As her Republican opponent files the biggest single quarter fundraising report from a Kansas congressional candidate in the state’s history, Congresswoman Nancy Boyda (D-KS) actually finds herself increasingly more secure in her first re-election bid.
Even with a $681,000 quarter and running in a district that went to George W. Bush by double digits, Republican Kansas State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins woke up today to not only still find herself behind in cash-on-hand, but she also had to read that The Cook Political Report had moved the race in the Kansas 2nd out of the “Toss Up” column and into “Leans Democratic.”
The question is: Why?
For those of us on the ground, it’s easy to see the answer to that question.
Over the course of the last 2 years, Boyda has been an able representative- never quite liberal enough for the liberals, and never quite conservative enough for the conservatives. Instead she has been a very traditional Kansas Democrat, bucking the party when it doesn’t represent her district’s interests. While that hasn’t always made her popular with lots different interest groups, it has left her quite popular and well-regarded back at home.
Also, the simple fact the folk back at home have seen so much of Boyda has made a massive difference in the way she’s perceived in district. Boyda has held hundreds of public meetings, has been home nearly every single weekend (save the few she spent in Iraq and Afghanistan- including Christmas 2007), and her constituent services office has been open and accessible, potentially the very best in Kansas.
While those things certainly have insulated Boyda, in at least some regard, to the ceaseless partisan attacks she’s been bludgeoned with for two years, simply coming home a lot and being available only goes so far for a Democrat in an R+7 district. Why, then, is a Republican like Jenkins having such a hard time gaining traction in this previously reliably Republican district- and why has The Cook Political Report moved this race out of the toss up category this late in the game?
All you need to do is open a district newspaper to find out.
Over the course of the last two weeks, Lynn Jenkins has been hit by two revelations that went straight to the core of her candidacy (the fact that, as a CPA and a competent state treasurer, she could better manage the fiscal house of the United States than Boyda) and have totally derailed her bid.
First: While campaigning against former Congressman Jim Ryun in the Republican primary, Jenkins skipped every single monthly meeting of the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System Board of Trustees- while that fund, which provides for the pensions of every state employee and school teacher in Kansas, lost more than $1 billion.
Missing board meetings certainly isn’t a sexy scandal, but it resonated in the district, if only because Jenkins had been hitting Boyda hard for months for Boyda’s infamous 10-minute “walkout” on Ret. Gen. Jack Keane from a 2007 Armed Services Committee meeting, with Jenkins saying Boyda wasn’t doing her job because she left the room. Unfortunately for Jenkins, when the voters compared the two it was all too obvious who actually wasn’t doing their job and who’s lax attention to their duties had actually harmed the people of Kansas.
Jenkins dug herself deeper when she wouldn’t explain where she had been instead of at the meetings, only to state she was “busy” and that she has “a lot of balls in the air” at the current time. Oh, also, Jenkins said she was never actually out of contact with the board, and that she communicated with everyone via email. But, in the very same newspaper piece she was quoted saying that, the Executive Director of KPERS said:
(KPERS executive director Glenn Deck) said he hadn’t received any e-mails or phone calls from Jenkins recently and said he wasn’t aware of others receiving contact either.“I don’t think so because I think I would be copied,” Deck said.
He also said he wasn’t aware of feedback Jenkins has provided to the board while she was away.
Ouch.
It got worse for Jenkins October 16 when the Topeka Capital-Journal ran a story revealing that, during her terms as state treasurer, the state of Kansas misallocated upwards of $15 million in motor fuel taxes in the way payments were made out to Kansas counties. The accounting error that led to the mismanagement of funds wasn’t the fault of the Jenkins administration, and her staff did indeed find the flaw after using the wrong formula for six years.
But our story gets better. So, for six years Lynn Jenkins either overpaid or shortchanged Kansas counties- millions of dollars potentially mismanaged. After her staff discovered the error, she dashed off a letter to the governor’s office alerting her and then Lynn…did nothing…for two months. Not a single word to any counties to let them know they might be asked to repay thousands back to the state in their next fiscal year- nor notification that they may be receiving extra cash, either. By the time she got around to telling the counties what had happened, 2009 fiscal year budgets were already set and we can promise you not one county in Kansas budgeted an extra $150,000 just in case Lynn Jenkins screwed up. If Jenkins had moved appropriately, counties might have been able to adjust to repay the state (or, of course, absorb new funds), but she didn’t.
One last bit: Still to this day the treasurer’s office has not produced a spreadsheet showing where overpayments and underpayments have occured, so Kansas counties still have no idea what they might owe.
Eventually someone’s going to have to pay for Lynn Jenkins’ mismanagement, and, sadly, it’s going to be the taxpayers of Kansas.
Lynn Jenkins’ star was near particularly bright- generally, the people of the Kansas 2nd seem happy with Congresswoman Nancy Boyda. But, over the course of the last two weeks, Jenkins’ task ahead became much, much more difficult- all because she’s really not good at the job she already has. When you’re running a campaign based solely on the fact you’re really competent and that you’ll be able to “clean up Washington,” nothing is more damaging that it being revealed that you’re really, really just not competent.
Boyda’s reelection certainly won’t be a blow out, and Jenkins has already tried her best to distort Boyda’s record in an effort to make her own record problems go away, but, for those of you wondering why The Cook Political Report had decided this race was a little less close than it was a couple of weeks ago, we hope this provides a little local perspective.
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