JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The Missouri House speaker once described “stupid Republican women” as “an invasive species,” according to a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit filed Friday against the powerful lawmaker.
House Chief Clerk Dana Miller’s lawsuit alleged GOP House Speaker Dean Plocher and his chief of staff Rod Jetton retaliated against her after she raised concerns about his alleged abuse of women and misuse of public funds.
“I was getting along with the speaker until I told him ‘no,’” Miller told reporters Friday.
Plocher and his office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from The Associated Press on Friday, but he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The House Ethics Committee dismissed a related complaint against Plocher in April, even though the committee leader and an independent investigator had said the speaker had used his power to block the investigation.
“From the beginning of this investigation, I have maintained my innocence,” Plocher told reporters after the dismissal. He denied any hindrance on his part.
Plocher is barred from running for re-election to the House of Representatives due to term limits. He is in a crowded Republican primary for the Missouri secretary of state seat.
In her lawsuit, Miller alleged that the problems with Plocher started months before he ascended to the speakership in January 2023.
Miller, the nonpartisan executive of the House of Representatives, said she met with Plocher in May 2022 after receiving several complaints about his treatment of female Republican lawmakers, including one woman who said she was considering filing an ethics complaint against him .
When she raised these concerns with Plocher, Miller said he responded by saying, “stupid Republican women…they are an invasive species.”
Tensions between the Speaker and the Clerk rose in May 2023. Miller said Plocher began pushing to replace the House of Representatives management software, which was updated in late 2022, with software from a company tied to the law firm where Plocher worked.
When Miller pushed back, she said another lawmaker who worked with Plocher told her the speaker had repeatedly threatened to fire her.
Plocher faced additional public backlash related to a work trip to Hawaii in July 2023. According to Miller’s lawsuit, he sought taxpayer reimbursement for a $1,200 business class flight, valet parking and a $3,660 hotel stay.
Plocher reimbursed the state about $4,000 in October after the Missouri Independent began reporting on his use of campaign funds to pay for the plane ticket and numerous other expenses, while also seeking taxpayer reimbursement.
Amid increased public scrutiny, Plocher in November 2023 hired Jetton, a former speaker of the House of Representatives who faced his own scandals.
Jetton served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2005 to January 2009, when term limits prevented him from running again. He left the House amid a federal investigation into bribery allegations. He testified before a grand jury in 2010 but was never charged.
Jetton allegedly told Miller around the time he was hired that he was “concerned about the addiction to ‘power'” he may have associated with his work in the speaker’s office, the lawsuit alleged.
An Associated Press request for comment to Jetton was not immediately returned Friday.
Another employee who met with Plocher and Jetton in December 2023 later told Miller that Jetton said the speaker’s office needed to “suffocate” Miller’s authority, and Jetton allegedly “made a physical choking gesture with both bands when he made this statement,” Miller’s lawsuit said.
Miller said in her lawsuit that the alleged comment was particularly concerning because Jetton pleaded guilty to assault in 2011 while admitting to beating and choking a woman during a sexual encounter in 2009.
Miller is seeking damages. On Friday, she said she plans to leave her position as clerk when her term ends in January 2025.
