(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Dec. 21, 2015)
We’re now thinking that there are almost two dozen Kansas House Republicans and eight GOP senators who are wondering as Christmas approaches whether there’s going to be a hole in their stockings in next year’s elections when voters drop their votes into the ballot box.
The question? It’s simply whether the top of the ballot is going to have an effect on their race and their chance to return to the Statehouse after the election.
Those House and Senate Republicans? They are the ones who won election but represent districts that Republican Gov. Sam Brownback lost to Democratic challenger Rep. Paul Davis, D-Lawrence.
For legislative candidates, there’s nothing quite as nice as voters making their party affiliation clear at the top of the ballot, or at least near the top where state office candidates are listed, and then figuring, well, if we like the governor, we probably ought to send some friends of his to work with him in the Legislature.
Except for those 23 Republican House and eight Senate members who won their election in districts where the majority of their voters checked the Paul Davis box.
Makes it look like there maybe isn’t that top of the ballot and down party solidarity that most party members like.
Sure, there are those voters who like to view themselves as pretty cosmopolitan, not being stuck with just one party. And, there are those voters who maybe were startled by the governor’s motorcycle roaring beside them and decided that mufflers are almost as important as school finance technicalities.
Now there are, of course, those House and Senate members who got elected before Brownback was first elected in 2010, and who spend the time and effort to get to know their constituents. Those lucky few are multi-term regulars, they haven’t done anything offensive to their districts and maybe have been lucky enough to get their constituents things they want, whether it’s a highway off-ramp or keeping the state offices open in the district.
So, we’re probably going to see a new style of campaigning this year on the legislative level, where almost everything that Brownback has gotten accomplished in the past five sessions—six by the time the voters head to the polls next year—becomes a potential campaign issue.
Do you want to stand next to Brownback for a photograph that will be distributed in a district that voted in the majority against him? Do you want to take credit for supporting him on an issue or two that have some local interest, or do you want to take credit for voting against issues that the guy who lost the vote among your constituents tried to get passed?
With the governor not standing for re-election and essentially getting to cruise through the rest of his term, where do Republicans go?
Is there the chance that legislators who saw Davis win in their districts find something that they can challenge the governor on? Like maybe those tax cuts that the governor championed. Or do they stick with Brownback and figure that voters know that he’s going to be there for a couple more years and it is in their constituents’ best interests to stay on his good side?
Frankly, there aren’t many in the Statehouse who are certain which is the best tack.
Did Republicans who won in districts that Davis carried show independence from the governor, or did they just get lucky because they tossed candy to the right children and grandchildren in the summer parades? Did Democratic candidates in those districts just not link tightly enough with Davis to ride his victory in the district to the Statehouse? Or were those Davis votes merely “acting out” by Republicans—and the figures are that many Republicans crossed their party line to vote for Davis.
And, there is always the chance that Kansans are seeing the governor’s office as a distinct level of government not directly tied to the Legislature. The governor proposes, the Legislature disposes. Sorta that “separation of powers” business, isn’t it?
We’re not going to know for 11 months, but that schism for Republicans in districts carried by Davis may show up on the floor of the House and Senate next session, and look for party-line voting in each chamber (with, of course, the moderate Republican but not-quite-Democrat contingent) to thin a bit. This may be the election when for many candidates it makes political sense to frustrate the governor—even of their own party—if it will draw support from voters who will likely never see the name Brownback on another ballot.
And look also for the top-top of the ballot presidential race to shift some votes but it generally isn’t tactically clever to link a House or Senate race to a president who will spend more time flying across Kansas than actually standing in the state.