Focusing on Kansas, AP writer John Hanna wrote Monday about the multi-state campaign to drive all of the moderates out of the Republican Party and defeat lawmakers who refuse to swear fealty to the radical right-wing agenda.
He wrote of copy-cat campaigns in Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas and his home state of Kansas. He found that radical groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity are spending millions to defeat several dozen moderate Republicans in the Midwest and South, targeting prominent lawmakers who hold committee chairmanships and other key posts.
One of those being attacked viciously in Kansas is Sen. Steve Morris of Hugoton, who is president of the Kansas Senate and a major supporter of Kansas State University and the other Regents universities.
One of the radicals running against a sitting moderate is Greg Smith who says it’s way past time for Kansans to elect more right-wing legislators. Hanna quotes him as saying, “If you don’t believe in that playbook, then why are you on the team?”
The team’s captain is Gov. Sam Brownback, who has taken the unprecedented step of using his high office to campaign against Republican moderates and for the radicals he has pushed into races against them. Gov. Brownback doesn’t deny his complicity. He is attacking fellow Republicans, he said, because in resisting his proposals they are “promoting a Democrat agenda.”
What Gov. Brownback means is that Senators Morris, Tim Owens and Dwayne Umbarger and other moderates resisted tax cuts so severe that they threaten financing for the public schools, the state’s universities, the state court system and the Department of Transportation. It is true that these basic state functions are also supported by the Democrats in the House and Senate — and were all but universally supported by Kansas lawmakers of both parties until the last two election cycles.
Hanna reported the Kansas Chamber of Commerce poured $163,000 into the effort to elect radical right candidates last year and that Koch Industries, Inc. of Wichita ponied up $36,000 for the cause. He also noted similar efforts have unseated moderates in Texas and Colorado and a similar campaign is under way against Sen. David Pearce in Missouri, who is chairman of the Senate’s Education Committee there. A radical group is spending $50,000 to unseat him.
In Kansas, Hanna wrote, the radicals hope to elect enough fellow travelers to write laws restricting the ability of labor unions to raise money, “to remake the state’s appellate courts by providing for political appointment of judges and to enact more conservative social policy.”
REGISTER READERS have a role to play in this battle. Traditional Republicans can follow the philosophies of Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, Sen. James B. Pearson, Sen. Robert Dole, Gov. Bill Graves and Iolans Senate President Bob Talkington and House education leader Denny Apt — just to mention a few outstanding moderate Republicans most will remember — and vote against this conspiracy to shrink Kansas government into impotence.
Those who don’t know which candidates will work for a strong Kansas if elected can find a starter list by calling up Citizens For Higher Education on their computers. There they will find the names of John Coen, a candidate for this senate district, and Judy Brigham, a candidate for the House. Those with friends in the new District 15, will find Dwayne Umbarger chosen and can give him a boost.
This is a very important primary election. The essential personality of the Kansas Republican Party is at stake.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
