From the Wichita Pachyderm Club: Republican Party Candidates for Kansas House of Representatives District 85. The primary election is August 4, 2020. The winner will run against the Democratic Party nominee, with the general election on November 3, 2020.
District 85 is parts of northeast Wichita, the city of Benton, and parts of Bel Aire and Kechi. Here is a link to a map. The candidates are Michael Capps and Patrick Penn.
This audio presentation or podcast was recorded on June 26, 2020.
From the Wichita Pachyderm Club: Republican Party Candidates for Sedgwick County Commissioner District 3. The primary election is August 4, 2020. The winner will run against the Democratic Party nominee, with the general election on November 3, 2020.
District 3 is Wichita and Sedgwick County extending beyond, including the towns of Mount Hope, Andale, Goddard, Garden Plain, Cheney, and Viola. Here is a link to a map. The candidates are David Dennis and Hunter Larkin.
This audio presentation or podcast was recorded on June 19, 2020.
From the Wichita Pachyderm Club: Republican Party Candidates for Sedgwick County Commissioner District 2. The primary election is August 4, 2020. The winner will run against the Democratic Party nominee, with the general election on November 3, 2020.
District 2 is south and southwest Wichita, and Sedgwick County extending beyond. Here is a link to a map. The candidates are Kathleen Garrison, Cindy Miles, and Michael O’Donnell.
This audio presentation or podcast was recorded on June 12, 2020.
A presidential nominating caucus or primary would allow Trump skeptics in Kansas to have their say. It could provide a safety valve, a way to release the pressure that builds up from being told they are traitors to not only their party but to the country as well.
In September, leaders of the Kansas Republican Party decided to deny giving rank-and-file party members a voice in choosing its presidential nominee for 2020. In a release, the state party said : “The Kansas Republican Party will not organize a Caucus for the 2020 election because President Trump is an elected incumbent from the Republican Party.”
The release gave a reason: “Every time an elected incumbent Republican has run for re-election, except in 1912, the Kansas Republican Party state convention adopted a resolution instructing all delegates to vote for the elected incumbent. This has been the same standard for the Kansas Republican Party dating back to President Lincoln’s reelection.”
Recent correspondence with party leaders confirms this remains the current thinking of leadership. But it is not democratic. Kansas Republicans should have either a caucus or a primary election. To have neither, simply because the incumbent president is a Republican, deprives members of the Kansas GOP of a chance to make a decision.
All Kansas Republicans need to be involved in making a decision about the party’s next nominee. As we learn more negative information about the Trump Administration, I can’t help but think that Kansas Republicans will want to have a say in choosing our next nominee. Any day there could be some revelation that is so strongly negative and powerful that even the most committed Trump supporters may decide they can no longer support him.
I am a “Never Trump” Republican. Nonetheless, I remain a member of the party. While the numbers of Trump skeptics are not large, I think most of us feel we have no voice in the party. Any dissent is met with vile insults, as you can see on my Facebook and that of a handful of other Kansas Trump skeptics. I have been told that I am no Republican, that I ought to join the other party, and that I am mentally ill. Some of this comes from Republican officeholders and leaders.
A presidential nominating caucus or primary would allow Trump skeptics in Kansas to have their say. It could provide a safety valve, a way to release the pressure that builds up from being told they are traitors to not only their party but to the country as well.
I can hear the critics: “No one has a chance to beat Trump.” That’s hardly the point. Now, with Kansas and other states declining to hold nominating contests, this becomes self-fulfilling.
Some expressed concern over the cost of a caucus or primary election. I wasn’t aware that we should be so concerned about the cost of democracy and its elections. On this issue, I repeat the observation of the National Review editors: “The president says he has nothing to do with these decisions, but also that holding primaries he is sure to win would be a waste of money. The susceptibility of this argument to abuse by a ruler ought to preclude its being made.” (emphasis added)
By the way, should the situation change and Kansas Republicans decided they can lo longer support Trump as their nominee, who will decide the nominee? The answer is the same small group of party leaders that decided to do without a caucus or primary. That’s undemocratic.
