Senator Mark Steffen Contact information

Mark B. Steffen, born on August 30, 1962, is an American politician serving in the Kansas Senate from the 34th district. He assumed office in 2021, after defeating one-term Republican incumbent Edward Berger with 57.5% of the vote in the August 4, 2020 primary, and Democrat Shanna Henry with 69.8% of the vote in the general election.

Steffen was born in Garfield County, Oklahoma, and currently resides in Hutchinson, Kansas. He graduated from Enid High School in 1981. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Northwestern Oklahoma State University in 1985 and an M.D. from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine in 1989.

In addition to his political career, Steffen is an anesthesiologist and pain specialist. He has promoted unproven medications to help sufferers from COVID-19, including Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. On January 26, 2022, Steffen reported his practice had been investigated by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for the previous 18 months. He demanded a hearing to debate the science and later claimed that the government agencies dismissed all complaints.

In January 2021, Steffen introduced SB187, a bill designed to levy heavy penalties against media corporations that censored political posts. It died in Committee in 2022. According to Steffen, the Biden Administration aggressively bullied social media into promoting their liberal narrative particularly as it pertained to Covid strategies.

On January 26, 2022, he appeared before a Kansas Senate committee to discuss affordable, effective COVID-19 remedies. He demanded that a “panel of physicians and scientists from both sides of this issue,” be convened. An “Early Covid Treatment Symposium” was then held in Lenexa, KS.

Steffen had pushed for various public health policy changes that he claimed followed the Constitution rather than “the liberal socialist approach employed by Biden, Fauci, Stites, and others.” Steffen had supported the map two weeks earlier, but following Kelly’s veto of the gerrymandering, he switched to opposing the map that Masterson favored, saying its effect was “dumping the Lawrence liberals” into the 1st Congressional District. He contended: “…insidious redistricting will kill off the true conservative character of the Big First.” A statement Steffen stands behind to this day.

Steffen’s bill forced pharmacists to fill prescriptions for ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and other off-label drugs for treatment and prevention of COVID-19.