Paul Davis

Marcus Kirby

Making sure education funding gets to the right places is a major priority for Rep. Paul Davis as he campaigns for re-election against a first-time challenger from the Libertarian Party for the Kansas House 46th District seat.

Davis, a Lawrence Democrat, seeks a third term. His challenger is Kansas University student and Lawrence resident Marcus Kirby.

“I think I have had a lot of success in building coalitions of moderate Republicans and Democrats on education issues,” Davis said. “It is important to have people in Topeka who can work on both sides of the aisle.”

The 46th District represents large portions of East Lawrence.

Davis, a Lawrence attorney, said assuring the Legislature honors commitments it made to K-12 education last session will be important for him. He also wants to study the state formula used for distributing education funding to make sure it is equitable.

Davis said the state also needs to get serious about tackling health care reform.

“It looks like the federal government has really decided to take a pass on the issue,” Davis said.

Kirby, a political science student, is running a campaign based on opting out of the federal government’s No Child Left Behind Act, removing the sales tax on food purchases and creating a constitutional amendment to limit government’s use of eminent domain.

“I would like to believe that I could do some things to bring us back to a smaller, more limited government,” Kirby said.