Anderson put state first

Former Gov. John Anderson once said that success in politics involved being “the right rat at the right hole at the right time.” But Anderson, who died Monday at age 97, was more than that in Kansas politics, serving as state senator, attorney general and an effective governor whose lasting accomplishments included adding Wichita State University to the state system.

“The citizens of Wichita should not be expected to provide at local expense the costs of operating a university that serves the expanding needs of the people of the state,” he told lawmakers in 1963.

He also oversaw the establishment of unified school districts and the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System – two moves that have affected the fiscal management of the state ever since.

The Olathe attorney was the first Kansas governor to live in Cedar Crest. And in 1962 he did what no Republican governor in Kansas would prove able to do for another 36 years – win re-election. (Gov. Bill Graves broke the GOP jinx in 1998; Kansas voters will decide in November whether it’s made a comeback in the case of Gov. Sam Brownback.)

Editorials in The Eagle reflecting on Anderson’s two two-year terms credited him with “progressive, forward-looking steps” but also with showing “how a state government can be operated successfully without the appearance of leadership.”

One point within his 1963 speech to lawmakers should hold true for the 2015 Legislature, and all the ones after that: “I would hope that we approach our problems as Kansans first, and political or area partisans last, if at all.”

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published September 18, 2014 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Anderson put state first."