John Milburn/AP - Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas is a career politician. He has served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
Moderate no more
For years, Kansas has been one of the most reliably Republican states in presidential elections. In the past 100 years, only three Democrats have won there — Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 2008, John McCain beat Barack Obama 57 percent to 41 percent, winning all but three of the state’s 105 counties.
But at the state level, Kansans have routinely elected moderate Republican governors. More recently, the state elected Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, now President Obama’s secretary of health and human services.
Then came Brownback.
For most of his long political career, Brownback has been an unabashed social conservative and deeply religious man. He converted from evangelical Christianity to Roman Catholicism in 2002. He often speaks about how a brush with cancer deepened his religious views and influenced his political convictions.
During his tenure as governor, Brownback has pushed for stricter abortion controls, the expansion of faith-based programming and initiatives that promote healthy marriage and fatherhood.
“For 40 years, we had this moderate Republican-Democratic coalition running the state, and suddenly it’s pretty much gone,” said Burdett Loomis, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.
Brownback defied even the GOP-led state legislature in cutting funding for the arts, which left Kansas as the only state without a state-funded arts commission. And his plan to shutter nine social service offices around the state created a firestorm and sent several localities scrambling for their checkbooks to keep the offices open.
He has been so single-minded in his pursuit of smaller government that some have accused him of being an autocrat. T-shirts emerged with the slogan “Welcome to Brownbackistan.”
While many in the tea party movement have praised his cost-cutting, they also wonder whether Brownback, who briefly sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, is using Kansas as a stage for another run for the White House.
“We’re pleased with the cuts he is making,” said Lynda Tyler, 48, a Wichita stockbroker active in the tea party. “I hope the cuts he makes are able to last. For some reason, I don’t know why, I have this feeling he’s going to come in slashing and burning and he’s doing it so he can point back and say, ‘See what I did for Kansas? Maybe I can do it for the country.’ ”
The Kansas Policy Institute, where Brownback delivered his recent speech to warm applause, is funded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
The Kochs, whose oil and energy conglomerate is based in Wichita, have been among Brownback’s biggest supporters since he first ran for Congress in 1994 and have been boosters of the tea party movement through their group Americans for Prosperity. The Koch family, Koch Industries and Koch employees — there are 2,600 in the state — have contributed at least $143,000 to Brownback’s campaigns over the years, according to federal and state election records.
Critics say that the Kochs have too much say about what is happening in Kansas. Brownback appointed one Americans for Prosperity consultant to be his budget director and hired the wife of another leader as his spokeswoman.
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