The timing suggests that Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle thought she would get something very specific and very valuable — glamorous, really — in return for her 2018 “yes” vote for racetrack casinos, after years of strongly opposing expanded gaming in the state.
Ten days after that vote, this happened: Wagle listed President Donald Trump’s close friend and business partner Phil Ruffin, the Wichita-born billionaire casino owner who changed Wagle’s mind when he met with her on the issue, and who stood to directly benefit from such an expansion, as a reference in her pursuit of an ambassadorship from Trump. Preferably to Belgium or Ireland.
These are prize postings that typically go to major donors. Trump’s ambassador to Belgium, Chicago businessman (and credibly accused slumlord) Ron Gidwitz, was Trump’s campaign finance chair in Illinois. His ambassador to Ireland, Cleveland billionaire Ed Crawford, was Trump’s Ohio finance chair.
But Wagle’s naivete and grandiosity were eclipsed by her shamelessness in what sure looks like an attempt to trade her vote for a job with beaucoup de cachet. Back when corruption was a problem, this would have troubled even partisans. Today, the almost Rod Blagojevich-level blatancy of her attempt may well give her fellow Republicans yet another chance to shrug and argue that “they all do it.”
And the more we excuse such behavior, the truer that is.
Ruffin, who owns the Wichita Greyhound Park and the Woodlands racing track in Kansas City, Kansas, co-owns the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas with the president, who was the best man at Ruffin’s 2008 wedding.
In a May 7, 2018 email, Wagle, who is now running for the U.S. Senate, asked a political operative to forward her resume, which listed Ruffin as a reference, and a cover letter to the Trump White House.
“I’m thinking it’s an excellent time” to leave Kansas politics, and Kansas itself, she wrote.
Maybe now is an even more excellent time, Senator Wagle. And we’d love to get a better sense of what you were thinking than the one offered by your campaign.
Her campaign spokesman Matt Beynon said in an email that Wagle voted as she did “after meeting with Mr. Ruffin and other leaders in the Wichita business community and after learning about the uneven tax treatment that had been leveled on the industry. Tax fairness and tax equity is a top concern for Senator Wagle.”
What else had changed, we wonder, since 2014, when Wagle bitterly criticized Ruffin’s efforts to hold a new vote in Sedgwick County to allow slot machines at the Wichita Greyhound Park.
“Those of us who oppose gaming don’t have millions of dollars to fend off Mr. Ruffin every time he wants to push a ballot initiative,” Wagle said.
Ruffin began donating to Wagle about six months before she switched her position, and he’s supporting her U.S. Senate run. In an interview, he scoffed at the idea that Wagle’s vote was worth anything at all, or that he did anything for her in return. “We lost anyway,” he said, and “her vote didn’t matter one way or the other.”
But the fact that the bill failed, and that she also failed in her attempt to snag an ambassadorship, doesn’t make the play she made any more acceptable.
Beynon said “she did reach out to the president’s team and some of their mutual friends, including Phil Ruffin, in this process.”
