Sherow challenges Huelskamp in 1st District race

Jim Sherow decided to write a letter to his congressman.

He was upset at what he regarded as political posturing at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., after the government shutdown last year. Lawmakers he felt were responsible for the shutdown, including his congressman, Tim Huelskamp, were berating a park service employee for closing the memorial to veterans.

Sherow, an Air Force veteran, said he thought it was hypocritical that politicians who never served in uniform were using veterans to score political points.

“Frankly, I just found it really unpatriotic, the whole government shutdown,” Sherow said. “Not only was it political, it cost the economy over $20 billion and lowered the bond rating of the U.S. government.”

So he wrote the letter to Huelskamp, who never wrote back, Sherow said.

Sherow, a Democrat, also didn’t like that Huelskamp, R-Fowler, had been removed from the House agriculture and budget committees by Republican House leaders in 2012, a move that he thought hurt the 1st District.

He decided he’d had enough of Huelskamp and filed to run against him. Sherow, a professor of history at Kansas State University and former mayor of Manhattan, ran unopposed in the primary election.

Huelskamp, who was elected to Congress in 2010 and ran unopposed in 2012, won a narrow victory in the August primary against Republican challenger Alan LaPolice, a farmer and educator.

Huelskamp has said he was knocked off the House committees for sticking to his conservative principles and not always voting the way House leadership wanted him to vote.

“I promised to fight for conservative values,” he said in an interview with Roll Call soon after he was ousted. “I voted exactly like I said I would and will continue to fight.”

Huelskamp did not respond to interview requests for this story. In an interview with The Eagle before the primary, he defended his record, saying that he has succeeded in 30 legislative initiatives he has undertaken during his 31/2 years in office.

He also said he is fighting the Obama administration on environmental and other regulations that could cripple agriculture, which is what farmers have asked him to do.

But Sherow accused Huelskamp of being in politics only for himself.

“Bob Dole had conservative principles, too,” Sherow said, “but he always managed to put Kansas farmers first.”

Constituents of the agriculture-heavy 1st District are left without any representation on the Ag committee, Sherow said.

“They feel like we’ve lost a voice in Congress, and they’re very concerned about gaining that voice back,” Sherow said.

Chapman Rackaway, a political science professor at Fort Hays State University, doesn’t give Sherow much of a chance to be that voice.

“I think if he had a chance we would’ve seen resources from the Democratic national campaign committee in D.C. move into this race,” Rackaway said.

“We have to see more from Sherow,” he said. “We have to see some ability to campaign on his part. We have to see him go on the air. I just haven’t seen enough from him to convince me he’s going to be a competitive candidate.

“I don’t think Huelskamp is going to have a great victory margin, but I certainly expect him to win.”

Huelskamp has a large cash advantage over Sherow. He had more than $595,000 on hand on Sept. 30, according to his latest FEC filing, compared with $15,300 for Sherow.

A conservative political action committee, Now or Never, has put $234,000 into the race to oppose Huelskamp, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Huelskamp lost the endorsements of the Kansas Livestock Association and the Kansas Farm Bureau, but Sherow didn’t gain the support of those groups.

Sherow said that during his time as city commissioner and mayor in Manhattan he proved he could work with people to find solutions, which is what voters in the district tell him they want.

“They’re very concerned with the divisiveness in Washington and think of Rep. Huelskamp as being one of the main contributors to this divisiveness,” Sherow said.

Sherow, who has received the endorsement of Kansas Republicans for Common Sense, said that if elected he will join a group of about 80 members of Congress from both political parties called “No Labels,” which caucuses regularly to look for common ground on issues.

Huelskamp, a member of the House Veterans Affairs committee, has said his biggest accomplishment was the passage of a VA reform bill, and he cited that as an example of working in a bipartisan way. The bill will allow veterans to seek private care outside VA facilities and would also provide money for the VA to hire more doctors and nurses.

The bill came after reports that some veterans had waited months to get care from the VA.

Rackaway said that while there is a chunk of the 1st District that is concerned about Huelskamp’s combative style and his lack of a place on the Ag committee, Sherow hasn’t done enough to tap into that chunk.

LaPolice was effective at it in the primary, he said, “but primaries are a different animal, especially in a district that has the strongest Republican advantage of all districts in the state.”

Those who are upset with Huelskamp are thinking about who to run against him in the Republican primary in 2016, Rackaway said.

This story was originally published October 25, 2014 at 7:15 PM with the headline "Sherow challenges Huelskamp in 1st District race."