Thread: Kansas Suddenly Emerges At Center Of Fight For U.S. Senate

Kansas Suddenly Emerges At Center Of Fight For U.S. Senate

September 5, 2014 by McClatchy-Tribune

THINKSTOCK

(MCT) — Kansas has long had an outsized place in the popular and political imagination, as the fulcrum of the fight over slavery, a hotbed of prairie populism and, not least, the home address of a whirlwind traveler named Dorothy.
Now, suddenly, Kansas is looming large in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate.
The abrupt withdrawal Wednesday of the Democrats’ underfunded and lightly regarded Senate candidate leaves a wealthy maverick facing Republican Pat Roberts in a highly competitive one-on-one contest, meaning the GOP is going to have to work quite a bit harder if it hopes to retain the seat and seize control of the Senate in November.
The odds still favor a Republican takeover. The GOP needs to pick up six seats and appears halfway home, with likely wins in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia. Of the remaining contests, all but two of the most competitive are being fought in states that President Barack Obama lost in 2012.
Still, Republicans have yet to put any of those contests away. And Kansas now joins Georgia and Kentucky on the list of potentially offsetting Democratic gains.
Last month, Roberts survived a rough primary against Tea Party challenger Milton Wolf, who portrayed the three-term incumbent as having lost touch with the state after more than 30 years in Washington. The New York Times reported that Roberts no longer owns a home in Kansas, and the senator didn’t help himself by stating in a radio interview that he returns every time he has an election opponent — as opposed to every chance he gets.
As the two savaged one another, the well-to-do businessman and political independent Greg Orman filled the television airwaves with a flood of pox-on-both-their-houses advertising, suggesting he had little use for either major party — a sentiment that neatly aligns with the disgust of many Kansas voters.
Sitting virtually on the sidelines was Democratic Senate hopeful Chad Taylor. A prosecutor in Topeka, he received little support from a state party keenly focused on beating GOP Gov. Sam Brownback, who is highly vulnerable for his own reasons, and defeating Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has made a national name for himself as an anti-illegal immigration crusader.
Faced with little money and little party backing, Taylor abruptly pulled the plug on his candidacy just before Wednesday’s 5 p.m. deadline for candidates to submit their names for the November ballot.
Republicans have cried foul and threatened legal action. Kobach, the state’s chief elections officer, said he would take the matter up with his lawyers as well as the state attorney general.
The Kansas GOP has been bitterly divided against itself. The state has a long history of pragmatic conservatism, which Brownback swept aside with an agenda of tax-cutting and other moves that pushed the party aggressively rightward. Those who disagreed were purged in GOP primaries.
The pushback has been fierce. More than 100 Republican lawmakers, including two former lieutenant governors and several ex-legislative leaders, have endorsed Brownback’s Democratic opponent, state House Minority Leader Paul Davis.
Kobach, for his part, faces a stiff re-election fight against Jean Schodorf, a former Republican and Brownback target who was defeated in a 2012 primary. She has since become a Democrat.
All of that skirmishing may only serve to enhance Orman’s appeal; he pointedly declines to say whether he would join with Democrats or Republicans if elected to the Senate, suggesting he has little use for either major party.
Roberts remains the favorite to win, even after his unimpressive 48 percent showing in the Aug. 5 primary.
“He’s an incumbent and Republicans have been winning Senate races in Kansas since the 1930s,” said Bob Beatty, who teaches political science at Topeka’s Washburn University.
In fact, Kansas Republicans have won every U.S. Senate race since 1932 — the longest such streak anywhere in the country.
Roberts “is going to have more money than you and I can imagine coming from outside groups,” Beatty went on. “They do not want to lose a Senate seat in Kansas, of all places.”
But Roberts is highly at risk. “Orman has been doing everything right,” Beatty said. “A lot of it has been good planning. He’s also been the beneficiary of some luck. In the end he may need a little more luck.”
For now at least, win or lose, Orman has given Democrats a rare bit of good news in an otherwise tough election season.
–Mark Z. Barabak
Los Angeles Times
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Money Pours Into State Races As Stakes Rise

