Update: Candidate Jeff Blubaugh’s wife under investigation in electioneering probe | Opinion
Update: Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Laura Rainwater confirmed Tuesday morning to the Wichita Eagle that Meghan Blubaugh is in fact the subject of an investigation into electioneering at a polling place. She was spotted wearing a campaign T-shirt printed with the name of her husband, Jeff Blubaugh, a candidate for Sedgwick County Commission, when the couple voted together at a west Wichita advance voting site last week.
An alert reader sent me a picture they took with their phone on Oct. 29 of a man who looks a lot like Sedgwick County Commission candidate Jeff Blubaugh with a woman who looks a lot like Jeff Blubaugh’s wife, Meghan, as they were waiting in line to vote at an advance voting site at Evangel Presbyterian Church out in far west Wichita.
The photo was shot from behind, as the woman was wearing a T-shirt that said “Jeff Blubaugh” on the back.
Another photo taken the same time and in the same line showed two men wearing Trump hats and sneakers with his name painted on them.
All of those are a problem. State law bans electioneering close to polling places, much less inside them.
Here’s what state law says on that: “Electioneering includes wearing, exhibiting or distributing labels, signs, posters, stickers or other materials that clearly identify a candidate in the election . . . within any polling place on election day or advance voting site during the time period allowed by law for casting a ballot by advance voting or within a radius of 250 feet from the entrance thereof.”
That seems pretty clear-cut. Jeff is definitely a candidate in the election, challenging incumbent Commissioner Sarah Lopez.
And frankly, he should know the law. He’s a former two-term Wichita City Council member and this is the fifth primary or general election he’s run in since 2012.
Since late last week, The Eagle has been trying to get the local authorities to disclose the fundamentals of what went on out there that day and hitting a brick wall.
The election commissioner’s office and the Sheriff’s Office confirmed that there’s an investigation underway of electioneering at that polling place, but provided only sketchy details and on Friday denied access to the cover sheet of the report, which is information that they’re required to provide to the public.
On Monday, I called District Attorney Marc Bennett, who confirmed the investigation does involve the same photos I got from the reader. He said the case is being expedited, but won’t be resolved until after the election.
Also Monday, the Sheriff’s Office finally sent a redacted copy of the report cover with the suspect’s name blacked out, but Jeff Blubaugh listed as a witness.
He’s gone silent and won’t return any Eagle phone calls.
Attack ad follies
Speaking of the Blubaugh-Lopez race, Republicans have been busying themselves objecting to the negative mailers that a third-party PAC has been sending out supporting Blubaugh’s opponent, Sarah Lopez.
The one I have on my desk at the moment is from someone calling themselves Kansans for an Affordable Future with the faces of Blubaugh and disgraced politicians Michael O’Donnell, Michael Capps and James Clendenin in a peapod together.
Republicans hate it when Democrats run their own plays against them.
O’Donnell, Capps and Clendenin, you might recall, were behind the mother of all fake-ad hit pieces, when they hired actresses to read allegations of sexual harassment that were made against Republican legislators, and then claimed the comments were about former Wichita mayor Brandon Whipple, a Democrat.
And the Kansas Republican Party has put out their own hit mailer targeting Lopez (as they did in the last election).
It includes another dirty trick pioneered by O’Donnell — using a cutout photo of Lopez in a Black Lives Matter T-shirt as “evidence” she wants to defund the police (she doesn’t).
Here’s the funny part: Eagle photographer Travis Heying took the photo, which the GOP has stolen from us twice — now and four years ago.
If you look at the whole photo and not just what the Republicans cut out, you’d see that when it was taken, Lopez was literally standing right next to Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay, praying, at a police station, during a peaceful demonstration over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
So now you know why I’m not feeling particularly sympathetic towards the KSGOP’s complaints about negative campaign mailers. They’ve been doing it for years and it’s pretty hard to take their pearl-clutching act seriously at this late date.
Misdirected mail
In about the last week, I’ve gotten five mailers at my house urging me to vote for House Speaker Dan Hawkins (or against his opponent Mike McCorkle).
It was kind of a surprise, because I can’t vote for Hawkins. He’s running in District 100 and I live in District 94. My representative is Leo Delperdang, and there’s nobody running against him.
I hadn’t gotten any mailers from the McCorkle campaign (although he did drop a set by when I asked).
Three of the mailers backing Hawkins talked about how great he is, the other two were hit pieces. Which is kind of sad, because this has been one of the most civil campaigns I’ve seen in years.
The last time I saw the two candidates together was when Hawkins was the featured speaker at a rally against Medicaid expansion in Plainville, which is about half an hour north of Hays.
At the event, McCorkle and Hawkins chatted privately and apparently amicably for some time before the dinner. And when I spoke to them both after, we all agreed if we ever have to go to Plainville again, we’ll carpool, because that was a long drive.
The one common factor in the Hawkins mailers I’ve received is they’re all marked: “Paid for by the Kansas Republican Party Inc., Mike Brown, Chair, Alan Townsend, Treasurer.”
The last time I talked to Brown was when I did a story about him trying to curry favor with the Donald Trump campaign by asking Kansas Republicans to donate to Trump via the party and put Brown’s personal bundler account number on their checks. (Bundlers get special access and perks depending on how much money they raise).
Brown accused me of being unethical because while I identified myself as a journalist when I left him a message, I didn’t do it again when he called me back. He said he’ll never talk to me again (oh poor me).
So in addition to his being an obnoxious blowhard, add to Brown’s record that he’s wasting Republican donors’ money by sending mailers to the wrong district.
Even the most committed Republicans are saying they’ve had enough of Brown’s antics. The party will be reorganizing after the election and the smart money is on longtime Kris Kobach sidekick/spokeswoman Danedri Herbert to replace him.
Herbert’s not the ideal choice. She has an annoying habit of making herself scarce when Kobach says or does something stupid, which is not uncommon.
And she co-authored a book with Dave Trabert — who runs a political group fronting for Koch Industries — defending the disastrous Sam Brownback tax experiment after it drove the state budget into a ditch and crashed Kansas’ credit rating (the book is $6.77 on Amazon, if you’re interested).
Still, she’s an improvement over Brown’s bellicose belligerence.
Baby steps.
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 5:06 AM.