What conservative voices say
After several states (including Kansas) decided to cancel or not schedule primary elections or caucuses, two noted conservative publications criticized these decisions. From the editors of National Review:
The president says he has nothing to do with these decisions, but also that holding primaries he is sure to win would be a waste of money. The susceptibility of this argument to abuse by a ruler ought to preclude its being made.
The vast majority of Republicans approve of what Trump has done on taxes, judges, regulation, and most other issues, though they also support electoral competition. Trump would be likely to win the primaries handily, demonstrating his strength among Republicans while the Democrats tussle. His allies should want to see that, rather than make it seem as though he is too weak to face competition. But regardless of how it works out for him, Republican primary voters are capable of making the decision among Trump and the others — who so far include William Weld and Joe Walsh as well as Sanford. They deserve to be able to do so. 1
In its op-ed, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal concluded with this:
When Mr. Trump won the GOP nomination in 2016, he disrupted a long tradition of Republican leadership and policy. He rejected GOP positions on trade and entitlement reform. In chief respects he abandoned the party’s hawkish stance on foreign policy. On guns and health care he has taken multiple positions, sometimes in the same week.
And — how to put it delicately? — Mr. Trump has introduced a new standard of presidential behavior, by turns abrasive, funny and appalling. These and related matters are far from settled in Republican circles, and it seems unwise to prevent the rank-and-file from debating them. If Mr. Trump is as popular with Republicans as the polls say, he has nothing to fear from letting voters show it in primaries. 2
At this time last year, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party wrote:
… unprecedented action on the part of the RNC to consolidate the Trump re-election campaign with the traditionally primary-neutral party efforts into a single organization called “Trump Victory.” Everything from fundraising, to data, to electing convention delegates will now be organized in tandem between the party and the campaign. This is the definition of what Trump himself might once have called rigging the system. …
The attempt to rig the system is, all on its own, an admission of Trump’s weakness. 3
The arguments advanced by this party official and two stalwarts of conservative thought aren’t welcomed by some Kansas Republicans, especially the (nearly) 150 that are in leadership positions and voted to abstain from holding a caucus. After I shared these articles on Facebook, the reaction was almost universally negative. The consensus was that I should leave the Republican Party and find somewhere else to call home so I can vote in a caucus or primary. That doesn’t seem conducive to winning elections, and Kansas Republicans need to be concerned with winning, having lost the governorship, one congressional district, and barely winning another.
Emblematic of the Trumpification of the Kansas Republican Party is this: I asked one person “And are you trying to attract people to the Republican Party, or drive them away?” The response was, “I would just as soon the Republican party would avoid attracting people such as yourself.”
Of note: Kansas Democrats plan to hold a presidential primary using ranked-choice voting. As Kansas Democrats apply new methods to vote and choose candidates, Kansas Republicans regress to the smoke-filled room.
Further, to give everyone an equal chance to have a voice, Kansas Republicans should abandon the caucus and hold a primary election. Participating in the caucus is difficult. Many people are not able to attend and cast their vote. No matter the cost to the party, Kansas should seek broad participation in its presidential nominating process. That means asking the people to make a selection, and it means a primary election instead of a caucus.
Polling
While Gallup reports Trump’s job approval rating among Republicans at 88 percent, there are signs of skepticism. A poll this week by Quinnipiac University found that 49 percent of Republicans support witness testimony. 4 This poll also found that many people are paying attention to impeachment. 5
Click for larger.
A poll by Ipsos/FiveThirtyEight last week found that the share of Republicans who support witnesses in the Senate trial has fallen to 41 percent. 6 The number has fallen, but it is still 41 percent.
A Yahoo News/YouGov poll taken at near the same time found that 35 percent of Republicans wanted witnesses called. 7
These figures are not majorities, and they are nationwide, not just Kansas Republicans. But they do not represent fringe minorities. Republicans need to keep these voters.
January 28, 2020 – 75% Of Voters Say Allow Witnesses In Senate Impeachment Trial, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; 53% Say President Trump Not Telling Truth About Ukraine. Available at https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3654. ↩
“How much attention have you been paying to news about impeachment: a lot, some, only a little, or none at all?” A lot 57%, Some 29%, Only a little 11%, None at all 2%. ↩
In the Electoral College, residents of different states have widely varying influence.
