Meet the New GOP Prototype for Enriching Local Elites While Ramming Christian Right Dogma into Law

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/meet-new-gop-prototype-enriching-local-elites-while-ramming-christian-right-dogma

It is said that states are political laboratories for political ideologies. On that score, there are few states that better exemplify how the working class has been used as an unwitting pawn for the elites than Kansas. Today, Kansas is dealing with its worst fiscal crisis in living memory. How did it get here?

Geographically, Kansas sits smack in the middle of the continent, which is appropriate given that for much of its history, the state has literally been all over the map. It was the hotbed for left-wing and socialist populism in the late 19th century. Pragmatic centrism was the rigor du jour in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Christian fundamentalism became the political ideology of the state’s most agitated citizens, especially after the high-profile ant-abortion protests of 1992.

In the midterm elections of 1994, the Christian Right took all three leadership positions in the state’s legislature, and introduced what they called a “Contract with Kansas,” which amounted to little more than a solemn pledge to execute more prisoners and save more fetuses. It was also the year Sam Brownback, the son of one of the wealthiest families in the state, was elected to the House of Representatives.

Brownback quickly promoted his Christian dominionist bona fides. His 15 years in Congress are remembered more for outlandish non-legislative starters like supporting persecuted Christians in third-world countries and opposing human cloning than for attaining wins for the people of Kansas. Nevertheless, the Christian Right swept Brownback into the governor’s mansion in the Tea Party wave of 2010.

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1. I was a very active Dem in KS politics during that time.

The KS GOP were turning into a theocratic party. The Sedgwick County (most populous county in the state -- Wichita) GOP headquarters hosted what was called "The Godarchy Line", a dial-up that gave a daily message promoting theocracy. The county GOP newsletter read more like a Jack Chick tract than a political one. There was a lot more of Jesus and Christ invoked than candidate names. The KS GOP has reaped what they sowed.

I owe it to my very good, now sadly passed on, dear friends, Ralph Ross and John Stanga, to defend KS Democrats. Ralph was a firebrand and held considerable sway in Sedgwick County politics. John was a poli-sci professor at Wichita State University, a specialist in Constitutional law. He led many a student down that treacherous path. I knew both very well. We and a small group of activists would get together over drinks almost every Sunday night at Harry's Uptown. We'd solve the enigmas of the world and it would all unravel by the next Sunday. Then there was also Michael "Tom" Sawyer, who once held the majority leader position in a Democratic majority in the state legislature, a formidable influence. Democrats also often held the governorship in KS, even when they could not hold the state legislature. The last was Kathleen Sibelius, who I first met as Insurance Commissioner.

I lived in Wichita for 18 years and moved back to MI when family issues became more important. But those were heady days in Wichita, and KS. And Ralph Ross and John Stanga were both very good friends.