Topeka ? Only two days after the Republican State Committee approved a party platform containing anti-abortion and anti-evolution planks, GOP House members approved a manifesto outlining their agenda for this year’s legislative session.

The legislators’ statement is as striking for avoiding social issues and being vague on some positions as the party’s document is for its willingness to tackle divisive subjects and its specificity.

Taken together, the two documents illustrate the pitfalls involved in writing platforms. Having a specific document energizes activists and informs voters, but the same hard-and-fast positions can create problems in governing.

“Political parties are not constrained by the need to actually change public policy,” said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence. “They get to declare what they want, but they don’t have to work in the real world to make things happen.”

He added: “That’s why you see, I think, from both Republicans and the Democrats here in the Legislature a sort of broader approach to issues, because they know they have to build coalitions with people who may not agree.”

The Kansas Republican Party’s rules – thanks to changes made at the GOP’s annual, statewide Kansas Day convention – require the GOP to draft a platform every two years. Kansas Democrats draft a platform every four years, when there’s a governor’s race.

Such efforts often raise questions about their usefulness, particularly in an age of campaigns dominated by television ads, of large numbers of independent voters and of party discipline that’s weak compared to decades past.

“Kansans have always voted for the person they think is best qualified to hold the office,” said state Democratic Chairman Larry Gates. “I think party affiliation has always been somewhat secondary.”

The state GOP’s platform supports overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which in 1973 legalized most abortions, sweeping away many states’ restrictions.

It also says public school students should discuss and critique all “science-based theories” about the origin of life in science classes – a view that assumes there are serious questions about evolution, a position mainstream scientists don’t take.

Still, many Kansas Republicans felt the need to make a peace offering to less conservative party members – a “diversity clause,” saying the party respects differing views.

In the House Republicans’ document, there’s no mention of abortion, gay marriage, evolution or parental choice in deciding where children go to school.

Their agenda endorses tougher penalties for sex offenders, phasing out property taxes on business machinery and equipment and limiting the scope of frivolous lawsuits against businesses.

While it calls for “reform” of laws allowing government to force property sales for public or economic development purposes, it doesn’t give any hints.

And when it comes to school funding, it says only that the goal is, “Provide sound education without jeopardizing the economic future of our children.”

The avoidance of controversy stems from GOP leaders’ discussions with the 83 House Republicans.

The GOP State Committee didn’t make pleasing everyone a mandate, and that’s why its platform tackles hot-button social issues in some detail.