be denied committee assignments during this year’s session, the Ethics Committee report recommends
BY: RUDI KELLER
Missouri Independent
The Missouri House should order a Democratic lawmaker who sent a “vulgar and sexual” message to a colleague during the September special session to stay at least 50 feet away from her, the Ethics Committee recommended Wednesday.
The committee, with a unanimous vote of its five Republican and five Democratic members during an Oct. 29 hearing, also recommended that state Rep. Jeremy Dean, a Democrat from Springfield, lose his committee seats, undergo sexual harassment prevention training and have his seat on the House floor and his parking spot moved.
The committee’s report and recommendations were made public for the first time after they were published Wednesday in the journal for the opening day of this year’s session.
Ethics Committee Chairman Lane Roberts, a Republican from Joplin, said the recommended punishment is in line with punishments recommended during past actions of the committee. The ethics committee can recommend a range of punishments, including censure and expulsion from the House.
“Our goal here is to make sure that what we do is balanced, and part of that balance is looking back through our history, how we handled such things in the past,” Roberts said.
Dean was given 15 days to object to the sanctions and did not.
In an interview with The Independent, Dean said he did not object because he accepts that the texts were inappropriate. But he added that he thinks the ethics complaint was motivated by politics.
“It seems more to me that the Republicans saw this as an opportunity to bash a Democrat in the news while they knew that they were continuing to get bad press and losing elections across the country,” Dean said. “And so this is an opportunity for them to continue to try and hold on to the state of Missouri when they know things are going downhill for them.”
On Sept. 4, while Dean was engaged in a sit-in on the House floor, he sent a text message to state Reps. Cecelie Wiliams, a Republican from Dittmer, while she was participating in a hearing of the House Elections Committee.
Lawmakers were in special session in response to a call from President Donald Trump to gerrymander Missouri’s congressional districts to make it likely a Republican could win the 5th District seat held by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat.
At the time of the text, the Elections Committee was taking testimony on a proposal to change how majorities are counted for constitutional amendments proposed by initiative petition.
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.
Dean was watching the committee meeting on an online livestream and sent another text after seeing Williams’ reaction, the report states. The report does not describe the content of the second message.
Williams “was shocked by these messages, which were unprofessional and disruptive to the legislative process,” the report states.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City, removed Dean from his committee assignments and has not placed him on any committees for this year’s session.
Both Dean and Williams testified during the Oct. 29 hearing and Dean admitted sending the text, the report states.
Dean “stated that he recognized that the messages were inappropriate and unprofessional, and that he regretted sending them,” the report states. Dean “denied any intent to disrupt the legislative process, intimidate (Williams), or improperly influence her participation in the committee hearing.”
The Ethics Committee is the only House committee with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats and a minority member vice chairman. The 10 members all approved the sanctions.
The committee’s unanimous vote shows members thought “the conduct was significantly egregious and that we needed to address it,” Roberts said. “Very serious consequences needed to be commensurate with the conduct, but again, it needed to be balanced with what we’ve historically done, so that we’re not guilty of treating one person differently than another.”
In the interview with The Independent, Dean said he sent the text to Williams because he thought he could joke with her. The are both serving their first terms in the House.
“Since the freshman bus tour, Rep. Williams and I had what I would consider a very good working friendship, and I obviously crossed the line with that text message,” he said. “I totally accept that.”
The biggest lesson learned is “that you’ve got to watch your back,” Dean said. “There are people in this city that you think are your friends, people that you can joke around with, but at the end of the day, a lot of people are here for their own political gain.”