Policy and Politics
tfk | November 17, 2006The Capitol-Journal complains that Connie Morris is Off again:
Morris, who was defeated in the primary during her bid for re-election to the Kansas State Board of Education, repeated this week her intentions of having taxpayers pick up the bill for two out-of-state trips to education conferences during the final months of her tenure.
One of those trips, to Washington, D.C., is scheduled after her last state board meeting. No problem, she says. She has promised to provide a written report of what she learns at that meeting. That had better be some kind of report.
…
Morris defends taking the…
tfk | November 16, 2006TPMmuckraker reports:
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), HHS last year spent $153 million on abstinence education programs…
Set aside the issue of whether they do any good. GAO tried to see if they did any harm, and concluded they did: Some of the abstinence programs are telling kids stuff that just isn't true. The GAO cites one program which told kids that HIV can pass through latex condoms, because latex is porous. (That's false.)
The GAO gave the reasonable-sounding recommendation to HHS that it ensure that all information given to kids through these programs should…
tfk | November 16, 2006By a large margin, Steny Hoyer was chosen to lead the new Democratic Majority. Hoyer is a moderate Democrat who isn't tainted by ethics questions. Murtha would have been a very conservative voice (he sponsors flag burning amendments and is aggressively anti-abortion), and his status as an unindicted co-conspirator in ABSCAM would have put a damper on Democratic efforts to push an agenda of ethics reform.
In an interview with TPM Cafe, Hoyer explained: "My job is to help create consensus so we can not be a cacophany of voices but a voice that the American people can hear."
Well done, Dems,…
tfk | November 16, 2006Most Students in Big Cities Lag Badly in Basic Science, and the reason seems largely based on economics and race:
while Atlanta was below the median in the ranking of urban performance, its white fourth graders not only did better on the exam than did 86 percent of fourth graders across the country but also outperformed the nation’s white fourth graders as a whole, who reached only the 62nd percentile. At the same time, the city’s black fourth graders were in the bottom 22 percent of fourth graders nationwide — two points below the national average for blacks.
I've seen studies (and can't…
tfk | November 16, 2006SurveyUSA surveys approval for all 100 Senators, and the Kansas Senators don't do well. Brownback comes in at 67, and Roberts at 71. James Inhofe is among the least popular Senator who will be up for re-election next year. Beating him would be a real win.
Looking in more detail at the Kansas Senators, both saw major drops in popularity. Alas, the shift is mostly among Conservatives and Liberals, moderate and Independent approval has been flat.
That said, Roberts and Brownback have both trailed Governor Sebelius in job approval, and it's likely that she could make a race against either…
tfk | November 15, 2006Senator Brownback told Fox and Friends:
I want to point out -- and I'm a bit jaded about this -- that we've been trying to be bipartisan for some period of time. And we've been putting forward bipartisan proposals and we were constantly blocked, blocked, blocked.
How bipartisan were those proposals if Democrats were blocking them? What twisted definition of that word could he possibly be using?
One thing we can be glad of is that this sort of partisan "bipartisanship" is what lost the last election. Karl Rove slithered into the White House by dividing the nation, and convincing just…
tfk | November 15, 2006Only days after the election, Nancy Boyda has already begun to impress her skeptics. The Pittsburg Morning Sun and the Topeka Capitol Journal write:
This newspaper endorsed Jim Ryun in the 2nd Congressional District race. But we give Nancy Boyda an "A" for her first few hours in victory over the five-time incumbent Republican.
Boyda was gracious, enthusiastic, showed a willingness to reach out to the Republican Party and was even bold.
* Bold, as in Boyda saying she wouldn't accept the generous health care package that is offered to members of Congress. She said that would put her out of…
tfk | November 15, 2006A Topeka call center for veterans is expanding "due to the number of veterans returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … overloading resources at Veteran's Hospitals across the country."
Conservative radio host Steve Forman has one thought about that news:
It is always good to hear of new jobs coming to Topeka. We need all of this we can get.
Personally, I'd give up 90 jobs in Topeka if there were 50,000 fewer soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq. But that's just me.
tfk | November 13, 2006Back in March, I went to the Kansas Democratic Party's Washington Days, and met the candidate for the 1st district, which Jerry Moran won with 79% of the vote. What I wrote at the time was:
The most encouraging person I met was John Doll, running against Jerry Moran in the First District. Doll's website is a little light on details or a sense of the man, so I wasn't sure what to expect. ...
What I found was a retired government studies teacher and basketball coach and a business owner who is personable, open, honest about his prospects, and proud to be a Democrat. He says his friends were…
tfk | November 13, 2006The race for State Board of Education against John Bacon looked incredibly close until the last votes were counted. It had been a 2 point race until the last precincts reported and gave the incumbent creationist a massive lead over Don Weiss.
Don Weiss has asked me to pass on these thoughts:
Please let me take this opportunity to thank your readers for their tremendous support. I would be honored to help carry their dreams and desires for Kansas in the future.
