Nancy Boyda’s upset of Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Topeka, may in part be an unintended consequence of GOP state legislators’ contentious 2002 redistricting map. That was the hurried plan that nearly forced the postponement of the August primary, when then-Attorney General Carla Stovall challenged its separation of Junction City and Ft. Riley. But by also moving part of liberal Lawrence from the 3rd Congressional District to the 2nd, Republicans intended to make Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, beatable. Now, he’s still in office. And as of Tuesday, as KC Buzz Blog noted, “we’ve now got two blue districts where we once had just one.” Oops.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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19 Comments
Good! Maybe we can keep two Democratic Representatives.
I’ll bet that Freshman Boyda will be more effective than minority partisan Todd!
Generally, the mobility of today’s society makes me wonder if Gerrymandering will ever again be a viable, long term strategy for one party’s control over a certain geographical area.
As to the Second District, Kansas, I suspect, but, of course, have no way of knowing, the rationale underlying the Goodyear strike in Topeka, which idled some 10,000 workers, might have been evidence of a shift in political preference, at least for this election.
Perhaps the truth is that people were tired of the do-nothing Ryun and voted for Boyda?
Karma’s a bitch.
Maybe, but I don’t think so. See my post about how Boyda’s victory means we have to rethink our assumptions.
http://hopeandpolitics.blogspot.com/2006/11/kansas-nancy-boydas-victory-means-its.html
“However, her win also shows that even in the reddest of red states people have simply had enough of George W. Bush.”
As I said at the time, inviting Bush in was a BIG mistake. Ryun tied that albatross around his neck.
Well, maybe Bush was what finally finished Ryun, but he was pretty lackluster as a congressman to begin with.
“Instant Karmas gonna get ya”Did Ryun ever do anything to speak of? Well, other than run around a track 45 years ago.
Due to national population shifts and the loss of a Kansas Congressman, today’s 2nd District is an amalgam of the old rock-solid Republican 5th District that was served for many years by minority congressmen; who kept in office thanks to constituent services. You might’ve disagree with old Joe Skubitz or Bob Whittaker, but if your Social Security check was late, their staffers would react. Similarly, the old 2nd District was served by people such as Martha Keyes and Jim Slattery, for whom responsive staff work was a top priority.
Boyda’s future depends on how well she’s not just a “Congresswoman, but how well she’s a “representative.”
It’s not just a title, it’s a job description.
It’s not just how she votes in Congress that matters, it’s how you serve.
Kansans expect their congress-people to be more than our voice in Washington; they want ears. The successful people in Congress isten to the people who’ve sent them there.
Lord knows, Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum didn’t always vote the way I wanted, but they had a rationale (most of the time) that explained they were voting for the common good of the people of the 2nd District, of Kansas, of the United States, and the world.
I’ve written Congressman Ryun a few times over the years. Without exception, the response from his office has been a form letter of boilerplate GOP talking points. Sometimes his office’s responses were somehow relevant to my letters; most of the time, not.
Boyda has said she plans to spend weekdays in Washington and most weekends in Kansas. If those weekends work to present availability to constituents, (i.e., “I’ll be in Ft. Scott on the 23rd from 8 ’til noon and I’d appreciate the opportunity to talk to you more about this issue. Call my office in if you can make it.”) she’ll be one helluva Representative.
A lot of cranks might show up, but cranks are constituents, too. If she lends an ear, she’ll neutralize the cranks and probably marginalize them. But in the process, she’ll also discover people who have real problems, real concerns, realissues that might need to be addressed in Congress.
Did anyone happen to catch Ryun’s concession speech Tuesday night? Live? Unedited?
He spoke for a minute or two then turned the mike over to his wife. Ann Ryun is the “brains” of Ryun’s political career. She’s a bat-crazy born-again Rovian Republican and always has been. Jim has always been her sock-puppet. She’s the one who got caught up in the Washington DC lifestyle. She’s the one who drank the NeoCon/DeLay/Rovian Kool-Aid. (Non-alcoholic, of course.)
Most people want government to work for a living. The past 12 years of Republican control of Congress and the past 6 years of the Dumbya Administration have shown most people that Republicans are so anti-government, they have no business running it.
