Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Branson, Charlton
Experience. That could be the theme of the Lawrence area State House of Representatives race. Both of the incumbents have performed well in the past and have the experience necessary to continue to represent the interests of Lawrence and the University of Kansas in the House. Experience is a key issue because the challengers in both races have very little.
44th District: Jessie Branson, the incumbent, is running against Renee McGhee.
against Henee McGnee. Branson is seeking her fifth term and has supported KU by helping to push the Margin of Excellence plan through the House. She plans to continue to work on the financing of the plan if she is re-elected. She strongly supports many social issues such as health care coverage for people who have none, improved nursing-home care and improved services for people with mental retardation.
with mental retardation.
McGhee graduated from KU last spring with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and now is pursuing a master's degree in business administration. She has been involved in many groups and served three terms in the Student Senate. She lacks the qualifications and experience necessary to be a state representative.
Charlton has 12 years of legislative experience, with nine of those years in the House, and she has a master's degree in political science from KU. She is a member of the House Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and has sponsored environmental protection legislation. In fact, the Kansas Natural Resources Council gave Charlton a 100 percent rating on energy and environmental issues. She also backs KU interests and has supported the Margin of Excellence.
46th District: Betty Jo Charlton, the incumbent, is running against Bernie Norwood.
Norwood has been an active community member but has had little leadership experience that would qualify him for the House. Also, students should know that in his campaign literature, Norwood does not mention KU or the Margin of Excellence.
Both incumbents have shown an interest in KU and have gone to bat for the University in the House. Their experience would make it foolish to risk the office to the hands of the untreated newcomers.
The editorial board
In the field of law enforcement, three elements are essential in deterring crime; dedication, effectiveness and consistency.
Loren Anderson
SHERIFF
And in the race for Douglas County Sheriff, Republican candidate Loren Anderson has demonstrated those qualities convincingly.
convincingly Born and reared in Douglas County, Anderson has been serving the public for 22 years. In that time span, he has gained a thorough knowledge of law enforcement.
Anderson began his experience in the Douglas County Sheriff's office in November 1965, when he was sworn in as a deputy sheriff. In December 1976, he became Lieutenant Sheriff of Douglas County, and by January 1985, he attained his current position of Douglas County Undersheriff.
This progression through the ranks shows his dedication to law enforcement in the county.
law enforcement in the county.
His opponent, Democratic candidate Gale Pinegar, has not matched the careful thinking that Anderson has shown in this race. Instead, Pinegar has concentrated on gathering confusing statistics to criticize the sheriff's office and has spent less time explaining solutions to problems that he says exist.
explaining solutions to problem Anderson has recognized the need for additional patrolmen in the county in the fight against crime and has campaigned to hire an additional officer for each shift. He is a charter member and current director of the Capitol Area Major Case Squad and a charter member of the Douglas County Arson Squad.
Anderson also has proposed expanding the HELP system, a system in which rural residents retain a 7-digit identification number that can release detailed information about their residence to authorities in an emergency.
rise to authorities in an emergency.
His endeavors have gained him the endorsements of highly respected peers in his profession, such as District Attorney Jim Flory, former Lawrence Chief of Police Richard Stanwix and current Douglas County Sheriff Rex Johnson. He deserves the support of Douglas County voters, too.
the editorial board
News staff
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Money is candidate's best friend
90 percent re-election rate easy when vast sums are amassed
To hear Beryl Anthony Jr tell it, Americans keep re-electing the same congressman because of the good job he and his fellow incumbents do in Washington. If the representative from Arkansas believes that, he may be the only one - apart from any of his esteemed colleagues with equally inflated assessments of their own merit.
inflate试卷, a Republican congressman from Wyoming with a sharp eye and a candid tongue, is probably closer to the mark when he comments that, if you go around the country and ask if Congress is doing a good job, "you'll find that almost everybody says 'No.'"
