8
Thursday, May 4, 1978
University Daily Kansan
Facing challenges OK with Gaar
Rv CHUCK WILSON
Staff Writer
TOPEKA-State Senate. Norman Gaar, Westwood, is a man on the run. He's running as fast as he can to capture the U.S. Senate. He's joined James J. Jamie Pearson, R-Kan, who is retiring.
He's running a tough, uphill course, though. Currently he is pitted against six other Republicans and the gets by them. If he wins the Democratic choice for the final race in November
But Gaara says a challenge is just what he likes. It brings out the fighting spirit in him.
Fighting spirit is something Gaart has a lot of and a good fight is something he never backs away from, especially if it's a cause he believes in.
ne belfawe it, lose," he said during a recent interview. "I just don't like it. There's no way I'm going to be happy with losing anything."
Gus is playing his campaign just like he plays a game of tennis—all out. He's traveling all over Kansas at a breakneck pace meeting as many people as possible.
With such a pace he's a hard man to pin down but he consented recently to an interview in his state Senate office in Topeka. During the two-hour interview views on issues ranging from liquor by the drunk to own chances of being elected in November.
KANANS: Who persuaded you to run for the senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tinker.
Person:
GAAR: Me. No one persuaded me. I made up my mind on that just like everything else.
KANSAN: What are your chances against Roy?
GAAR; OH, my chances against Bill Roy are very good. They're better than any other Republican candidate for the nomination. I have strong support from city perps and staff. He's a professional class. Bill Roy's got to have that or he's not going to get elected.
KANSAN: Do any of the other Republican candidates have a chance against him?
GAAR: I have serious doubts that they do. I wouldn't want to say that it's an impossibility for them, but it's clear in my mind that the Republicans should be one of the other Republican candidates. The nominee is going to have to carry all of the Republicans. He's going to have to eat Roy alive in independents and he will have to get some Democrats. I can do that.
KANSAN: Who will vote for State Sen. Norman Gaar in the upcoming U.S. Senate?
GAAR. The people who are interested in a winner. People who believe in honesty and integrity and independent judgment in government. People who want someone who won't sit on a fence and who will take a stand.
KANSAN: Because there are three Republicans running in the Kansas City area won't this split the vote?
area WA (GAR): The vote's split everywhere as far as can be seen. Jan Myers is a good popular senator from Overland Park, and she'll get some votes. (Deryl) Schuster is really a Wichita resident and only recently moved to Johnson County, but just because he has a Shawnee, Kan., address he's going to get some votes.
KANSAN: What are the policies you intend to have your campaign on?
GAAR: The thrust of the campaign is my record in the state Senate, my political views and my ability to accomplish the job. Over overriding all of that will be the advocacy of the position that I really am the only Republican who can beat Bill Roy. Do you want Gaar or Roy? That's the theme of the campaign.
KANSAN: That's the choice the people are going to be given?
GAAR: I think that's right. I think that's the reality of the situation.
KANSAN: Where will you campaign hardest?
KANSAN: Did it surprise you when the restaurant liquid bill was passed?
received.
GAAR: Yes it did. I was caught as flat-footed at the rest of you all of the people in the Legislature as well as the public. But that wasn't what we wasn't prepared to do in the issue fully.
GAAR: In Kansas.
Information Act opposed
KANSAN: How long had you planned for the bill?
the door. The AAR, I never did plan for the bill. The first knew it about me when the minority leader, Sen. (Jack) Steinerge, came over and asked me if I had heard what the House had done. I said no, and he said they had passed the restaurant licensing bill and I told him it was just legal; he was seeing just wrong things. Five or ten months later the bill was messaged over and brought to me and sure enough he was right.
KANSAN: Why did it go through so fast?
ATLANTA (UPI) - FBI Director William Webb said yesterday that the freedom of Information Act could jeopardize the sources and that hammer its performance.
GAAR: It did not. People do not understand the legislative process who say it went through so fast. Every bill that is amended by the House and comes over on the message at this stage of the legislature (the closing days) goes through as soon as it is possible to put it up for consideration in the senate. In these days of the legislation this bill was no differenci from Robert Taylor's (leader of the Kansas Dry Forces) hypocrisy and wildly inaccurate assertions for him to say it was rushed through. It was not rushed through and I can prove it point by point.
KANSAN: The Rev. Richard Taylor was in Nebraska when the bill was introduced. Was this part of a general strategy? Did you deliberately wait until Taylor was out of the
GAAR: I didn't know where Mr. Taylor was and I don't ever care where he is. I think he is the sickest lobystar that we have in Topeka and I have absolutely no interest in his pushing activities. Whether he was in the gallery or in Nebraska or in Siberia I really wouldn't care. It's up to him. He's his own person and I'm not interested in him.
KANSAN: Why does the Rev. Taylor seem to have such power over state officials?
GAAR: I think he's just a political terrorist. His strategy works most of the time because we already have liquor by the doorstep and through the phony facade of private clubs.
KANSAN: Do you think this successful move toward liquor by the drink will break any of Taylor's power over state legislators?
