Topeka ? The Kansas Republican Party on Monday took at jab at Kansas Democratic Party Executive Director Kenny Johnston, who is leaving his position and the state to take a job in Texas.

Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas GOP, said that last month, “the Kansas Democratic Party harshly criticized Gov. Sam Brownback for trying to make Kansas ‘more like Texas,’ an attack on the administration’s use of Texas’ jobs-creating, no-income tax fiscal model as an example for how Kansas can create jobs through major tax structure reform.”

Barker continued, “Now, only a month later, the Kansas Democratic Party has announced that its executive director will be resigning effective December 2011 and taking a job with Hewlett-Packard in, of all places — Texas. Actions speak louder than words.”

In September, Johnston issued a news release criticizing Brownback after he endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry for the Republican Party nomination for president.

“What is Governor Brownback’s fascination with the Lone Star State?” Johnston said at the time. “Texas has the highest number of adults without a high school diploma, a poverty rate of almost 20 percent and the highest number of uninsured residents. That’s without mentioning what Texas has done to the Big 12. The last thing Kansas should strive for is to be more like Texas,” he said.

After Monday’s GOP release, Johnston responded, saying, “It’s too bad the Kansas Republican Party feels the need to distort a private, purely nonpolitical decision I made with my family. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but sadly these are the kind of tactics most Kansans have come to expect from the party of Sam Brownback.”