Dark-money group, KNEA-funded group attack Kansas conservatives

Political mailers are seeking to tie conservative candidates to President Obama and Hillary Clinton in the final days of the Kansas primary campaign.

Ahead of Tuesday’s election, Kansas voters have been inundated with political mailers making questionable claims, one of the main battle tactics in the civil war within the Kansas Republican primary. Conservatives control both chambers of the Kansas Legislature.

The Eagle previously reported how the Kansas Chamber of Commerce was funding organizations that made questionable attacks on moderates. But several conservative candidates have also been the target of false claims.

“It looks almost like the Kansas Chamber and the Realtors are supporting one slate of candidates, generally incumbents,” said Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party. “And the other side is the contractors, school-related groups and some hospital-related groups … and they think the spending cuts have gone too far. They’re trying to reverse that.”

The tactics being used by both sides this year may surprise you. Conservative-leaning groups are touting issues like school funding — usually a key issue for moderates — and moderate-leaning groups are trying to tie conservatives to President Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. That is a strategy that has been used against moderates in past elections.

Conservative street cred

A mailer from a dark-money group called the Kansas Freedom Alliance seeks to tie Rep. Kasha Kelley, R-Arkansas City, to Obama and Clinton by featuring their photos and warning that Kelley is “Bringing Washington’s Politics to Kansas.”

“That one made me laugh,” said Kelley, one of the most conservative members of the Legislature. “… Anybody who knows a scintilla about me knows that’s not true. That’s so far-fetched.”

The basis for the claim is that Kelley voted in favor of replacing the state’s current Supreme Court justice selection system, which relies on a nine-member commission to vet nominees, with the federal model, which would allow the governor to choose nominees on his own.

The mailer contends that Kelley “voted to replace the Kansas court system with Obama’s court system — putting politicians in charge instead of the people.”

Calling the federal model “Obama’s court system” is a pretty big stretch when you consider that the system of presidential appointments is laid out in the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, and has been used by every president since George Washington.

Kelley faces a primary challenge from Anita Judd-Jenkins, who describes herself as a “fiscally conservative, moderate Republican,” in District 80, which includes the southern half of Sumner County and Arkansas City in southwest Cowley County.

Late voting not uncommon

Independent expenditure groups, such as the Kansas Freedom Alliance, do not have to report their contributors or how much money they spend on advertising because they do not state explicitly which candidate to vote for. Their ads are considered “issue ads” and fall outside the bounds of the state’s campaign finance laws.

Limited information about the group exists. It has no website. It registered as a not-for-profit corporation with the state in February. Its filing documents say that its purpose “is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which the entity may be organized under the law of Kansas.”

The filing lists Charles Rayl as the group’s incorporator. Attempts to contact him by phone were unsuccessful.

The Kansas Freedom Alliance also said Kelley was connected to Clinton and Obama because she voted in the middle of the night to pass a tax bill last year “the same way Congress passed Obamacare.”

The tax bill passed the House at 4 a.m. with the bare minimum votes last year after lawmakers had struggled for several weeks with how to fill the state’s budget hole. Kelley, who had led a coalition that unsuccessfully pushed for more spending cuts, voted for the final bill.

Late night and early morning votes are not uncommon in Washington, Topeka or other capital cities around the nation. Transparency proponents criticize the process, but to suggest it is unique to Obamacare and the Kansas tax vote would be inaccurate.

“I have always been one of those people, who (says) we stay until it’s done. ... You stay until your legislative business is done,” Kelley said. “If your back is against the wall and you’ve got to get the job done, you’ve got to get the job done.”

Goals overlap

Kelley isn’t the only conservative candidate linked by mailers to Obama and Clinton.

The Kansas Republican Values Fund sent out a mailer featuring Republican Susan Humphries alongside the pair with a warning that Humphries was recruited by lobbyists to run for an open seat in House District 99 in east Wichita and Andover.

“I think that’s funny because really the first person who ever mentioned anything to me about running was my sister, and then it was my daughter … and unless they’ve become lobbyists, that’s not true,” said Humphries, who practices adoption law.

The Kansas Republican Values fund is chaired by former state Rep. Bob Brookens. It received the bulk of its funding from the Kansas National Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

The KNEA’s parent union, the National Education Association, has endorsed Clinton, the same candidate the mailer tries to negatively tie to Humphries.

Mark Desetti, KNEA legislative director, said KNEA played no role in designing the mailers, but it gave $25,000 to the fund because it agrees with its mission, which is to elect more moderate Republicans to the Kansas House.

“We believe in the value of the traditional Republican Party, so our goals overlap, that of electing more moderate Republicans to office,” Desetti said.

Brookens could not immediately be reached by phone Friday.

Humphries said most of her contributions have come from friends and family — and her campaign finance report seems to back that up. However, she has also received money from lobbying organizations, such as the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, and from Koch Industries, one of the chamber’s main funders. It’s tough to say how the support of Koch, which has donated millions to oppose Obama’s agenda at both the state and federal agenda, ties her to the president and Clinton.

Her opponent, Randy Banwart, received money from the KNEA and the Kansas Hospital Association’s political action committee.

This story was originally published July 29, 2016 at 1:20 PM with the headline "Dark-money group, KNEA-funded group attack Kansas conservatives."