State Rep.-elect Aaron Coleman, D-37th Dist., says he has heard there are plans to swear him in on Monday, Jan. 11, then expel him from the Kansas House of Representatives.
Coleman, a 20-year-old supporter of Bernie Sanders issues, upset State Rep. Stan Frownfelter, a long-time Democrat lawmaker, in a very close primary election, and then Coleman won by a wide majority, 66 percent, in a write-in challenge at the general election in November.
Overturning his election would be a “slap in the face” to Wyandotte County voters, Coleman stated this week.
“They’re disenfranchising 20,000 people in Wyandotte County, who will have no representation,” Coleman said recently. He said Democrats were acting like Republicans who were not recognizing the national election results.
Coleman asked for his constituents in the 37th District to contact other legislators to let them know they support him.
During the campaign, allegations surfaced about Coleman’s past actions as a middle schooler involving an alleged revenge porn incident, and also involving Coleman’s actions in the past year involving alleged abuse of a girlfriend. During the campaign, he apologized for some of his past actions. Coleman has disputed other allegations, including one from Rep. Frownfelter’s campaign manager. Coleman said that he was just campaigning at the time when he talked to the campaign manager, who filed a restraining order against him.
Coleman picked up opposition from the Kansas Democratic Party and the governor after he made remarks on social media concerning the governor. “People will realize one day when I call a hit out on you it’s real,” Coleman said on social media, and he later said he did not mean it literally as a physical threat, but it meant he might organize political opposition to her.
The alleged incidents did not occur when he was in office, which is a key point in an expulsion effort, according to Coleman.
A Democratic House Committee appointment calendar was released on Thursday, Jan. 7, and it had no committee assignments for Coleman. It did have assignments for a group of seven freshmen women legislators who called for Coleman to resign on Dec. 21.
Coleman does have a page on the Kansas Legislature website, and it stated that he is supporting a bill to increase the minimum wage to $17.25, over a 10-year time period. He’s also listed as a supporter of a bill that would establish public school training and instruction standards for identifying child sexual abuse.
One of the group of new women legislators, Rep.-elect Mari-Lynn Poskin of Leawood, Kansas, today stated that she had no additional comments and that their original statement asking for Coleman’s resignation still stands.
“Actions in recent weeks, combined with his history of violence, continuously demonstrate that he is unfit to serve,” Poskin stated in the earlier news release in December.
State Sen. Pat Pettey, D-6th Dist., stated on Thursday, “I don’t find Aaron Coleman trustworthy. He had ample opportunity since the primary election to show that he was interested in focusing on preparing to be a Democrat House member. He has done exactly the opposite. The House will follow the process that is available to allow him to be seated but he is the only one who can prove that he wants to learn and represent the 37th district.”
Sen. Pettey represents some of the same area of Wyandotte County as the 37th District, and part of that 37th District also is represented by Sen. David Haley, D-4th Dist.
Sen. Haley said he has asked the Kansas attorney general for an informal opinion on whether Coleman could be expelled, or what could be done procedurally. He also contacted the Kansas secretary of state’s office, which he said referred him to the attorney general’s office.
As Sen. Haley reads the rules, a legislator would have to have done something while in office for him to be expelled, and Coleman is not yet in office.
“I made no secret about it, I don’t think procedurally this is the way to go,” Sen. Haley said. “If it can be done legally, it should not be done legally.”
“This is the slippery slope, as far as I’m concerned,” Sen. Haley said.
If a duly elected legislator who has committed no offense during the course of legislative service, or even in the days that lead up post-election to legislative service, would be called before a legislative tribunal with the intent to oust that legislator, it would be a very dangerous, slippery slope, Sen. Haley said.
If that could happen, then any legislator could be called up on any allegation that occurred prior to the election and asked to be removed from office, he said.
“What’s to prevent this from happening again and again and again, if the precedent is set?” Sen. Haley asked.
He said if Coleman were removed from office next week, it would be similar to not accepting the will of a free and independent electorate, “like the Trump supporters are doing today,” and suggesting that the opinion of a distinct minority should override the will of a voting majority.
“Is this going to be the new normal?” Sen. Haley asked.
Sen. Haley said he does not believe in this expulsion process at all and that the best time to address the issues raised by those who feel Coleman should not serve would be in a subsequent election.
Rep.-elect Coleman issued this op-ed statement on Monday of this week:
“My name is Aaron Coleman, and I’m proud to have been elected to serve in the Kansas House of Representatives by the voters of District 37 in Wyandotte County. I defeated longtime incumbent Stan Frownfelter twice, first in the primary and then in the general, when he spent $50,000 (compared to my $5,000) on a write-in campaign.
“As a 20-year-old white Jewish man, I was able to earn the trust of the voters in my majority-minority district. My victory was resounding, with 66 percent of the vote in the general.
“Now, Tom Sawyer and Kansas Democratic House leadership are threatening to overturn the election by seeking to expel me on January 11, soon after I am sworn in. If 2/3 of House members vote for expulsion, that is allowing outsider politicians to override the will of the voters of District 37. This would be unprecedented and a slap in the face to the people of Wyandotte County.
“The grounds for the complaint, I am told (no one from the party leadership has communicated with me) are two-fold:
“1) An unprofessional and metaphoric tweet I made about “calling out a hit” on Governor Kelly, meaning mobilizing opposition to her. No serious person would think I was threatening her life, and it is deeply dishonest to pretend otherwise. I have apologized for my inappropriate word choice.
“2) Rep. Frownfelter’s campaign manager filed a restraining order against me, claiming that I had visited her home twice and threatened her and that I tried to get her evicted. I have denied these false claims. The only time I was at her home was when I was campaigning door to door.
“I have broken no laws and been charged with no crimes. I have done nothing that rises to the extreme and anti-Democratic remedy of removing the people’s chosen representative. That would be a slap in the face to the Wyandotte County voters who elected me because they want Medicaid expanded to all Kansans, a higher minimum wage, no sales tax on food, legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana, and the right of men and women to make decisions about their own bodies.
“If my constituents vote me out in 2022, that is how democracy works. For my (soon to be) colleagues in the House to, instead, expel me for alleged misconduct that I have disputed and that did not occur while I was in office violates every notion of fairness. At the minimum, I deserve a chance to answer any complaint. For Democrats who condemn attempts to overturn the election of Joe Biden, seeking my removal is hypocritical as well as unjust.
“The people of Wyandotte County and Kansans deserve better.”
See previous story at https://wyandotteonline.com/women-legislators-call-for-colemans-resignation/.