When thinking about the desirability of the Electoral College for electing a president, the arithmetic should be considered.
I have performed a few calculations, gathering state populations and the number of Electoral College votes. Here are the two extremes: In Wyoming, there are 192,579 people for each Electoral College vote (577,737 / 3). In Texas, the number is 755,312. That’s a difference of 3.92, which is a lot, I would say. For Kansas, the number is 485,251. The average value for a state (weighting all states equally) is 513,088, although the population of the country divided by 538 is 608,118. (I include the District of Columbia, as it has EC votes.)
Sample of the table in the visualization.
I present these calculations in an interactive visualization that you may access here.
Plot of state population versus Electoral College Power Index. Click for larger.
The visualization also holds a plot of state populations and Electoral College Power Index. By that, I mean the relative “power” of a state resident over their Electoral College votes. The state with the highest number of residents per Electoral College vote is Texas, which is assigned the value of one. Wyoming’s value is 3.92.
Note that a California resident, by living in the most populated state, votes in a state with 719,219 persons per Electoral College vote, which is the third-lowest state in power index (1.05). When Vermonters vote, they vote in a state with 208,766 residents per Electoral College vote, which is a power index of 3.62.
An ad from the Jeff Longwell for Mayor Committee contains a false claim.
An advertisement advocating the re-election of Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell contains a claim about economic development that is false.
The ad appears in the October 20, 2019 print edition of the Wichita Eagle. Under the heading “Let’s Set the Record Straight,” we find this item: “Multiple large scale business development projects like the Cargill Downtown Headquarters which created 850+ jobs.”
Click for larger.
It’s the use of the word “create” that is false. It’s wrong because Cargill’s headquarters was located in downtown Wichita at the time it announced it would build a new headquarters in another part of downtown Wichita. 1 Whatever the number of jobs, they merely moved from North Main Street to East Douglas Avenue in the same zip code. 2
It’s possible that if Cargill’s threat to build a new headquarters in another city was genuine, we could say the city and state “retained” these jobs. But using the word “create” to describe these jobs is false. Regarding the retention of these Cargill jobs, voters can decide whether the cost was worthwhile.
Regarding the cost of retaining Cargill jobs, since Mayor Longwell raised the topic, here is a list of the known subsidies and incentives the city offered to retain the Cargill jobs. 3 As summarized in the agenda packet:
“In exchange for Cargill’s commitment, the City has negotiated the following:
Issue Industrial Revenue Bonds (Letter of Intent approved April 18, 2017) 100% property tax abatement; 5+5 year basis
Sales tax exemption
Acquisition of a 15 year parking easement for public access to the garage in the evenings and on weekends (estimated cost of $6,500,000)
Expedited plan review (50% reduction in time)
Reduced permitting fees (50%) (estimated savings of $85,000)
Assign a project manager/ombudsman for a single point of contact for the company”
The agenda packet for the city council meeting doesn’t mention this, but from the state of Kansas Cargill is likely to receive PEAK benefits. Under this program, the Kansas state withholding tax deducted from Cargill employees’ paychecks will be routed back to Cargill. 5 (Not all; only 95 percent.) Some very rough calculations show that PEAK benefits might be worth some $2 million annually to Cargill. 6
For the first year of the agreement, Cargill is expected to have 750 or more employees at an average salary of $66,814. That annual salary / 26 pay periods = $2,570 biweekly. For a family with two children (this is just a guess and could be way off), there are two withholding allowances, so $2,570 – ($86.54 x 2) = $2,397. Using the new withholding tables for married workers (another assumption), bi-weekly withholding is $48.17 + 5.7% x ($2,397 – $1,298) = $48.17 + $62.64 = $110.81. That means $2,881 annual withholding, so Cargill’s 95% share is $2,737. For 750 employees, this is an annual subsidy to Cargill of $2,052,750. ↩
There are eight major lessons for Wichita voters when they cast their ballots on or before November 5, 2019, concerning the revelations of favoritism involving the mayor, apparently a majority of the city council, and a number of Wichita businesses and businessmen concerning a proposed massive city water plant contract that is close to half a billion dollars.
The Wichita Eagle’s detailed reporting on this proposed contract, Mayor Longwell’s role deserves scrutiny at several different levels.