I remember reading an interview with Ryun some years ago, when he said he’d never let his daughters date, that he believed in arranged marriages. Anybody know how that turned out?
Arranged marriages? How do these people get elected in the first place?
The Ryuns’ philosophy of arranged marriages used to be on the web, associated with the Focus on the Family (Dobson) folks.
Basically, they wouldn’t allow anyone to “date” their daughters. If a young man came to the girl’s parents and seems to be marriage material, he might be allowed to come over and play basketball with Ned and stay over for supper. It’s the evangelical system of “courtship.”
Catharine Ryun is over 30 and a proud virgin (she was featured last year in an NPR story about real-life “40-Year-Old Virgins”) and works in Shrub’s White House.
The Ryuns trotted out their grandchild during the concession speeches, so apparently someone passed muster. Dunno which kid or any of the other details.
I guess there aren’t any 30 year old male virgins who want to court her father.
That’s just weird.And some think we’re kidding about religious fundies taking over…this is WHY we have separation of Church and State. So nuts like them don’t tell us how to live.
Never trust anyone over thirty….
…who’s never had sex.
Check this out…
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Two days after losing a bid for a second term, Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record) said he was unsure whether he would remain a Republican.
ADVERTISEMENTChafee lost to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in a race seen as a referendum on President Bush and the GOP. On Thursday, he was asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or become an independent or Democrat.
“I haven’t made any decisions. I just haven’t even thought about where my place is,” Chafee said at a news conference. When pressed on whether his comments indicated he might leave the GOP, he replied: “That’s fair.”
Chafee, 53, is a lifelong Republican who has represented Rhode Island for seven years. His father held the same seat for 23 years before that.
He is the most liberal Republican in the Senate and was the sole Senate Republican to vote against the war in Iraq. But that was not enough to prevail against Whitehouse, who shared many of Chafee’s views but was a Democrat in a heavily Democratic state.
Chafee said he has not decided what to do after leaving office, but he hoped to stay involved in public life. He said his loss may have helped the country by switching control of Congress.
“The people have spoken all across America. They want the Democrats and Republicans to work together,” he said. “I think the president now is going to have to talk to the Democrats. I think that’s going to be good for America.”
Chafee said he waged a lonely campaign to bring the party to the middle. He described attending weekly lunches with fellow GOP senators and standing up to argue his point of view, often alone.
“There were times walking into my caucus room where it wasn’t fun,” he said, adding that he stayed with the GOP largely because it helped him bring federal dollars home to Rhode Island.
now he’s a person who SHOULD by all means switch to becoming democrat.
I had wondered what would have happened if he had won and made the Senate 50-50. Might he have bolted to give the Dems control? Something similar happened in 2000 as I recall.
District lines should be drawn by people who are apolitical, and stop all this nonsense of trying to rig the system.
Yes I can’t remember who did it, but I remember being just jubilant when that guy announced he was switching to the dems.
But I’m sure the republicans in his district were hopping mad.
Don’t worry about people being apolitical drawing the maps, the ones doing the drawing screw up just as often as they get it right. The 1990 map was drawn by Democrats with the intention of trying to take out Jan Myers. They succeeded in 1998, but lost Glickman and Slattery along the way. All of Lawrence was originally in the 2nd District but was taken out.
Republicans in 2000 wanted to put more of Lawrence in the 2nd District. They didn’t do it, but if they had, Ryun would have lost by a larger margin. The only upside for Republicans is Adam Taff (prisoner #499281) would have won in 2002.
Before Redistricting, Republicans had 79 representatives in the Kansas Legislature. They picked up seats despite losing incumbents. They topped out at 83, now they’re back to 79.
In California, Pelosi worked out a deal to pack all the seats as safe seats to guarantee Democrats hold their majority of the California Congressional delegation. If she hadn’t done that, they would have picked up more seats Tuesday.
Computer science will allow the next gerrymanders to “microtarget” voters with more precision than we can imagine. What it cannot predict is who will move in 6 years and what issues will move voters in 8 years.
The only wrong answer to redistricting is trying to put it in “non-partisan” hands. Is there anyone available that really fits that bill? At least if legislators are doing it, the public can respond by voting them out of office.