Kansas Republican Committee Welcomes and Supports Tea Party Agenda
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Kansas GOP Chair Amanda Adkins
Before the Kansas Republican Party committee meeting started, state party chair Amanda Adkins thanked each Tea Party protester outside the Old Town Hotel Conference Center in Wichita and invited them to come inside.
That pretty much symbolized the tenor and effect of Saturday’s meeting, a welcome and invitation to grass roots conservative activists to come inside and join the party.
Every major vote by the 165 delegates in attendance supported the tea party agenda. Delegates unanimously approved resolutions:
- Against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare
- Against a change in how the Electoral College functions.
Delegates voted 61-96 against a resolution commending the Kansas Congressional delegation for votes on raising the debt ceiling. Sen. Pat Roberts, Rep. Lynn Jenkins and Rep. Mike Pompeo voted to raise the ceiling. Sen. Jerry Moran, Rep. Tim Huelskamp and Rep. Kevin Yoder voted against.
During debate on rules for the state GOP presidential caucus a rules committee member rose to say a lot of time was devoted to making them much more grass roots friendly.
Delegates arrived expecting a floor fight over resolutions opposing Obamacare that some feared would divide grassroots activists from the state GOP establishment.
Governor Sam Brownback’s decision Tuesday to return a $31.5 million grant for studying and implementing a health care exchange in Kansas left resolutions in need of a rewrite but didn’t go as far as grass roots activists wanted.
The resolution approved Saturday rejects of all aspects of Obamacare and says all efforts by “any government agency, entity, or elected representative in the state of Kansas to study, develop or implement an ACA-compliant exchange or any component part, including those ACA-compliant components related to Medicaid, must be immediately halted.”
A competing resolution offered by Adkins demanded that state agencies, “implement only those minimal parts of the Act that Kansas is legally compelled to do.”
Negotiations organized by Steve Shute early last week bore fruit late Friday leaving just one Obamacare resolution, the one favored by the tea party, for approval by the committee.
Adkins thanked Shute, a GOP delegate from Gardner and founder of the grass roots Union of Patriots, and invited him to speak before the vote.
“Twenty years ago a lot of the people who are sitting in this room were standing out on that sidewalk. They were there for the pro-life movement in the early 1990s and worked their tails off for the Republican Party of the state of Kansas,” Shute said.
“Now today we have people standing outside on the sidewalk. That’s not a bad thing, ladies and gentlemen. That is something that is healthy. It brings the Kansas Republican Party back to its roots, back to its activist core. The tea party is very much a part of that and we need to embrace that.”
After reading a portion of the resolution Shute told the gathering, “This draws a line in the sand. This is the time when Kansas stands up and says: Obamacare is gone in the state of Kansas. It will not go any further. I hope you will say with one voice enough is enough.”
Adkins also announced a new initiative to bring more entrepreneurs and small business owners into GOP activity. “One of the early issues that this group will focus on is fundamental tax reform, being an active voice for Kansas being a no state income tax state.”
According to the Small Business Council:
Most businesses — about 92 percent — pay the personal income tax (for example, as sole proprietorships, partnerships, S-Corps, etc.), rather than the corporate income tax. That means higher personal income taxes hit the bottom line of entrepreneurs and their businesses. Quite simply, that results in diminished incentives and resources for risk taking and job creation, and additional resources in the hands of the political class.
In Kansas, small businesses account for 97 percent of employers and employ 55 percent of the state’s non-government employees according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Large businesses and their employees also benefit in states without an individual income tax and more readily move to no income tax states. This year’s “Rich States, Poor States” from the American Legislative Exchange Council notes:
“According to the 2010 census, the nine states without personal income taxes, which accounted for only 19 percent of the overall population at the start of the decade, experienced 35 percent of all population growth in America.”
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Posted under Column A, Kansas Government, News, Politics & Elections.
Tags: Amanda Adkins, Caucus, Delegates, Electoral College, GOP, Governor Sam, Income tax, Kansas Republican Party, ObamaCare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Rep. Kevin Yoder, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Rep. Mike Pompeo, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Resolution, Sen. Jerry Moran, Sen. Pat Roberts, Steve Shute, Tea Party, Union of Patriots
9:16 am on August 15th, 2011
Tom,
Please post on our website. Thanks. Jinny
11:43 am on August 15th, 2011
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Kansas is ignored. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all method (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only the current handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. Kansas is ignored. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree already, that, at most, only 14 states and their voters will matter. None of the 10 most rural states will matter, as usual. Almost 75% of the country will be ignored –including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. This will be more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
2/3rds of the states and people, like Kansas, have been merely spectators to the presidential election. That’s more than 85 million voters ignored.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states, like Kansas, are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill is a state-based approach. It preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College. It assures that every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate. With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn’t be about winning states. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country.
The Electoral College that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
States have the responsibility and power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election. The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should get elected.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), CA (55), VT (3), and WA (13). These 9 jurisdictions possess 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
NationalPopularVote.com
11:44 am on August 15th, 2011
Senator Robert E. Dole of Kansas, the Republican nominee for President in 1996 and Republican nominee for Vice President in 1976, stated in a 1979 floor speech:
“Many persons have the impression that the electoral college benefits those persons living in small states. I feel that this is somewhat of a misconception. Through my experience with the Republican National Committee and as a Vice Presidential candidate in 1976, it became very clear that the populous states with their large blocks of electoral votes were the crucial states. It was in these states that we focused our efforts.
“Were we to switch to a system of direct election, I think we would see a resulting change in the nature of campaigning. While urban areas will still be important campaigning centers, there will be a new emphasis given to smaller states. Candidates will soon realize that all votes are important, and votes from small states carry the same import as votes from large states. That to me is one of the major attractions of direct election. Each vote carries equal importance.
“Direct election would give candidates incentive to campaign in States that are perceived to be single party states.
The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive” in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.
2:36 pm on August 15th, 2011
If you are Tea Party, you are a terrorist. Sarah Palin is a mouthpiece for the Tea Party which represents nothing but hatred and dissension. Her rhetoric and violence-inciting imagery IS a form of terrorism and a prime example. She held Jared Lee Loughner’s hand while he murdered people with his misguided sensibilities. I was compelled to draw a visual commentary showing her handing him the gun on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/01/sarah-palin-made-me-do-it.html She’ll go to any lengths and keep spewing her insanity for that attention (and the money of course.)
10:03 pm on August 15th, 2011
A competing resolution offered by Adkins demanded that state agencies, “implement only those minimal parts of the Act that Kansas is legally compelled to do.”
LIKE WHAT?
8:13 pm on August 17th, 2011
I would ask Brandt Hardin what planet he lives on? If it is Earth, he needs to move to another planet.
11:24 am on August 25th, 2011
Brandt Hardin, your comments don’t even really deserve a response. However even though I am not a Palin supporter, I must say your comment just makes your ignorance shine like a thousand points of light, of stupidity! As for Palin, she and others are tea party pretenders. If they (Palin, Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and lets not forget magic underwear Romney) been in Boston the day of the tea party, they surely would have been tossed out with the tea.
Stephen