Let me begin with full disclosure. Both Mayor Longwell and I are registered Republicans, and also GOP precinct committeemen in our respective west Wichita precincts. The mayor is now one of the most prominent Republican mayors in the entire country. In 2012, then-city council member Longwell ran against me in the Republican primary for the Sedgwick County Commission. He lost. Subsequently, in 2015, Jeff Longwell defeated Sam Williams in the non-partisan general election for Wichita mayor.
Finally Exposing Improper City Contract Conduct
The Wichita Eagle deserves credit for researching city records following an expensive KORA records request. The paper also deserves credit for reporting the story about favoritism, cronyism, and how public-private partnerships” actually have been operating as part of the proposed new water plant at city hall.
However, this story implicitly treats this type of conduct as new. In reality, there is an extensive history of similar conduct going back for years at city hall. That raises the question, why now?
News Hole
The huge volume of space the Wichita Eagle initially provided to cover this front page, above the fold story on a Sunday paper is remarkable. It was extremely large. I doubt that the 1969 moon landing, the 9-11-2001 Islamist terrorist attacks, or pick any of the presidential campaign election results since the 1960s had as much space with as many words above the fold on the front page, and followed with two full pages inside the Sunday paper, and editorial commentary as this city hall story. As a percentage of the total news hole in the paper, a higher percentage was probably contained within this edition of the paper.
I believe that you would probably need to go back to the JFK assassination for coverage that may have included more space than this Sunday, September 29, 2019 story received.
This is quite a contrast in local news coverage from past examples of city contracts that were handled in a similar way over many years. Let’s look at why this might have occurred.
Weakened Local News Media
The news organizations in Wichita have been decimated by digitization. The digital world has dramatically changed the environment for print and broadcasting, whether it is radio or TV. All of these organizations are smaller, have reduced staffs, and lack the ability to do extensive and expensive research needed to provide any sort of investigative reporting. That is why the Eagle’s reporting on this story is remarkable since the room for news in this shrunken paper is a small fraction of what it was 10 or even just five years ago.
The Eagle’s reporting is also notable because its parent company, McClatchy Corporation (MCN), is in severe financial distress, with a corporate capital base hovering around $20 million while the firm’s indebtedness is many times larger. Recently, the Eagle announced that it was discontinuing daily publication, and will be printed six times weekly beginning in November.
McClatchy Corporation stock is now under $3 a share despite having a reverse stock-split that dramatically reduced the number of shares (1 for 10) in this financially distressed firm. To raise cash, McClatchy recently sold their Kansas City Star building. The details of this transaction that included a 15-year leaseback, indicate a company suffering severe financial difficulties.
Despite these cash flow problems, the resources needed to write this story were provided. The Wichita broadcast news media is now following, and reporting this story too.
However, this type of reporting could have occurred years ago and wasn’t. Why not?
Vote for the Leftist With A Chance
The very liberal Wichita Eagle editorial page is nothing new. When Knight-Ridder owned the eagle, the paper did an in-your-face endorsement of the liberal Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election to its readers in Republican-voting Kansas.
Now the Eagle knew that their endorsement would not matter. Kansas had not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, or before that, 1936 when Kansas’ favorite son, Alf Landon, was defeated by FDR. Despite this, they endorsed a Massachusetts leftist who went on to lose in a national landslide, as well as a Kansas landslide in this state. Even if a Republican loses a national election, Kansans overwhelming voted for Bob Dole every time his name appeared on the national election ballot.
State and local newspaper endorsements are different. This is where the Eagle’s endorsements have had more influence in races where voters may not know as much about the candidates. This is more of a factor in primaries where even less is known about candidates and their positions, than in general elections.
Now the Eagle’s defenders will take exception to this claim about liberal endorsements. Eagle defenders will claim that the paper has endorsed some Republicans, and occasionally even a conservative. It is true, this has occasionally occurred but only under a narrow set of circumstances. These non-liberal endorsements only occur when it was clear that the conservative was likely to win, and usually would win big regardless of who or how the paper endorsed. The Eagle’s editorial endorsement policy is usually to endorse the most liberal candidate with a reasonable chance to win, and has been in place for more than 40 years I’ve lived in Wichita.
