Excerpt of Interview with Jim Denning, April 13, 2023, “How Medicaid Expansion Died in the Senate”

Jim Denning served in the Kansas Senate as Majority Leader for four years during most of the time Medicaid Expansion was under discussion. Denning didn’t like the way the bills were constructed, so he developed a Republican alternative that he thought would be a model for the country. In this excerpt from his 2023 oral history interview, he details how he kept the Democratic alternative from passing, but his own bill became caught up in abortion politics and failed to pass. The full interview is in the Statehouse Conversationscollection.

Jim Denning was born in Great Bend, KS, one of 9 children. His family was in the oil business. He received a B.A. degree in Finance from Ft. Hays State University in 1980. He and his wife, Marearl, moved to Dallas, TX where they lived for 10 years during which time Denning worked for several banks, including the Federal Reserve. An opthalmologist on one of the bank boards recruited him to return to Kansas to work for DiscoverVision as their CEO. Denning's brother, Frank, was the sheriff in Johnson County. Frank recruited Jim to run for the Kansas House against incumbent Delores Furtado in 2010 when Jim retired from DiscoverVision. In 2012 Jim challenged incumbent Senator Tim Owens and won handily. He was reelected to the Kansas Senate in the 2016 election. After 10 years, Jim Denning retired from politics.

August 13, 1956

Republican

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19

Kansas Statehouse, Topeka