Kansas Politics 2012: A Primer

By Tyler Holmes 
tyler@polit[email protected]

In Kansas politics, there are two main parties: moderate and conservative.

Democrats are only elected in one of two circumstances. One, they are from where more liberal voters have concentrated – especially in Wyandotte and Douglas counties. Or, two, the Republican nominated in any given primary is extreme enough to turn moderate GOPers blue.

The latter occurred during the mid-00s when Kansas elected a Democratic governor — current Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — as well as Republican-turned-Democrat Attorney General Paul Morrison and two members of Congress: Dennis Moore and Nancy Boyda. All Democrats.

And so the two diverse groups within the Kansas Republican Party realized that without each other, their success would be limited both in campaigning and governing.

A sizable group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, with Gov. Sebelius and successor Mark Parkinson at the forefront, led from 2003 until last January.

Then came the 2010 midterm elections. Republicans rode a wave of national anti-establishment feelings fueled by Tea Party enthusiasm to record victories in the state of Kansas and across the country. Behind Gov. Sam Brownback and other strong candidates, Kansas Republicans won all statewide and Congressional offices for the first time since 1964. In the state House, Republicans took one of the largest majorities in history at 92-33.

It was a bad year to be a Democrat in Kansas. Even though there were no state Senate elections, the Kansas Democrats still managed to lose a Senate seat when Democratic Senator Chris Steineger switched parties, moving the Republican advantage to 32-8.

After all of that, Republicans were feeling pretty high. More precisely, since GOP candidates and elected officials have had to appeal to an active and angry base during the last two years, conservatives have been feeling outright powerful – across the country.

The deal is off.

The headlines will be on the Republicans running for president against Barack Obama.

But voters should also pay attention to the fact that moderate state legislators will be challenged in droves by more conservative candidates who, after 2010 and with the knowledge that the Tea Party is around for at least one more election cycle, think they have the minds of the ordinary man on their side.

At minimum, eight Kansas Senate incumbents – all moderate Republicans, many of them in Senate leadership positions – face challengers from more strongly conservative candidates.

State Senate President Steve Morris (Hugoton), Vice President John Vratil (Leawood), and Majority Whip Jean Schodorf (Wichita) are three prime targets. They’re experienced moderates who regularly question the conservative agenda and have stalled several measures passed by the House.

Organizations such as the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, a strong proponent of the limited government agenda supported by the House and governor, are funding the competition.

They support Gov. Brownback’s claims that Kansas’s economic strategy should be to lower income and business taxes while reducing regulation and the overall size of government in order to draw more business to the state.

The Chamber’s political action committee has already made the $1,000 maximum contributions to challengers of Schodorf, Morris, Vratil and Senators Tim Owens (Overland Park), Pete Brungardt (Salina), Terrie Huntington (Fairway), Vicki Schmidt (Topeka), and Carolyn McGinn (Sedgwick).

Before this is over, there may be more.

This tension – between right of center and right – is the focus within the state this year. It will either limit the governor’s agenda for two to six years, or give it free reign. Only the voters can decide.