Most Allen Countians will be surprised to learn that Rep. Lynn Jenkins, our Second District representative, has an opponent in the election, or, moreover, that there is an issue between them.
Surprise.
The Rev. Tobias Schlingensiepen (say shling-ehn-SEE’-pehn) of Topeka has been nominated for the job by the Democrats.
The issue of the day is the $610,000 Rep. Jenkins has collected in campaign contributions from banking and insurance interests, coupled with the fact that she has voted against legislation to place more regulations on those industries.
Rep. Jenkins says she opposes regulations that “limit those institutions’ ability to make loans and help the economy.”
Well, who doesn’t? The point of banking and insurance regulations is not to slow commerce, but to keep the playing field even. It is all but universally recognized that unregulated big banks and big insurance companies played a key role in the credit crunch that sent the world economy into recession in 2007-08. It should be agreed by that same majority that those industries should be made to play by safer rules from now on.
That’s not rocket science. Cats learn by touching hot stoves. We should be at least as smart.
And that, fellow citizens in the Second District, should be the message we send to Rep. Jenkins.
Of course, if the advice doesn’t come in a SuperPac package it may never be unwrapped.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
