In this Aug. 4, 2017 file photo, Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer speaks at the Wichita Pachyderm Club, in Wichita, Kan. (Bo Rader/The Wichita Eagle via AP, File)

Topeka ? On Wednesday, Jeffrey William Colyer will be sworn in as the 47th governor of Kansas, taking over for current Gov. Sam Brownback, who is resigning to accept a diplomatic post in the Trump administration.

Colyer has already served as lieutenant governor longer than anyone else in state history, and before that served two years in the Kansas House and two years in the Senate.

Despite that, he is still largely unknown to many Kansans, and he will step into the governor’s office at a particularly difficult time as the state continues to recover from years of budget shortfalls brought on, at least in part, by the tax policies Brownback championed in 2012.

Colyer has given few interviews to reporters since the U.S. Senate confirmed Brownback for the diplomatic post, and even in those, he has offered few specifics about what, if any, changes he wants to make from the policies of his predecessor.

His office did not respond to a request for an interview by the Journal-World.

The Brownback legacy

But others in the Legislature, and in the governor’s race, said Colyer will face a mountain of issues this session left behind by the Brownback administration, and he may find it difficult to distance himself from the policies that lie behind them.

House Minority Leader Jim Ward of Wichita, a candidate for governor on the Democratic side, said during an interview that the list of issues waiting to be dealt with is a long one.

“We should be looking at the pay structure of our corrections officers so we can fill all those open positions and reduce the prison riots like this summer,” he said. “We’ve got problems in higher education. They had a massive cut, and the cost of education is so high that it’s being taken away from too many Kansans.

“We’ve got problems with our state mental hospitals, both in Larned and Osawatomie, that we should take steps to address,” Ward added. “We have swept every dime from the highway plan for five years. We should perhaps begin a plan of systematic reinvestment in the economic dynamic of highways and bridges.”

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, another contender in the GOP race for governor, said during an interview that Colyer may find it hard to distance himself from Brownback’s policies, “because Colyer has presumably been a central player in the administration.

“I imagine that the governor has his lieutenant governor by his side and he involves him in all the decisions the administration makes,” Kobach said. “If there are some decisions that the governor has made in the last year that Lt. Gov. Colyer disagrees with, he should make that known right away, because the natural presumption is that the lieutenant governor agrees with them.”

Others in the Legislature, though, said they are more optimistic about working with Colyer.

“Colyer has prepared himself, prepared his staff to be ready to move into it, but I think you’ll see some new directors and a lot of new people in the Colyer administration, at least for a short period of time, if nothing else,” Sen. Rob Olson, R-Olathe, said in an interview. “So I think it could change things. Last year, there (were) some vetoes, and I think this governor, he might look at things a little different. He’s from a different area and he has a different perspective on things.”

House Majority Leader Don Hineman, R-Dighton, said Colyer has been laying the groundwork for a working relationship with lawmakers.

“Lt. Gov. Colyer met weekly, when we could, but essentially on a weekly basis with (Senate) Majority Leader (Jim) Denning (R-Overland Park) and myself, just to establish a relationship and talk about issues that we were dealing with then, and might be dealing with in the future,” he said in an interview. “So that’s really positive that he laid that groundwork so we have a relationship already established once he starts his new tenure as governor.”

The governor’s race

But Colyer is also taking over in the middle of a hotly-contested Republican primary in which he is competing with a number of GOP heavyweights to determine who will be the party’s next nominee for governor.

That threatens to complicate matters, particularly on the Republican side, as GOP lawmakers eventually start to align themselves with different candidates, which could give them an incentive to make things difficult for Colyer.

Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, R-Leavenworth, is one who is largely staying away from the gubernatorial contest because he is running for the 2nd District congressional seat of eastern Kansas. At least for now, he said, he hasn’t seen other Republicans lining up with candidates for governor.

“Right now, everyone is friends with everyone,” he said.

Hineman, however, said that kind of gamesmanship remains a distinct possibility.

“It’s an election year. There’s a lot of discussion, a lot of rumors, and at this point, that’s all it is,” he said.

On the Democratic side, however, Ward, who is embroiled in a contested primary of his own, said he has no interest in trying to influence the Republican primary.

“I believe good policies and good outcomes are good politics,” Ward said. “And so it does no one any good to cause chaos in the Legislature because you don’t like who the governor is. If the governor has good ideas, whether it be Brownback or Colyer, you should address the ideas and deal with the politics in the appropriate forum.”