He also included his broader take on the Kansas elections:
As you might expect, I am deeply disappointed in the outcome of the…
tfk | November 13, 2006In an article on the revolving doors between Congress and the lobbying world, James Thurber, professor of government at American University in DC says:
"The beltway here, it’s like a magnetic field, …After spending time in Washington," he said, former members of Congress “find it’s hard to peddle their wares in Topeka, Kan."
I have trouble imagining Ryun selling the House that Abramoff built and passing up a lobbying gig in DC. Besides, most of his kids are happily ensconced in the now marginalized Republican machine in DC.
tfk | November 13, 2006SurveyUSA polled 500 Kansans on behalf of KWCH. Asked "Based on what you know today, do you support or oppose embryonic stem cell research?" the research had 60% support, 32% opposition.
The poll follows suggestions that Kansas pass an amendment like the MIssouri stem cell amendment. The Wichita Eagle's blog points out that such an amendment isn't going to move because it requires 2/3 support in the legislature, which it won't get.
What's interesting is that these poll results are lower than a poll a year ago commissioned by the Kansas Coalition for Lifesaving Cures. That poll asked a…
tfk | November 12, 2006Presidential advisor Dan Bartlett sez:
WALLACE: You’re saying you don’t need to have Medicare negotiate lower prices. it’s already happened.
BARTLETT: The marketplace is working. We’re more than happy to have that debate with Republicans, Democrats, whoever wants to talk about it. The proof is in the pudding. It’s been working. It’s been benefitting America’s seniors.
But the American people disagree. In the same Newsweek poll that showed the President with a 31% approval rating, allowing HHS to negotiate drug prices was the highest priority for voters. That has support from 76% of the…
tfk | November 11, 2006The last few years have been pretty rough for veterans and active duty personnel, so be sure to thank your friends and neighbors who have served. We can only hope the next few years will be easier on them and on us all.
tfk | November 9, 2006In keeping with my promise to stop writing about politics if Dems took the House and Senate (which I confess I didn't think would happen), it's time to talk policy. Adventures in Ethics and Science asks What's your legislative agenda for the first hundred days?:
To streamline things a bit… let's restrict the wish-list… to issues to do with science, education, and matters of ethics -- broadly construed.
I would argue that ethics plays into any policy decision, so I'll stick with science and education.
Item 1: Re-authorize the Endangered Species Act.
With Richard Pombo out of the House, the…
tfk | November 9, 2006Siege mentality has put together the county-by-county numbers on the Boyda victory. There were 220,442 votes cast for Boyda and Ryun. Last time there were 286,857.
You can see the whole spreadsheet here.
Even with 60,000 fewer votes, Boyda got nearly as many votes in each county, in most cases more, than she got two years ago. Jim Ryun lost votes everywhere.
I suspect that the comment I heard at the watch party is right, that Republican GOTV was bringing Boyda supporters to the polls. Ed Brayton is suggesting that libertarian Republicans swung the election, and I suspect that played a…
tfk | November 8, 2006Pober asks Where Will They Go Now?:
Phill Kline and Jim Ryun are unemployed (sometime soon).
Where will they go now? What do people like this do once they get booted from office?
My theory: Phill Kline moves to the second district and lays the groundwork to run against Nancy Boyda in 2008.
Jim Ryun will stay on the corporate gravy train, probably taking a lobbying position and continuing to work out of Ed Buckham and Jack Abramoff's old digs.
We'll see.
tfk | November 8, 2006Chris Bowers points out the major victories that netroots candidates won, often in races that the national party would have written off. Many people wrote of the blogosphere as a political force when the Dean for President campaign collapsed. But we didn't just pack it in, we built a strong infrastructure for winning national campaigns in edgy districts.
A lot of credit for that has to go to Chairman Dean as well. Despite dire warnings, Dean has not led the party into dire ideological warfare. He ran strong candidates in record numbers of races, and won in races that people would have…
tfk | November 8, 2006I'm still coming to grips with the astounding upset in the Kansas 2nd. Since it looks like the Virginia Senate race is almost over, I have to get this in fast.
The Journal World writes:
U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., didn’t know what hit him.
Kansas political commentator Dennis Hawver explains:
All over the second district she was every where. She was going places where there were six people and one pot of coffee. And then you sit down and talk to them and they remember that. It was like she was running for county commission across the whole 17, 18 counties of the Second District.
I was at one…
tfk | November 8, 2006Ms. TfK, normally not a fan of my political posts, asks for clarity on the Senate situation.
Two races are too close to call right now: Jim Webb and George Allen in Virginia, and Conrad Burns and Jon Tester in Montana.
George Allen was a frontrunner in the 2008 GOP presidential race until his history with white supremacists was exposed, and he decided to use an obscure French racial epithet against a Webb staffer. That race is tight enough (6,700 votes out of 2.3 million) that it won't be called until all the election boards have had a chance to review all the totals. Right now, Webb is…