As the paper’s financial and news resources have weakened, the ability to endorse has diminished with their diminishing circulation but still has substantial influence in low-turnout elections that especially include primaries, and down-ballot races.
Voice for Liberty Records It
Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer with major campaign donor Dave Wells of Key Construction. Evidently, Wichita city code did not prohibit Brewer from voting to give millions in contracts and subsidy to Key.The Voice for Liberty website at wichitaliberty.org pictured former Mayor Carl Brewer, a liberal Democrat, holding a big fish while standing next to a prominent local businessman David Wells of Key Construction Company. Next to this picture Weeks included a Brewer letter on city hall letterhead praising Key Construction Company and identifying it as the special construction company with city hall connections.
Bob Weeks and Voice for Liberty did everything possible to call out this situation. Interest in the local news media, from the Wichita Eagle to the broadcasters can be described in one word: crickets. Nada, nothing, ain’t going to go there was the Wichita news media reaction. But there are more city hall purchase contract shenanigans, and it is more recent.
Wichita Eagle Skews
In July 2012 the city council voted to give a large, nine-figure construction contract to a Michigan company with their select Wichita partners to replace the Wichita Airport terminal. The Michigan company and their local partners, including Key Construction, weren’t the low bidders. The lowest bidder was a Wichita construction company.
The Michigan company partnered with Key Construction and won the city council vote on this contract. Then-city council member Jeff Longwell voted to give this large contract to the Michigan/Key construction group.
The day before the city council and Longwell voted the Michigan construction company’s top management and many of their spouses made maximum donations allowed by law to the Longwell for County Commission Campaign. The day after Longwell voted to give them this $100 million-plus contract more maximum legal level donations rolled into the Longwell campaign from the Michigan company’s management and their spouses.
This all became public record when these were reported on campaign finance reports about 10 days before the election. Naturally, my campaign responded to this outrageous misconduct. Interest from the news media in general, and the Wichita Eagle, which had endorsed the less conservative candidate in this race, Longwell, had no interest in reporting on these outrageous events on their front or editorial pages.
The Wichita Eagle advertisement. Click for larger.My county commission campaign tried to buy a newspaper ad in the Eagle and publicize this outrageous financial misconduct at city hall. The Wichita Eagle’s advertising staff did everything they could to assist my campaign in this ad purchase. However, the rest of the Eagle editorial, management, and news staff attempted to censor my text, and prevent my ad from running in the form it was being used in our other campaign efforts. Eventually, my campaign did run an ad, but without all of the language that we wanted to use, in exposing this financial misconduct on the city’s airport construction contract.
This story did get to some voters, but only because my county commission campaign successfully mailed this information into voters’ hands, although roughly 40 percent of the voters had already cast ballots before my campaign material could be distributed. I beat Councilman Longwell with over 56% of the vote in the August 2012 GOP county commission primary contest.
However, when Sam Williams tried to raise this issue in the 2015 mayor’s race, it was treated as ancient history and not reported. Sadly, this history of cronyism at city hall wasn’t reported prior to the primary, and I believe that this would have made Lyndy Wells advance to the general election ballot. Most recently, this is especially true in the way the city has handled the destruction of Lawrence Dumont Stadium, and the sale of approximately 4 acres for $1 an acre around the stadium for the ownership group of an out of state, minor league baseball club. Special city favors for special people within the public-private partnership paradigm is the way municipal government operates here.
More Wichita Eagle Skews
This wasn’t the only example of city hall financial transgressions and shenanigans. In 2013 the city was involved in the city-owned land sale for the west bank apartment project, the same sort of financial shenanigans occurred. The city went with their politically favored firm, and Jeff Longwell voted with the majority to go his business buddies, in another example of this “public-private partnership.”
Sadly, Mayor Longwell continues to defend the “public-private partnerships” model for city development in this latest example of how Wichita city hall operates. This did not receive Wichita Eagle coverage like the most recent example that occurred with 3 weeks away from advanced voting in the 2019 mayor’s race begins, and roughly 5 weeks before the November 5 election day.
