ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Dan Hawkins spent a good share of his early childhood on his grandfather’s dairy farm in Harper County, and he would later serve in the Kansas Army National Guard.
Through his military experience, Hawkins learned many of the leadership lessons that now help him in the Kansas Legislature, where he now serves as the speaker of the House of Representatives.
Hawkins was in Liberal last week to announce his candidacy for Kansas Insurance Commissioner following the announcement by current commissioner Vicki Schmidt of her intentions to run for governor.
Hawkins has served the 100th House District in the Wichita area since 2013, and before joining the ranks of leadership, he served as chairman of the House Health Committee.
In 2019, Hawkins was elected House majority leader, and it was in 2023 when he was elected speaker. He said he came to both positions with some hesitancy.
“Politics is a funny thing, and if you’re in the right place at the right time and you’ve done the preparation, things naturally happen,” she said. “In 2018, they said, ‘You’ve got to run for majority leader.’”
Naturally, the job of House speaker comes with its share of both stress and problems, as it has for Hawkins.
“To become the speaker, you’ve got to deal with a whole new set of things,” he said. “The job is to run the House of Representatives. You do everything. You decide who gets what committee and who is the chair. One of the big tasks is to decide who is going to chair each committee. It’s an important thing to put the right people in the right place.”
In the last few years, Hawkins said the legislature has spent much time making changes, one of which is the state’s budget process.
“In 1957, the legislature stopped producing the budget, and they started using the governor’s budget,” he said. “Ever since I’ve been there, the appropriators, the people who sit on the budget committee call me and complain that they don’t have enough time to get things done.”
With the former process, Hawkins said lawmakers would convene the second Monday of January for the year’s legislative session and receive the budget the following Wednesday. Adding to the problem, he noted what legislators received was merely a budget report.
“It’s not all the budget pieces until we really start working,” he said. “It’s still another three weeks before all of that stuff is put together before we even actually start working. Then, we’re expected to have it done in about four weeks’ time, which is impossible, so I was trying to get that budget sooner than when we’ve been getting it.”
So for the first time, in this year’s legislative session, lawmakers received the budget on the first day, and Hawkins said work began immediately on preparing a budget. This, however, did not come without some hiccups, but he did say this is to be always expected with something new.
“You can’t start something the first time and not have some hiccups, and we’re going to continue to tweak it and make it better this next year,” he said. “It did work well. We were able to save $210 million over last year’s budget.”
Hawkins started his career in the insurance business in 1995, and in the 30 years since, he has done many things in the industry. With that in mind, he believed insurance commissioner would be the perfect job for his next stop on the career lader.
“I never believed I would be majority leader,” he said. “I never believed I would be a speaker, but I’ve always dreamed about being the insurance commissioner. Even before I got into politics, I thought ‘Wouldn’t it be cool someday to be the insurance commissioner?’”
Hawkins praised the work Schmidt has done while in the insurance department.
“She’s done a great job,” he said. “I really respect what Vicki has done in the department.”
Hawkins, though, feels he will be a unique perspective to the department and bring changes that will make the department even better.
“One of the big things is having many carriers in Kansas is not an easy process,” he said. “Why is it so hard? The carriers tell me ‘The reason why we don’t come to Kansas is it’s so difficult to get started in Kansas. It’s difficult for us to get our filing done.’”
Hawkins said with as few as one carrier in the insurance market in Kansas, this is where change needs to be seen the most.
“That’s not free market,” he said. “There’s certainly no competition there, so how can you get costs down if you only have one carrier serving you in the market? I’ve always believed one of the jobs of the insurance commissioner is to bring carriers in that are going to serve our state. Cost is a big thing.”
Hawkins said commercial property insurance is particularly in need of drastic change.
“You’re feeling the pinch,” he said. “It’s tough. The cost that is associated with commercial properties and insuring it is enormous, and many times, your premiums are going up 15, 20, 25 percent per fiscal year.”
Because of a lack of carriers in the Sunflower State, Hawkins said many clients are seeing an increase in premiums and a decrease in coverage.
“We’ve got to change something,” he said. “We’ve got to figure that one out.”
Hawkins said the insurance commissioner race will have competition, but he believes his experience lends itself quite well to the department.
“Vicki has done a great job to control costs, to lower costs,” he said. “She’s lowered the taxes on carriers. She’s done some great things. There’s still things we can do to make our insurance department work better.”
