NEW: Kansas GOP Candidate Ty Masterson Made Over $1 Million From Megadonor-Backed Organization – and Doesn’t Even Show Up to Work

NEW: Kansas GOP Candidate Ty Masterson Made Over $1 Million From Megadonor-Backed Organization – and Doesn’t Even Show Up to Work

New investigative reporting from the Kansas City Star reveals that Kansas GOP candidate Ty Masterson has benefited for years from a million-dollar arrangement with a program backed by “highly influential megadonors” in Kansas – raising serious ethics concerns about his actual work at the organization and how it might be influencing his role in the Kansas Senate.

Masterson has raked in over $1.1 million from GoCreate, a Koch-backed program at Wichita State University, over the past ten years. But when a journalist with the Kansas City Star went to visit the GoCreate office, Masterson was nowhere to be found. The front desk worker “couldn’t say whether the GoCreate director works on site often” and “could not put a name to [Masterson’s] face.”

Wichita State University “did not respond to repeated requests for comment” about his decade-long arrangement with the University and “had not provided a copy of Masterson’s employment contract in response to a public records request.”

Masterson’s own opponent Phil Sarnecki called him out for being a “corrupt career politician” and labeled Masterson’s gig as a “no show job,” fueling even further GOP infighting ahead of the August 4 primary.

“Ty Masterson owes Kansans answers about his shady million-dollar arrangement over the past decade,” said DGA spokesperson Johanna Warshaw. “If Masterson can’t be bothered to show up at the cushy job he currently has, why would Kansans ever promote him to the governor’s office?”

Read more below: 

The Kansas City Star: What exactly does Ty Masterson do at Koch-funded office? Rival calls it a ‘no-show job’

• Kansas Republican governor hopeful Ty Masterson has two offices. One is on the third floor of the Kansas State Capitol, behind the ornate copper- and marble-accented chamber where he presides as Senate president. The other is on the second floor of a nondescript building on the campus of Wichita State University.
• Last year, Masterson made $163,000 as GoCreate director — nearly twice the $85,000 salary he earned as a top lawmaker in Topeka, state records show. Over the last decade, Masterson, who lives just outside of Wichita in Andover, has been paid more than $1.1 million by the WSU Foundation. The details of his employment arrangement with the university, including the source of his privately-funded salary, are opaque.
• One leading government ethics expert told The Star that GoCreate’s financial backing from the Koch family, highly influential megadonors with a $157 billion net worth and libertarian political agenda, means the burden is on Masterson to demonstrate to voters that his leadership in Topeka hasn’t been unduly influenced.
• The issue of Masterson’s employment surfaced last week when one of his Republican primary rivals, entrepreneur Philip Sarnecki, shared a social media post claiming that Masterson rarely shows up on campus and questioning how he landed the job without a college degree.
• In a statement, Sarnecki called the GoCreate director position a “no-show job” that “smells like career politician corruption.”
• On a recent Friday afternoon in June, the GoCreate workroom was buzzing with activity as a team from Envision Inc. tested sensor vests designed to help people with visual impairments navigate their surroundings. Masterson wasn’t in the office. The engineering student at the front desk couldn’t say whether the GoCreate director works on site often. When asked about Masterson’s visits, he said he could not put a name to a face.
• GoCreate Assistant Director Kimberly McCollum then emerged from her own office and put an end to the impromptu tour, introducing herself as “the director here.”
• Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California, said Kansas voters deserve answers about Masterson’s two state paychecks…“My question is whether a reasonable Kansas voter would remain confident that their decisions in Topeka are being made independently or wonder whether this decade-long relationship with a single donor network had some pull on them,” Hurt said.

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