Thursday a group 50 former Republican legislators from across Kansas — including Iola’s Denise Apt, who had a stellar career in the Kansas House — lambasted Gov. Sam Brownback for endorsing opponents of sitting Republican legislators and sending state officials to campaign against them.
Rochelle Chronister of Neodesha, a former state chairman of the Kansas Republican Party and Assistant Majority Leader in the House, spoke for the group, who call themselves “traditional Republicans.”
“It’s astonishing to see a governor who is more interested in politics than policy, more interested in elections than governing. Gov. Brownback may want a rubber stamp majority in the Legislature, but I think Kansans will have something to say about that on election day. Kansans want their elected officials to do what’s best for their communities, their schools, the elderly and their children,” she said.
Chronister went on to remark that Gov. Brownback is on track to take a $500 million surplus and turn it into a $2.7 billion deficit — the largest in history — by the end of his first term.
“The Administration can try to change the faces in the Legislature, but it won’t change the fact that his policies have been one expensive failure after the next,” Chronister charged, and went on to say that Kansans should begin to focus on the 2014 election and seek new leadership that is “thoughtful, responsible and responsive to the concerns of everyday Kansans.”
EXACTLY 100 YEARS ago, Teddy Roosevelt created the Bull Moose Party and left the Republican Party, which had refused to nominate him for the presidency. Kansas Republicans were split between the new party and the old — and one must go back to that time to find the party as divided as it is today on the purpose of government.
Chronister and the distinguished former lawmakers who have joined her crusade against the destructive policies of the far right ideologues led by Gov. Brownback, deserve the full attention of all Kansans who care about the future of their state and its people.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
