Topeka ? A Republican leader in the Kansas Legislature on Monday questioned the pace of a Democratic district attorney’s investigation of private meetings GOP Gov. Sam Brownback had with legislators at his official residence, suggesting the prosecutor has been slow to move because the case isn’t important.

Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor’s office hasn’t yet interviewed legislators who were invited to seven meetings the Republican governor had in January with GOP members of 13 legislative committees. Lee McGowan, the district attorney’s chief of staff, said his office expects to begin scheduling interviews this week.

McGowan said Taylor’s office needed time to determine which legislators needed to be interviewed and was busy with numerous other cases as well. But Senate Majority Leader Jay Emler, a Lindsborg Republican, said legislators’ memories of the meetings are fading, including his recollections from a Jan. 18 meeting he attended with fellow members of the Senate commerce and taxation committees.

“I’d have thought they would have moved ahead with it,” Emler said of the investigation. “You don’t wait a month to interview witnesses if it’s an important issue.”

Brownback spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag said the governor and his top aides remain confident that the meetings didn’t violate the Kansas Open Meetings Act. Legislators who attended them have said in interviews with The Associated Press that they were informal events, featuring buffet dinners, with Brownback generally making short remarks and sometimes taking a few questions.

Taylor launched his investigation after receiving a complaint in late January from an attorney for The Topeka Capital-Journal, which wrote the first news reports about the gatherings. The district attorney initially said he could have the investigation wrapped up by mid-February.

Governors routinely have hosted groups of legislators to Cedar Crest, the governor’s residence. But critics note that Brownback invited legislators to the January dinners by committee and that, with the exception of a Democratic senator who believes she got an invitation by mistake, all of the 90-plus lawmakers invited were Republicans.

The Open Meetings Act generally prohibits a voting majority of a legislative body from discussing government business without giving the public notice or access to the meetings.

Taylor has said the act does not apply to Brownback as an individual, and that the alleged violations are civil, not criminal, matters. Officials found to have knowingly broken the law can be fined up to $500 per incident, though such a penalty is unusual. Typically, a case leads to an order or agreement spelling out what concrete steps the government body will take to avoid potential violations in the future.

Earlier this month, Taylor sent a letter to all 40 state senators and all 125 state representatives, directing them to preserve documents and electronic files that could be potential evidence. But McGowan said Monday that legislators who weren’t invited to the January meetings have since by notified by letter that they don’t have to preserve any materials.

McGowan said the two assistant district attorneys handling the investigation still have other cases and appearances in district court.

“We’ve been stretched pretty thin,” McGowan said.

But Emler said he didn’t take any notes from the Jan. 18 meeting and didn’t have any electronic files or documents related to it, other than the invitation. And Sen. Jeff Longbine, an Emporia Republican who attended the same dinner, said it didn’t strike him as a committee meeting at which business was conducted.

“I don’t think there’s anything there,” he said.