What’s the matter with Kansas? This cliché phrase characterizing the red state and its political imagery was made famous in the mid-2000s when Thomas Frank coined it as the title to his best-selling book on his home state. His historical narrative and analysis takes us through how Kansas, a century ago the birthplace of progressive populism in the union, dissipated to create the “conservative populist” ideology of the right. Since its publication, the popular media and political mainstream exercise the phrase when satirizing policies championed by the new right-wing Republican establishment of the state. While pundits and media outlets across the board signal the 2014 midterm elections as inconsequential, there is a reason Kansas gives us pause as we watch the outcomes of its latest elections unfold. How can a state that proudly epitomizes what it means to be the “deep red” of America have three of their most prominent Republican officials at risk of losing re-election bids? As it turns out, many Kansans may not like the conservative experiment they were led into.
In 2010, after spending two terms as the state’s U.S. Senator, Sam Brownback was very clear about what he planned to do as the next governor of Kansas – carry out the most aggressive tax and spending cuts in the country. Hyping phrases like “real, live experiment” and “a shot of adrenaline,” Brownback sought to be the model for libertarian “trickle-down” economics. The legislation cut the top income tax rate from 6.45 to 4.9 percent (and set it to fall to 3.9 by 2018), the middle rate from 6.25 to 4.9 percent, and the bottom rate from 3.5 to 3 percent. It also eliminated the tax burden on income for almost 200,000 small business owners.
Since the tax cuts took effect in 2013, the state’s $700 million budget surplus could fall to a deficit of nearly $1.3 billion over the next several years. This past September, even with the known projected loss in revenue from the cuts, revenues fell by 17% less than experts projected. Both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s downgraded Kansas’ bond rating, the latter citing a “reason to believe the budget is not structurally aligned.” The implications fall short of the promise of an economic surge. Despite the analysts’ claims, Kansas is competing only marginally with its neighbors at a job growth rate of 1.4 percent, lower than the national average of 2 percent, and it ranks 45th in the nation for new business creation.
While Brownback has been the most aggressive in leading Kansas down the radical rabbit hole, he is not alone. Secretary of State Kris Kobach is among the nation’s most fervent anti-immigration proponents, dedicating most of his tenure in office to imposing questionably unconstitutional barriers on voting aimed at democratic constituents. But what is perhaps most frightening about these officials is the resources and mechanisms they have used to achieve their goals.
When the tax reform legislation was under consideration in 2012, Brownback paid Reagan-era mogul Arthur Laffer $75,000 in taxpayer money to fly into Wichita and sell the tax plan to the Kansas legislature. When Kansas moderates scoffed at the radical ideas in Brownback’s proposal, he rallied the Koch brothers and their affiliates to target moderates in the next state election cycle. Rolling Stone reported, “Of the 22 moderates targeted, only five survived,” and with that Brownback essentially ensured himself a more radical legislature to pass his reforms.
Kobach, whose challenger is one of the moderates ousted in 2012, used a memo he wrote while working under Attorney General John Ashcroft as the basis for legal authority when he authored Arizona’s controversial immigration law. The resulting law allowed local law enforcement to preemptively arrest persons on the basis of immigration status. In 2011, Kobach claimed illegal aliens were committing widespread voter fraud to attempt to disenfranchise almost 12,000 Kansas voters because they could not prove their citizenship.
After winning around 60 percent of the vote in each of their last elections, Brownback, Kobach, and incumbent U.S. Senator Pat Roberts face races that polls show are within a few percentage points of their opponents. In these last weeks of the race, outside Republican groups spent over $4 million in ads to try and save Roberts’ race against independent Greg Orman.
Opposition doesn’t seem to encourage them to focus on issues relevant to Kansas’ economic woes. Roberts’ latest campaign ad antics, where he “promises to keep terrorists out of Kansas,” – referencing Congress’ adamant urges to the Obama administration to not hold or transfer Guantanamo prisoners in the U.S. – are irrelevant to the troubles of the state he represents. Brownback, in his latest attempt to smear his opponent Democrat Paul Davis, released an ad criticizing the Kansas Supreme Court for overturning the death sentences of two murderers, indicting Davis as a “liberal lawyer” who will preside in a more liberal court lenient on murderers. The ad is tactless and ill-becoming of the state’s highest elected official.
Kansas hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since the Lyndon B. Johnson era of 1964. The recent faltering of these Republican leaders is not a result of Kansans’ newfound adoption for progressive ideas. They still embrace the ideology and principles of moderates like their revered former U.S. Senator Bob Dole. All of the contenders running against these incumbents are either independent or conservative Democrats. But this could be an indication of the radical right wing’s waning influence in America’s reddest states. Their initial popularity was largely based on their religious and cultural policy prescriptions and personalities, or in the case of Roberts, longevity. Kansans’ votes this fall will indicate whether their social and economic well-being finally outweighs the radical viewpoints and calamities created by these officials. We may not know for some time if there are long-term implications for rest of the country, but the state’s recent identity crisis sure has all scratching our heads asking – what’s the matter with Kansas?
Erin Mullally is a second year MPP student at the McCourt School of Public Public Policy at Georgetown University, and Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Public Policy Review. Prior, she spent three years working for the City of Kansas City, Missouri, serving as a communications and public affairs aide to Mayor Sylvester "Sly" James, Jr.
Excuse me, but please do not call Bob Dole a “moderate.” Simply being a Republican who is not on the extreme right of the American political spectrum does not make him, or anyone else, a moderate.