LEAVENWORTH — A Leavenworth County Commissioner has resigned under pressure after saying at a meeting that he belongs to “the master race.”
Louis Klemp said in the letter submitted Tuesday resigning his seat on the Leavenworth County Commission that the remark was “well-meaning” and “not racially motivated.”
Klemp cited the master race the Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy last week while responding to a presentation by a black official, Triveece Penelton.
Klemp was appointed to fill a Republican vacancy in the county just west of Kansas City. He said he was identifying a similarity in their appearance, noting both have a space between their teeth. Penelton said in a statement that the comment was “unbelievably inappropriate.”
Kansas Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer was among those to demand Klemp’s resignation.
