Topeka ? After six years in Congress, four years as state treasurer and four years before that in the Kansas Legislature, Lynn Jenkins has become a familiar face in state politics.

And for the past two years, she has been getting more familiar on the national stage as well. As vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, she is frequently seen on the podium standing next to Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, when the party announces legislative initiatives or responds to statements from the White House.

Those two years have been marked by partisan conflict, including dozens of votes to repeal or delay President Barack Obama’s signature health care law and gridlock that resulted in a 16-day shutdown of the federal government last year.

But Jenkins defends what the House Republicans have done during her time in Congress, and she bristles at the suggestion that Republicans are to blame for what’s wrong in Washington. She puts the blame for that shutdown squarely on the shoulders of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and President Obama.

“And keep in mind, this (shutdown) was by design,” she said during an interview this week. “Harry Reid and President Obama were so dug in and convinced that a shutdown was going to be blamed on us, and ultimately be good for their politics, they simply refused to talk to us. And I know this for a fact because I was in a meeting with the President of the United States.”

Focusing attention on Reid has become a common strategy for Republicans running for re-election this year. During a debate at the Kansas State Fair earlier this month, Sen. Pat Roberts mentioned Reid in almost every answer he gave, while pointing out that independent challenger Greg Orman had once contributed money to one of Reid’s re-election campaigns.

When asked, for example, why Congress failed again this year to pass a budget for the fiscal year that begins Wednesday, and instead passed another “continuing resolution” before adjourning so members could campaign for re-election, Jenkins put the blame on Reid.

“The problem is, we (the House) did a budget, and the Senate this year did not,” she said. “We passed seven appropriations bills. Do you know how many the Senate passed? Zero. And therein lies the rub.

“It’s like I’ve been telling folks for the last few months: One chamber can’t unilaterally govern. And Harry Reid is determined to send a message across the nation that Washington is broken, and that the process is broken, and it is not,” Jenkins said. “The Senate is broken, but the House has been doing its work.”

Early life and career

Jenkins was born June 10, 1963, and grew up in Holton, about 60 miles northwest of Lawrence. She graduated Holton High School in 1981.

She attended Kansas State University, where she studied accounting and economics, then completed her studies at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She eventually earned a license as a Certified Public Accountant and, although her license is no longer active, still uses the distinction “C.P.A.” after her name.

In politics, Jenkins’ career has been marked by a rapid rise from a freshman state House member to United States congresswoman in just five years.

In 1998, she ran for a seat in the Kansas House from Topeka and served one term in the lower chamber. Two years later, when the state senate seat in her district opened up, she was elected to the upper chamber.

In both chambers, Jenkins was generally viewed as a moderate Republican and a close ally of then-Gov. Bill Graves.

But she only served half a term in the Senate. In 2002, when State Treasurer Tim Shallenburger — a conservative Republican and former Kansas House Speaker — ran for governor, Jenkins ran for the Shallenburger’s former office and won.

Midway through her term as treasurer, she and other Republicans watched as Democrat Nancy Boyda defeated then-Congressman Jim Ryun in the 2006 elections when Democrats won control of the U.S. House and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was elected speaker.

Two years later, and with statewide name recognition, Jenkins won the GOP nomination for the 2nd District seat against Ryun, who tried to reclaim the seat. She then defeated Boyda in the general election, 51 percent to 46 percent.

Washington politics

Jenkins’ election to Congress coincided with Obama’s election to the White House. Soon after that, a new conservative movement known as the tea party began flexing its muscle within the Republican Party, largely in response to passage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

In 2010, Jenkins became one of the founding members of the the House Tea Party Caucus, which was founded by Rep. Michele Bachman of Minnesota.

Following the 2012 elections, Jenkins was named elected vice chair of the House Republican Conference, which has been sharply divided between the “establishment” Republican majority and a strong tea party minority.

That split came to a head last fall when the GOP-led House — under pressure from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is a leader of the tea party movement in Congress — approved a series of continuing resolutions to fund government operations, all contingent on either repealing or delaying implementation of the Affordable Care Act, something Obama and the Democratic-led Senate refused to accept.

The stalemate lasted beyond Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year, which meant that on that day, most government agencies ran out of spending authority, resulting in the temporary furlough of some 800,000 federal employees.

Finally, on Oct. 16, congressional Republicans relented on their demand to repeal or delay the health care law. During that time, according to Jenkins’ own press releases, she voted 14 times for bills to reopen all or part of the federal government, and all of those bills were tied to the Affordable Care Act.

“I never supported a shutdown, and I never would,” Jenkins said. “I certainly believe that some of the president’s policies are reckless and leading us down a dangerous path, but shutting down the government only makes the problems worse. So I voted for every opportunity to prevent it.

“And looking back, particularly given the debacle that was the roll out, and that the president essentially delayed it on his own in the end, is proof positive that we were on the right track,” Jenkins said.