Laura Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC endorses only Democrats for Kansas Legislature | Opinion
When Gov. Laura Kelly launched her Middle of the Road PAC last year, there was a lot of speculation the Democrat might use it to actually back a few moderate Republican candidates for the Kansas Legislature.
The prospect alarmed both Democrats Republicans in Topeka. It was a rare moment of bipartisanship.
"We need to break the (Republican) supermajority and the way to do that is electing more Democrats, not electing Republicans," said state Rep. Vic Miller, a Topeka Democrat who was then the minority leader in the Kansas House.
"Democrats forming an alliance with fake Republicans who couldn't get elected as Democrats in their local areas is a Kansas tradition that dates back decades, so this is nothing new," thundered Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican.
Well, Kelly's PAC unveiled its general election endorsements this week and guess what?
There wasn't a single Republican on the list.
Not even the squishiest, softest RINO available earned Kelly's backing.
Republicans glad to be spared?
Instead, the PAC put its million-dollar muscle behind dozens of Democrats running for the Legislature — 65 for the Kansas House, and 16 for the Kansas Senate. Those candidates "will put politics aside and do what's in the best interest of the people they represent," Kelly said.
(The ironic thing here is that Kelly's PAC ended up following Miller's logic. But he can't quite enjoy it. Why? Because the Middle of the Road PAC this summer aggressively opposed Miller's primary campaign to move over to the Kansas Senate. He lost the race.)
By going with an all-Democrat slate, Kelly spared Kansas Republicans the awkwardness of opposing one of their own candidates. And it's clear those Republicans were glad to be spared.
It lets them go with their usual playbook after all.
" Governor Kelly has abandoned all pretense for moderation and endorsed a cadre of candidates who are self-described socialists and 'super liberals ,'" the Republican House Campaign Committee said in a statement.
Familiar stuff. You have to wonder if they wrote the statement before or after the PAC's endorsements were announced.
End veto-proof supermajority?
But let's say Republicans are right. For the sake of argument, let's say that every single Democrat on Kelly's list really a radical.
It doesn't matter a bit.
Because the fight in Kansas legislative races this fall is not whether Democrats or Republicans will run the Statehouse. Rather, it's whether Republicans will continue to have a veto-proof "my way or the highway" supermajority — or if they'll simply have a very large majority that nonetheless has to work with Kelly to get stuff done because she has a veto pen.
That is what voters are deciding this fall.
The GOP currently has veto-proof majorities in both the state House and the Senate. There are far more registered Republicans than Democrats in the state. It's a presidential election year. Barring a seismic shift in Kansas politics, Republicans will be in charge of the Legislature next year.
Voting a couple of extra Democrats into both houses wouldn't produce a slew of leftist legislation from Topeka. It probably won't even give us the long-hoped-for Medicaid expansion that most Kansans want.
But those few new Democrats could put a brake on the GOP's more extreme efforts.
Give Republicans another supermajority, and they'll — once again — try to pass a flat tax, so that you pay the same tax rate as billionaire Charles Koch. They'll continue attempts to undermine community schools by diverting tax dollars to private education, to push culture war legislation against LGBT people and public diversity efforts, to pass anti-abortion-rights legislation. All of this over the governor's veto pen.
Break the supermajority, though, and some of the wind goes out of the GOP sails.
Kansas is moderate. The GOP-controlled legislature isn't. With Republican supermajorities, it doesn't to be. It doesn't even need to compromise all that often.
A shift of a seat or two in either chamber could change that. That's how the Middle of the Road PAC really could produce middle-of-the-road results. And that — not socialism — is what Republicans in Topeka really fear.
