Carr brothers’ case highlights bitter debate between Sam Brownback and Paul Davis

Criminal justice and the Carr brothers starred Tuesday in the final debate in the race for governor between incumbent Sam Brownback and House Minority Leader Paul Davis.

In possibly the most contentious exchange of a contentious campaign, Brownback tried to tie Davis to a controversial court decision vacating the Carrs’ death sentences. Davis replied that he knew one of the murder victims personally and that Brownback was trying to exploit the tragic killings for votes.

In stark contrast to their relatively sedate debate on KWCH-TV on Monday night, the candidates’ resentment for each other boiled over at the Tuesday lunchtime debate at the Kansas Association of Broadcasters convention at the Wichita DoubleTree hotel.

Nowhere was their mutual disdain for each other more evident than on the issue of the Kansas Supreme Court and the Carr brothers.

Brownback sought to link Davis to a court decision to set aside death sentences for Jonathan and Reginald Carr, two brothers convicted of killing five people in Wichita during a weeklong crime spree of robbery, murder and rape in December 2000. The court recently ruled that errors in the penalty phase of the trial rendered the death sentences unconstitutional.

The state has appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Brownback said the problem is the way Kansas picks judges.

“The Kansas Supreme Court is a very liberal court,” Brownback said. “Paul Davis wants to continue to appoint liberal judges to that court. I want to appoint judges who will interpret the law, not rewrite it as they choose to see it.”

Brownback criticized Davis over a September fundraiser at the home of Justice Carol Beier.

During the debate, Brownback said the justice hosted the event. “I find that wrong and something that shouldn’t happen,” he said.

Beier has said the event was hosted by her husband, a teacher, and that she had “taken care not to be there.”

In his closing statement, Davis blasted Brownback for a new TV campaign ad seeking to link Davis, via the Supreme Court, to the Carr decision.

Davis said he knew one of the Carr brothers’ victims and that the ad was a new low for the Brownback campaign. Later, he said he knew victim Brad Heyka from when they played competitive golf as young men.

“I knew Gov. Brownback would run an ugly campaign of personal attacks, but I didn’t think the ads could get any sleazier (until) I turned on my television this morning,” Davis said. “Governor, you trying to exploit that terrible tragedy to help get elected is disgraceful. And you ought to be ashamed.”

Some conservative groups and some friends and family members of the victims are organizing a push to remove two justices – Lee Johnson and Eric Rosen – who are on the ballot for retention in the Nov. 4 election.

Brownback said immediately after the debate that he was not taking a position on their retention. About an hour later, his campaign sent an e-mail saying the governor supports the effort to remove the justices.

The underlying issue is how Kansas Supreme Court justices will be selected in the future.

Brownback favors the federal model, in which the governor would choose justices with confirmation by the state Senate.

Davis supports the current merit system for appointing Supreme Court justices, in which a panel of lawyers elected by the Kansas bar and laypersons appointed by the governor send three nominees to the governor, who has to choose one of the three.

State appeals court judges were selected on the merit system until Brownback and the Legislature changed that to the federal system last year.

Since then, Brownback has appointed his own office attorney, Caleb Stegall, first to the appeals court and then, less than a year later, to the Supreme Court.

In the debate, Brownback said, “I want a judge to be an umpire, not a baseball player in the game.”

After the debate, Davis said he thinks the merit system is better because it acts as a check on a governor’s authority to pack the Supreme Court with like-minded, ideologically driven judges.

“I don’t agree with some of the decisions” the Supreme Court has made, Davis said.

But he added: “I don’t think the governor needs more power” over judicial selection.

Accusations of lying

Although Davis and Brownback have dueled before over school funding, the economy, jobs and the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System, they were particularly heated in their remarks Tuesday, with each calling the other a liar.

Brownback constantly pounded Davis on taxes and said that Brownback’s tax cuts had created a much better economic situation than he inherited from Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson, who was governor during the depth of the recession in 2009.

Brownback said record numbers of Kansans are working and that the state’s unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the country.

“The fiscal situation was a complete wreck, and we were looking at no end in sight unless you really started to address the problems we had as a state,” Brownback said.

Davis said Brownback’s tax plan has the state facing a $1.3 billion debt over the next five years and that tax cuts heavily weighted to business haven’t generated the results Brownback promised. He said that can’t help but mean more cuts to schools and transportation.

“Just look at the performance of our economy – 45th in the country in new business creation,” Davis said. “More businesses closing in 2013 than opening. This year, the rest of the country is double the job growth we have in Kansas.”

“Paul Davis is lying,” Brownback said. “We’ve invested record amounts of money in schools. ... We have also done every T-works (transportation) project that’s been announced and has been said that we would do.

“We have fixed a pension system that was in the bankruptcy zone, that he helped get to the bankruptcy zone in the Legislature, and now it’s out of the bankruptcy zone,” Brownback added. “What he’s saying is data of what he did during the Legislature, not what I’ve done.”

Davis referred to a recent column by Kansas City Star editorial writer Barbara Shelly, titled “The Relentless Lies of Sam Brownback.”

“The things that you’ve been saying in this campaign have been disproven over and over and over again, but you just keep on going,” Davis said. “You know, I was part of the bipartisan coalition that put that bill together to fix KPERS. And all you did was, frankly, sign it.

“People like me voted for a 1-cent sales tax so we could spare our public schools from another round of cuts and we could pass a comprehensive transportation plan,” Davis added. “Now, Gov. Brownback has been more than happy to show up at every ribbon cutting that he possibly can with the transportation plan, but when it was being debated in the Legislature, he was adamantly opposed to it. ... He’s using every opportunity he can now to attack me for it.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2014 at 3:07 PM with the headline "Carr brothers’ case highlights bitter debate between Sam Brownback and Paul Davis."