If that's so, why do congressmen keep getting re-elected? The answer may be as loud and clear as money talking. Fred Wertheimer of Common Cause, a group that has studied campaign financing and been duly appalled, puts it this way: "There is nothing wrong with an incumbent winning on the merits. But we are losing all accountability under the present system. These political action committees are nothing but money machines for incumbents."
As was noted in a dispatch from the Associated Press the other day, "incumbents of all competence levels have been able to guarantee job security by amassing large sums of private funding and public appropriations for their political benefit." With those kinds of resources to draw on, it's no surprise that almost 99 percent of the incumbents in the House of Representatives were re-elected two years ago. The re-election rate in recent decades has hovered above 90 percent.
The House is supposed to be the popular wing of Congress, reflecting the short-term changes in the
Whoever dubbed the law authorizing these committees "The Incumbents Re-Election Act" may have erred only on the side of understatement. Once an incumbent becomes adept at collecting from interests outside his constituency, as Congressman Anthony has, his war chest can scare off any opposition except an occasional Don Quixote.
Syndicated columnist
Paul Greenberg
mood and direction of national politics. If one were to judge strictly by elections for the House, the country has been politically stagnant for some four decades, opting for one-party government over 54 of the last 58 years. Nobody who lived through some of those years would swallow that conclusion.
sion.
There's a more likely explanation: The House of Representatives simply has grown less and less representative. Now, with PAC money freezing its membership into place, it grows irrelevant as a barometer of national politics.
Anthony is a textbook example of the congressman as fund raiser. If he has become adept at nothing else, he is a champion collector — not just for himself but his party. He was being dealt into the national game even before he was inaugurated. Now as chairman of the Democrates' Congressional Campaign Committee, he's the dealer.
Only a dozen or so of the congressmen face any serious challenge this year. Whether a congressman is good or bad, representative or unrepresentative of his district becomes irrelevant. What comes to count is how much money he can raise, often from outside interests.
dealer.
In the past couple of years alone, he has collected $19,000 from companies that would get major tax breaks from legislation he has pushed. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, he is not so much a representative as a magnet for political contributions from well-heated interests out to influence Congress.
It isn't just private money that congressmen use.
for their own political benefit. They also take advantage of public funds, the most obvious example being free postage for congressional mailings. Georgia's Newt Gingrich, the Republican firebrand, is as partisan as they come, but partisans can tell some home truths, too. Here is one thing he told his colleagues not long ago: "It is wrong for us to take money from the public to brainwash our constituents, which many of us work at systematically, in order to ensure we cannot be defeated . . ."
cafifern be broken. Gingrich made that observation in the course of trips successfully, to cut back the annual appropriation for congressional mailing costs — from $89.9 million to a “more”
from $89.9 million to the general literary quality of congressional mailings is scarcely enhanced by the knowledge that we constituents/suckers are paying the hostage. Even those who opposed Mr. Gingrich on this issue didn't pretend that congressional "newsletters" are much more than self-serving propaganda, but this abuse continues.
serving propaganda, but that's not the case. But Anthony may have a point in this instance: It's not the idea of Congress that repels American people so much as it is members.
It is an old pattern: Mark Twain observed in his time that there was no natural criminal class in America except congressmen, and Will Rogers also had a few choice observations to make on the subject. But at least back then the cast of characters in the farce did change from time to time. The show is now in danger of becoming not only repellent but static, its members fixed in place by political action committees. The country needs to change representatives occasionally or put tight limits on campaign spending soon, preferably both.
Paul Greenberg is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Pine Bluff, Ark., Gazette. Copyright 1988 Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
Beerbower Hall
IT WAS A HORRIBLE
GRIESOUS BEAST!
AND BEFORE
I KNEW IT...
DEL, IT WAS A
CUTE, FOREY
BEEK, BEEK
IT SNIFEED YOUR
LEG.
WHAT
ABOUT THOSE
SCRATCHES?
by Bruce Branit
HE GOT TANGLED UP IN
A BRIKE ACK AS HE
WAS RUNNING AWAY!
BLOOM COUNTY
bv Berke Breathed