Republican incumbent Anthony Brown retained his Kansas House District 38 seat Tuesday, defeating Democratic challenger Diane Bryant.

The district includes parts of Lawrence and stretches east to Eudora, De Soto and parts of Olathe, Lenexa and Shawnee.

In Douglas County, Brown collected 1,718 of 3,327 votes, or 51.64 percent. Bryant gathered 1,609 votes. In Johnson County, Brown took 4,461 of 7,527 votes, or 59.27 percent. Bryant collected 3,065 votes.

Brown said he wants to focus on alternative energy.

“I think we have to do something to step away from dependence on foreign oil,” he said.

Brown, a social conservative, voted against the K-12 school finance plan. He voted for the concealed carry law. And in a 2005 report card by the anti-tax group Kansas Taxpayers Network, Brown received relatively high marks of 87.5 percent. Lawmakers who scored higher than 75 percent were deemed “taxpayer friends.”

Brown said Tuesday that he believes government should be accountable to the people.

He said he voted against the school finance plan because it didn’t help many of the school districts in his district, noting that Johnson County gives more in tax money for schools than it gets back from the state.

“I voted against it before and I will again,” he said.

Endorsed by several education groups, including the Kansas National Education Assn., Bryant had made education a key issue and called supporting education – from kindergarten through college – the most important thing the Legislature can do.

“I would have hoped that this district would have been represented by a more moderate candidate,” she said.