For many Wichitans, “public-private partnerships” is just a politically correct phrase describing cronyism, for ethically conflicted projects, for the special favors for special people environment in Wichita’s city government. Profits are privatized while loses land in taxpayer’s laps. This is what happens without clearly specified bidding, and without procedures for selecting, and protecting the low, winning bidders who meet clear project specifications.
City Purchases and City Scandals
Government scandals aren’t limited to city hall. Purchasing scandals have occurred at all levels of government.
After I joined the Sedgwick County commission in 2009, I was informed about past purchasing scandals in Sedgwick County government. These had all occurred in the last century. This occurred as I began officially reviewing county financial operations. County staff was proud of the protections and safeguards built into the county’s bidding and bid board process.
That is why almost all county bids were handled as routine, often consent agenda items. That’s how the county had created its bid board, and how there was a major effort to protect taxpayers. This transparent process treated all potential bidders fairly, whether they were local, or not; whether they knew or didn’t know county officials; and it was an open, transparent process. The city needs to move to a clear, transparent, and fair model like the county has enjoyed for several decades.
Conclusion With a Warning for the Future
Financial shenanigans have a long history in Wichita city hall. Lack of detailed news coverage of these shenanigans is a hidden story that this non-reporter is going to try and disclose for if nothing else, the historical record now. This is sad that this history has to be provided by a frustrated, non-media, Wichitan who, while I did enjoy an elevated county courthouse observation position for eight years, could only observe these city crony cases from the other side of Central Ave.
Additional details about these crony stories mentioned here are contained in the Voice for Liberty archives. This information is accessible to everyone on this site. Even the news media.
Now, this most recent example of city cronyism has received a large amount of well-deserved, and in fact remarkable, huge coverage by the Wichita Eagle. While I am a major critic of the Eagle, I will state that this paper deserves credit for breaking this story.
This must be placed in the context and contrast with often the lack of interest in the past, especially if the Eagle’s politically favored officials were involved. The major news story is not the continuing cronyism at Wichita city hall but the fact that cronyism was exposed, received major negative news attention, and now continuing news coverage.
Sadly, I expect that the bottom line is that little or nothing to change the public-private cronyism model that is encased in political concrete in city hall. This model also seems to be encased in Wichita media concrete too. Sadly, this defective economic model enhancing cronyism is likely to prevail regardless of who wins in the mayor’s election contest, or the other city council elections, November 5.
Postscript
The cronyism in Wichita and news media flaws that are discussed above are relevant but tiny compared with the egregious corruption nationally in our country. The outrages from the Clinton Crime Foundation, the recent revelations concerning the Biden overseas money schemes, the misuse of government FISA surveillance in the Russian collusion hoax, outline national abuses and governmental scandals that far exceed local government’s defects in Wichita.
My sources for these national assertions include but are not limited to the financial revelations about misconduct by both Democrats and Republicans in Peter Schweizer’s outstanding books: Secret Empire,Clinton Cash, and Extortion, are excellent. News media flaws nationally are documented by the .
Are We Rome? by Lawrence Reed is a brief, pamphlet sized outline (see Foundation for Economic Education) of our national financial and governmental challenges. Those who want to explore our national fiscal and institutional problems, I would recommend Dinesh D’Souza’s and Mark Levin’s numerous books. If we don’t get this right, Mark Steyn’s After America: Get Ready for Armageddon moves from a yellow warning light to a hideous, Venezuelan reality.
Fighting the good fight within government will be tough. Scott Walker’s Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge describes the Wisconsin battle in exquisite detail. It is a valuable, but cautionary reality defenders of liberty can find incisive examples of the challenges ahead. Levin’s proposed constitutional amendments in the Liberty Amendments is also valuable reading.
Sadly, there aren’t any books like this for Kansas, let alone Wichita. Greg Jarrett has left Wichita and gone national with his excellent books. This essay is a report for the legacy of those interested in local government in the early 21st century. This also provides a report for anyone interested in the governmental legacy left for our heirs who will follow us in south-central Kansas.
From the Wichita Pachyderm Club this week: Wichita city council candidates from district 2. This audio presentation or podcast was recorded on October 11, 2019. Todd Johnson is the moderator.
Candidates are, in order of first speaking, Rodney Wren, Becky Tuttle, and Joseph Scapa.
