Editor’s Note: This story was updated to include statements from Kuckelman.
A lawsuit between a prominent Shawnee couple and the Kansas Republican Party was recently settled.
Dawn and Kevin Tubbesing sued the Kansas Republican Party in 2021 in Johnson County District Court over campaign flyers sent during the 2020 state Senate race between Republican Sen. Mike Thompson and Democrat Lindsey Constance.
Both Tubbesings are former Shawnee city councilmembers, and Kevin Tubbesing is also the 2023 chair of the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce.
The flyers insinuated the couple is involved in corruption
- In the 2020 election cycle, Dawn Tubbesing made two separate $250 campaign contributions to Constance, a Shawnee city councilmember at the time who was challenging Thompson.
- The flyers said those contributions were given in connection to Constance’s support of a proposal Kevin Tubbesing, who is also a local developer, brought before the city council to build an apartment complex in downtown Shawnee.
- Those development plans and attached incentives were approved by the city council in 2019, the year before the election.
- The lawsuit alleged the Kansas Republican Party flyer represented an invasion of privacy by painting the couple in a false light.
GOP Chair apologized to the Tubbesings
- In a news release, Kansas Republican Party Chair Mike Brown formally apologized for the flyer and blamed it on his predecessor Mike Kuckelman.
- He called it “an error in past leadership’s judgement” that started “an unnecessarily long and expensive legal process.”
- Brown could not be reached for comment for this story.
- Brown, a former Johnson County commissioner, and Kuckelman, a local attorney, have clashed since Brown took over the state party, with the Kansas City Star reporting last month that Brown had warned Kuckelman to stay away from him and his family.
- In an emailed statement to the Post, Kuckelman said he found the Kansas Republican Party’s decision to settle the lawsuit “disappointing.”
- “I am confident that had the case been litigated, the Kansas Republican Party’s 1st Amendment Right to free political speech would have survived,” his statement said, suggesting the decision might have been arisen for financial reasons. “[I]n this case, it is short-sighted to settle for economic reasons because the long-term implications of the Kansas Republican Party surrendering its 1st Amendment of free political speech right are quite serious.”
A settlement was reached with the Tubbesings
- The Tubbesings received a “monetary settlement,” per the press release. Kevin Tubbesing, in a separate email to the Post, said the parties had “agreed not to disclose” the amount.
- “I will comment that they paid our legal bills in the matter,” he said.
- The Tubbesings indicated their appreciation for the Kansas GOP’s “willingness to acknowledge its error” in a joint statement in the news release.
- “It is our hope that attention to this settlement can bring us all a few steps back from divisive politics, saturated by personal attacks, that has marked our political discourse recently,” they said.
ICYMI: Tubbesings sue Kansas Republican Party over campaign flyer
