Dennis McKinney

Dennis McKinney (born July 24, 1960) is a former Kansas State Treasurer.

From January 1989 through May 1992, prior to serving in the Kansas Legislature, McKinney was a Kiowa County Commissioner.

After being appointed to a vacancy in his district's seat in the Kansas House of Representatives in May 1992, he was subsequently re-elected to the seat for nine more terms.

The seat, in a strongly Republican district, had not been won by a Democrat since popular moderate Dan Glickman narrowly lost his re-election bid for a 10th term in 1994.

He was elected by fellow Democrats as the Minority Leader in that body, leading the House Democrats from January 2003 until his resignation from the Legislature in December 2008.

As Leader, he served on Legislature leadership councils, including the State Finance Council, the Calendar and Printing Committee, the Interstate Cooperation Committee and the Legislative Coordinating Council.

He also directed organizing activities of the minority caucus, and streamlined legislative business, and worked across party lines successfully.

He resigned in 2008 to accept a gubernatorial appointment as State Treasurer, and was replaced in the Kansas House of Representatives by Pat Maloney of Kingman, Kansas.

On November 18, 2008 Governor Kathleen Sebelius appointed McKinney Kansas State Treasurer to replace outgoing Treasurer Lynn Jenkins, who had been elected to Congress representing the 2nd Kansas District.

McKinney resigned from his legislative post in order to assume duties as Treasurer on January 5, 2009.

While working with essentially the same staff and budget as his predecessor, McKinney managed a "major increase" in the amount of state-held unclaimed property returned to Kansans.

With a booth at the Kansas State Fair, McKinney outreached taxpayers to familiarize them with the office role in locating unclaimed property.

In 2010, his staff helped about 1,000 Fair attendees to recover $201,397 that was due to them which was being held in trust by the state.

He was defeated in 2010 by Republican Ron Estes.

Following the sudden 2010 resignation of Greensburg City Manager Steve Hewitt, who had guided Greensburg through its tornado-disaster recovery, McKinney accepted, for three months, the job of interim City Manager, until a replacement could be found.

McKinney's focus was on continuing the massive recovery from one of the nation's worst tornado disasters, which had destroyed the entire town—emphasizing continuing support for Greenburg's nationally noted energy-efficient, environmentally-sensitive "green" renovation.

He was a member of the Kansas House of Representatives where he represented the 116th House District for ten terms, the last six as the Democratic Party's leader (Minority Leader) in the Kansas House.

His 116th Kansas House District covers a large portion of rural south central Kansas, including Kiowa county, Barber County, Comanche County, Kingman County, northern Harper County, and southeastern Ford County.

During his tenure, McKinney was noted largely for promoting public education, and pushing to preserve funding for education and health services, particularly for the elderly and disabled.

He particularly emphasized "constituent services" to district constituents needing a personal advocate in Topeka to help solve their problems with state government.

McKinney was appointed to the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission in March 2011, by Governor Sam Brownback, and was listed, in January 2017, as the Vice Chair of the Commission, which oversees and regulates gambling and animal-racing in Kansas.

In 2012, federally mandated redistricting resulted in the Fourth District shifting westward into more conservative Western Kansas.

McKinney secured endorsements for Congress from former Kansas Governor John Carlin, State Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau, and State Representatives Ed Trimmer and Tim Hodge.

He also had support from labor unions representing over 40,000 workers—particularly the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation of the AFL-CIO, a coalition of 30 local unions representing over 30,000 union members, in South-Central Kansas, including teachers, aviation industry workers, operating engineers, construction workers, electricians, firefighters, state employees, janitors, train operators and other occupations.

Another AFL-CIO affiliate, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Central and Western Kansas—a coalition of 13 Kansas building-trades unions, representing over 10,000 members—also endorsed McKinney for Congress.

In announcing his candidacy, McKinney blasted Congressional efforts to privatize Medicaid, citing Kansas troubles with that approach in its failing Kancare system.

McKinney also criticized the state's shift from income taxes to higher sales and property taxes, while funding for schools was sharply cut, particularly criticizing state and Congressional moves towards privatizing or cutting education, describing education as "good for the economy," and workforce education as critical to the district's primary manufacturing industry: aviation.

Citing his farmer/rancher background, McKinney claimed his experience with those issues, first-hand, and as a legislator, could bring a competent voice to the drafting of the upcoming Farm Bill, critical to the state's foremost industry, agriculture.

McKinney faced four Democratic opponents, none of whom had been elected to public office before.

In 2015, at the Kansas Historical Society, McKinney was elected to the Board of Directors of the Kansas Historical Foundation.

In the 2016 General Election, the Republican nominees for President (Trump) and Congress (Pompeo) overwhelmingly defeated the Democratic nominees (Clinton and Giroux), by two-to-one margins in the 4th District.

In January 2017, he was a Democratic candidate for the party's nomination as the 4th District of Kansas nominee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

At the Democrats' 4th District nominating convention February 10, 2017, he narrowly lost to James Thompson.

McKinney, the youngest in a fourth-generation family of settlers was born in the Coldwater, Kansas hospital.

He was raised on a farm astride the Comanche and Kiowa county line, south of Greensburg, Kansas, which is the county seat of Kiowa County.

He graduated with a B.A. from Wichita State University, where he also earned a master's degree in Public Administration (MPA).

He and his wife Jean (a public school paraprofessional), reside on the south side of Greensburg, where they raised daughters Kelly and Lindy.

Despite heavy involvement in politics, McKinney continued his career in farming and ranching through 2017.

McKinney announced his candidacy to seek the Democratic party's nomination for KS's 4th congressional district in the 2017 special election to fill the vacancy left by the departure of new CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

The party nominee was selected by a vote of delegates to the 4th District Democratic convention, at the Sedgwick County Courthouse Jury Room, in Wichita, on Saturday, February 11, 2017.