Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, doesn’t want to run for governor. But he might.

“Anything is a possibility,” Schmidt said Tuesday during a meeting with the Journal-World editorial board.

Schmidt said his wife, Jennifer, was weeks away from delivering their second child and he would much rather spend the summer changing diapers than chasing votes. But if the GOP can’t find a candidate like U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s able to appeal to both the conservative and moderate wings of the party, Schmidt said he might accept the challenge.

“I’m not a candidate,” he said. “But I’m not ruling it out permanently.”

Schmidt, a lawyer, said Sebelius would be a formidable candidate. “For a Democratic governor in a heavily Republican state, she’s played every card right,” Schmidt said. “But her weakness is that she hasn’t accomplished much of significance.”

During Tuesday’s visit, Schmidt characterized the Legislature’s school-finance package as a “substantial improvement over where we were six months ago.”

He said he hoped the Kansas Supreme Court would eventually specify which parts of the spending bill it considered flawed and which it did not.

Rather than raising taxes to increase funding for schools, Schmidt said there was a good chance lawmakers would embrace a gaming bill to allow slot machines in existing race tracks and the development of up to five casinos in the state.

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If approved, gaming industry fees would quickly generate between $100 million and $300 million, he said.

Such a move would reverse long-standing resistance to tying gambling revenues to school funding.

“There’s been a change in attitude,” Schmidt said. “It seems like there’s more for support for gaming if it’s tied to education. It used to be the other way around.”