Topeka ? If Democrat Paul Davis wins this year’s race for governor, he will be the first Lawrence native to do so since Robert Docking in the 1960s, and perhaps the first Kansas House member to do so in modern history, at least without first having served as House Speaker.

At age 42, Davis has had a remarkably brief political career so far, having served only 11 years in the Kansas House. As the current minority leader there, he presides over a caucus of just 33 Democrats, who are outnumbered nearly 3-to-1 by Republicans.

Despite that disadvantage, observers say Davis has been a strong opposition leader, holding his caucus in lock-step unity against Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s major policy initiatives.

Kansas University political science professor Burdett Loomis said that has been no small task.

“The Democratic caucus is not all that homogeneous,” said Loomis, who also worked in the governor’s office for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. “Kansas politics aside, you’ve got a whole variety of folks in there. By and large, he’s done what a leader has to do: listen and talk to people, and work at it to hold them together.”

Life and career in Lawrence

Loomis said he has known Davis since the young legislator was 4 years old. Davis’ father, Ray Davis, is a retired professor of public administration, which used to be part of the same department with political science at KU.

Paul Davis later attended KU, majoring in political science and studying under Loomis.

“I used to call him a solid B+ student, but I’m now calling him an A- student — you know, because of grade inflation,” Loomis joked. “He may not have been the most brilliant student in class, but a solid hard worker. Then he decided at some point he was going to work in politics, and that’s what he’s done.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree, Davis earned his law degree at Washburn University in Topeka. He then went into private practice in Lawrence.

He also worked as a political aide for Sebelius when she served as Kansas Insurance Commissioner, and as the legislative and ethics counsel to the Kansas Bar Association. He has served on the boards of Health Care Access Clinic in Lawrence, a safety net clinic for the uninsured, and Arc of Douglas County, which provides services for people with developmental disabilities.

Early years in the House

Davis’ first opening at electoral politics came in late 2002, when Rep. Troy Findley was elected to a fifth term but stepped down to work instead as legislative liaison for newly-elected Gov. Sebelius.

Davis was chosen by precinct committee members in the district to replace Findley. He has since been re-elected to five more terms.

Even with Sebelius in the governor’s office, Democrats were still the minority in both chambers of the Legislature while conservative Republicans controlled the House.

The minority leader in the House at that time was Dennis McKinney, a conservative Democrat from Greensburg who was known for being able to strike deals with Republicans. He was also occasionally able to form a working majority with moderate Republicans to out-flank conservatives, especially during pitched battles over budgets and school finance.

McKinney resigned after the 2008 elections when Sebelius appointed him as state treasurer, replacing Republican Lynn Jenkins, who had just been elected to Congress. Democrats in the House then elected Davis as the new leader.

Opposition leader

Under Sebelius, and later Gov. Mark Parkinson, Davis picked up where McKinney left off, working with moderate Republicans to pass budgets and blocking conservative legislation, especially on abortion and other social issues.

But his role changed to that of a true opposition leader after the 2010 elections, when Brownback, then a U.S. senator, won the governor’s race in a landslide and conservatives made significant gains in the House.

While Davis generally held the House Democratic caucus in unison while Brownback and conservatives were passing historic tax cuts and deep cuts in base education funding, Davis and the moderates no longer had the votes to overcome the stronger conservative majority.

He’s now hoping for better success among the electorate by appealing to moderate Republicans who have been disappointed, or ousted from elected office, by Brownback and his conservative allies.

“I think it’s very clear that Sam Brownback’s administration has been a failure,” said former Senate President Dick Bond, R-Overland Park. Bond is one of the leaders of Republicans for Kansas Values, a group of about 100 current and former GOP officials who are now endorsing Davis.

But while Davis has been harshly critical of Brownback during the campaign, and most polls show him slightly leading in the race, his critics say he still has not talked specifically about what he would do differently if he is elected governor.

Davis’ campaign website, for example, does not even contain a section about issues or position statements. And on the campaign trail, he has offered very few concrete policy proposals.

On the economy, for example, Davis has appointed campaign advisers and promised to hold a series of “economic summits” to study various sectors of the economy, but has not proposed any new economic initiatives

“Instead of concrete answers, the liberal legislator handed out another list of committee assignments of people who will tell him what should be done for Kansas,” the Brownback campaign said after a Davis news conference.

And while he has criticized the tax cuts that Brownback pushed through, Davis has not suggested repealing any of them. Instead, he has argued for freezing in place those that have already taken effect, while putting a moratorium on those scheduled to take effect later, until education funding is restored to pre-recession levels.

And Davis has not said how he intends to pay for increased education spending, except to say he expects revenues to grow as the economy improves.