After all that, little change in the Kansas Legislature; Obama takes Douglas County; Schlingensiepen does well in Lawrence, Topeka; and Obamacare decision awaits Brownback

Posted by Scott Rothschild November 7, 2012 at 10:22 a.m.

After all that, little change in the Kansas Legislature; Obama takes Douglas County; Schlingensiepen does well in Lawrence, Topeka; and Obamacare decision awaits Brownback

Some of the faces in the Kansas Legislature will change, but after all the campaigning, outside money, and unprecedented redistricting, last night's election kept Republican-Democratic margins the same as before: the House at 92-33 Republican and the Senate 32-8 Republican.

It's possible those numbers could change slightly after recounts.

Several longtime House members were defeated including Democrats Eber Phelps from Hays, Bill Feuerborn from Garnett, Geraldine Flaharty from Wichita, and Republicans Mike Burgess from Topeka and Brenda Landwehr from Wichita.

State Rep. Anthony Brown, R-Eudora, lost in his attempt to gain a Senate seat, and two Wyandotte County senators fell, Democrat Kelly Kultala and Republican Chris Steineger.

And while the Republican/Democratic numbers hold steady, conservative Republicans own a majority of the GOP caucus in the Senate after a slew of moderate Republicans were swept out in the August primary.

In the presidential race, Kansas went solidly for Republican Mitt Romney with only Douglas and Wyandotte counties giving majorities to President Barack Obama.

In the 2nd Congressional District race, U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, won a third term against Democrat Tobias Schlingensiepen 57 percent to 39 percent. But if the district comprised only its two largest counties — Shawnee and Douglas — Schlingensiepen would have won.

Schlingensiepen outpaced Jenkins in Douglas County 56 percent to 40 percent, and Shawnee County, 49 percent to 47 percent.

But the counties surrounding Douglas County went bigtime for Jenkins, as did the counties in southeast Kansas.

Now that the election is over, a major question for Gov. Sam Brownback is how Kansas will respond to a Nov. 16 deadline under the Affordable Care Act to decide whether the state will partner in running a health insurance exchange or leave it to the feds. Asked this morning, the governor's office said they would get an answer on that soon.

UPDATE: Governor's office didn't provide a statement by end of day, but Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, who has wanted the state to do its own exchange, issued this comment: “We will be reaching out to the governor to discuss choices about an exchange—whether it could go forward as a state/federal partnership or whether it could be a federal exchange. We look forward to having that discussion soon, since the deadline for the decision is set for Nov. 16.”

Delicious
Digg
Tumblr
Wordpress
Reddit
Copy and paste the link:

jchristine2 6 months, 2 weeks ago

Looks like Brownie should'nt have been dragging his feet on this whole insurance exchange issue. Now he is under the gun to make something happen. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

question4u 6 months, 2 weeks ago

"...conservative Republicans own a majority of the GOP caucus in the Senate after a slew of moderate Republicans were swept out in the August primary."

That will leave Brownback very little weaseling room when the $328 million opens in the state budget in fiscal year 2013 and the hole grows to a $1 billion over the next 18 months. He can't blame Democrats; he can't blame moderate Republicans. If the national economy continues to improve and the Kansas economy tanks, he can't even try to blame factors outside the state. It's highly unlikely that he will blame God, so who will he have left to blame?

When Brownback's self-inflicted deficit leads to a combination of deep cuts to education and steep increases in property tax it may finally be clear to the slow learners that, despite the Brownback rhetoric, you really can't have your cake and eat it too.