September 5, 2014 by McClatchy-Tribune

THINKSTOCK

WASHINGTON (MCT) — Money is pouring into statehouse elections this year at a potentially record-breaking rate, as the stakes for political control in the 50 capitals continue to rise.
Campaign contributions for state races this election cycle likely will surpass a record $2.1 billion collected by candidates, legislative caucuses and state political committees in the last two-year election cycle of 2011-2012, said Edwin Bender, executive director of the dollar-tracking National Institute on Money in State Politics.
That record amount doesn’t include another $1 billion raised for campaigns on state ballot questions. Nor does it reflect uncounted millions spent by some outside organizations seeking to influence the outcome of elections.
The eye-popping total reflects growing recognition of the powerful role states play in regulating and taxing industries, from energy to insurance to gambling. It also reflects the fact that a wide array of hot-button issues, such as educational standards, the Affordable Care Act, immigration, gay rights and gun control, are being shaped and implemented in the states because of political gridlock in Washington.
States increasingly have exercised their traditional powers to be involved in nearly every social and economic issue, and inaction by Congress has made it the states’ business to carry out national policies, said Thad Kousser, professor of political science at the University of California San Diego.
“The stakes are higher and ever higher with the issues in statehouses,” said Kousser. “Insurance, environmental, the Affordable Care Act — statehouses have a huge amount of power over each of these. The education wars — that’s also a state decision.”
Paul Brace, professor of political science at Rice University, said there is “more power and influence on policy at the state level than 30 years ago.” Campaign contributions give donors access to lawmakers, he said, and access carries the ability to possibly influence decisions.
Many factors are driving the increasing flow of political dollars into state elections, not the least of which is the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010.
The decision opened the spigot on unlimited independent spending by corporations and unions. It’s led to the creation of super PACs and spurred the growth of 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups that can accept unlimited amounts to spend independently of a candidate’s campaign.
But even before the Citizens United decision, state-level election campaigns were attracting big money.
About $2 billion was raised by candidates, legislative caucuses and state political parties in the 2007-2008 election cycle, according to figures compiled by the Money in State Politics group. Another $814 million was raised for ballot questions in that cycle.
“There is just more and more money,” said Jenny Flanagan, vice president of state operations for Common Cause, which advocates for spending limits and campaign finance transparency. “You’ve got PACs, super PACs and independent expenditures coming in. … It’s just more money.”
The number of governorships up this election cycle by itself could make for another record amount of political money, said Bender of Money in State Politics.
Thirty-six states elect governors this year. Fifteen states did in 2011 and 2012, when candidates for the office raised $257 million. That’s an average cost of $16 million per race, Bender’s group calculated. And that’s adding costs of a special election in West Virginia and a gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin.
For comparison, Florida’s gubernatorial election this year, which may be the most expensive contest, could tally $150 million by itself.
In addition to what candidates are raising, super PACs and other independent groups are growing in number and apparently have more money this year to spend in gubernatorial and other state elections, Bender said.
The prospect of greater independent expenditure is sending chills through many statehouses and helping to spur an arms race for money.
It prompted the Connecticut legislature to last year change its state campaign finance laws, which were among the most stringent in the nation and provided for public campaign financing.
Lawmakers removed a cap on how much political parties can spend on candidates who participate in public campaign financing and raised the limits on what donors can contribute to the parties as a way to offset what outside groups spend to influence an election.
Eighty percent of the candidates running there this year are opting into the public finance system, said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause Connecticut. But many remain fearful of advertising by outside groups that could sway the outcome of an election.
“Everyone is participating, yet everyone is panic-stricken that outside expenditure groups are going to come in and attack them,” she said.
Outside groups already are in Kentucky in a bid to help Republicans take control of both legislative chambers by winning the Democratic-controlled House this November. Among them: Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group backed by billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch, on the GOP side. Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, is trying to help Democrats.
Also involved in Kentucky and other states are national party PACs.
The national Republican State Leadership Committee will spend between $35 million and $40 million on legislative and other down-ticket races in all 50 states this year, said Matt Walter, the group’s president.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is spending about $20 million this election cycle on legislative races, said Michael Sargeant, the group’s executive director.
Sargeant has unveiled a multi-year “Advantage 2020″ plan aimed at winning control of the nation’s legislative chambers during the next three election cycles. At present, Republicans control 28 legislatures to the Democrats’ 17. Four are split and Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nonpartisan. The year 2020 is critical, because after that year’s census, state lawmakers in most states will be charged with drawing districts for state legislative and congressional seats.
–Jeffrey Stinson
Stateline.org
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Distributed by MCT Information Services.

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