GAAR: I don't know. I really don't care either. The question of restaurant licensing is up to the Kansas Supreme Court and it's a good, strong, solid constitutional question. In my view the court could go either way. There's plenty of precedent on both sides of the constitutional question of whether the Legislature can define an open saloon.
KANSAN; Are you afraid of Taylor?
GAAR. No, I'm not afraid of Rev. Taylor.
I like to have his opposition in writing. I send that to my constituents and it's worth 15 to 20 percent additional support when people know I'm willing to stand up and call him the hircitee that he is.
KANSAN: The Rev. Taylor said recently that from now on whenever a drunker driver killed someone's friend or loved one on the highway they would remember Sen. Gaar and others. What do you think of what Taylor said?
GAAR: I think he's sick. He's just pushing his own little empire and he needs those checks coming in from people who think he's up here trying to keep our alcoholic control morals in line and that's just absolute nonsense. It's sick lobbying and I feel sorry for the man if that's what he really believes.
Webster, speaking to the final day of the American Newspaper Publishers Association convention, predicted a lot of problems with the statute.
"We feel it's vital to protect the sources of our confidential information," the new director said. "We are dealing with more cases of sexual abuse and dealing with their lives and their families."
Webster said that agents throughout the country had expressed major concern that their sources were being jeopardized and that informants were not convinced that under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI could protect their confidentiality.
Webster called informants "the most effective tool in law enforcement today," and said they had helped to solve thousands of crimes.
He said the FBI had supplied more than 14 million pages of information in response to a report by Mr. O'Brien.
KANSAN: What was wrong with the state architect's office?
GAAR: Because we have been unwilling to pay sufficient money to hire an architect of the caliber we need, we are obligated to spend the dollars spent to hire a private architect on a non-political basis.
KANSAN: What politician or businessman controls you?
GAAR: State architect's office, civil service reform, tax relief, local government tax support from the state, adequate funding for our regents institutions. I just couldn't classify the restaurant liquor bill as going for the jugular.
GAAR: Oh, it was a mess. I was 'i' not the one that argued against it. It was my investigation that initiated the restructuring of that office. I started about a year ago to do what the committee wanted it to the attention of the interim ways and means committee, which took up the investigation on an official joint Senate-House committee basis. We found an impossible situation. We found malfeasance. We found misinformation and inability to make decent, forthright decisions.
KANSAN: Why did you decide that Kansas didn't need a state architecture?
GAAR: I was one who campaigned while the Legislature was in session when I could it without interfering with my senatorial duties. That was absolutely essential.
KANSAN: Quite a few state legislators were accused of campaigning for office from their Legislative seats this term. Were you one of them?
GAAR: Nobody pulls my chain.
GAAR: I'm the sort of person you don't control.
KANSAN: An Associated Press analysis published recently said you did campaign from your seat. Would you comment on that?
KANSAN: What issues have you done this on recently?
KANSAN: You go for the jugular if you
feel that your chest is important, don't?
GAAR: Yes.
KANSAN: Are you the sort of person who will take an issue and run loose with it?
GAAR: That's false as far as I'm concerned. I issued a lot of press releases on things that I was doing on pending matters, and it didn't happen nearly done because it's just too much trouble.
GAAR: The balance has been overwhelmingly on the side of State Senate duties. It's discomforting to me but it's my responsibility and I'm going to up to it.
KANSAN: How have you balanced things
between campaign and your duties in the
State Senate?
KANSAN' How many people are currently working full time on your cannery?
GAAR. No, it's never enough. There could be 30 and it wouldn't be enough, but financial requirements and other problems simply will preclude it. I'll have to expand the staff with volunteer people unless I get more money than I expect.
GAAR: Three.
KANSAN: Is it enough?
KANSAN: You've been instrumental in drafting legislation giving county government more control and in reducing speciality. Why did you become involved in these issues?
GAAR: Because the basis, the genesis, of my political philosophy in government is that wherever possible local control works best. If you take the big picture, that that's why we have the federal, the national and the local of 200 million people. Because we've kept the federation of 50 states and we've allowed local control within regions and within areas and then further down from that we've kept local controls in our schools and our cities and our counties. This has simply got to be involved in my mind, in order to keep the comglomerate together in a democratic organization
KANSAN: You're a winner most of the time. How do you feel about losing money?
losing anything and that makes it difficult. I don't want to lose anything.
GAAR: I hate to lose. I just don't like it.
There's no way I'm going to be happy with
GAAR: No. That's something that isn't in my make-up. If I feel that someone has taken unfair advantage of or anyone else in a fight I won't get a lot, and sooner in another day.
KANSAN: Do you ever hold a grudge?
KANSAN: If you lose this U.S. Senate question what will you do?
GAAR: I'll be the majority leader of the Kansas Senate and I will carry on with the process I've been involved in for 14 years
KANSAN: How would you describe yourself as a politician?
GARR: I would classify myself as a moderate-pragmatist with a conservative background from an economic viewpoint and a liberal from a social viewpoint.
KANSAN: What do you want to be remembered for?
GAAR: I suppose I'd like to be remembered as someone who is an independent thinker, someone who is capable of structuring a political process in accordance with the government of their state responsible to them and someone who is not tied up with partisanship.
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