Boyda introduces resolution to congratulate KU's football program

In a little bit of personal privilege (and, yes, some legislative fluff), Congresswoman Nancy Boyda introduced a resolution commending the Kansas University football team for winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl and having the most successful year in program history.

Her floor statement:

"Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce H.Res. 948, which honors the University of Kansas football program on their recent victory at the Orange Bowl and their most successful year in program history.

"On January 3rd, the KU football team won the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, marking their first major bowl victory in university history. Leading up to the bowl game, the team placed 12 wins on their roster, setting a new school record for wins in a season. KU also reached the number two spot of the AP national poll, which marked the highest national ranking that the program has ever received.

"Among their athletic accomplishments this season, the team also produced three students who received All-American titles for their performances on the field and two other students who were Academic All-American recipients. Head Coach Mark Mangino also received multiple national Coach of the Year honors.

"Please join me in recognizing these accomplishments and congratulating KU on their amazing victories this season."

The resolution should come to a vote later this week- and we'll assume it will pass (unless the Missouri delegation teams up with Nebraska and Okkahoma...then we might have ruckus on the floor...).

Rock Chalk!

Boyda celebrates women leaders who came before her

March is Women's History Month, so it's fitting Congresswoman Nancy Boyda opened the month by delivering the keynote at an event held to recognize the contribution women have made to Kansas history.

According to the article, Boyda talked at some length about her childhood, saying that she was raised with some mixed signals about the role of women in society.

Boyda said she grew up in a household with conflicting messages about women: that women could do whatever the chose, but also that women should be seen and not heard. Although she was encouraged to pursue an education and career, Boyda said her mother at first didn't understand her interest in campaigning.

Her mother asked her, "Why can't you just trust your government, sweetheart?"

Boyda's mom didn't live to see her sworn into office.

It's particularly fitting Boyda should be asked to speak at an event honoring women leaders, because she has now joined an elite club of elected officials- women elected to the United States Congress- and it's a club Kansans have played a significant role in.

Kansans have elected, including Nancy Boyda, five women to represent us Congress, including two Democrats and two Republicans- four members of the House and one United States Senator, and we think it's fitting to honor all of them today:

• Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum-Baker: One of the first women ever elected to the United States Senate, Sen. Kassebaum was a leaders of the "moderate" wing of the Republican Party- a fiscal conservative who was also pro-choice. Elected as a political novice in 1978, she established herself quickly as a leader for Kansas, becoming the first woman in history to chair a committee in the United States Senate. Kassebaum ended her career, after nearly 20 years, in 1997.

• Rep. Martha Keys: The first woman to hold the seat Congresswoman Boyda currently occupies, serving two terms (1975-1979), Rep. Keys was thrust into office with significant power- she was named as a freshmen to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. A leader of the women's equality movement, she ensured Title IX had the teeth it needed to make real changes to the way America's sporting programs received money. Incidentally, she was only the second Democrat to be elected to the seat since the Civil War- but, in the last 40 years, the Democrats have held the seat 21 years, compared to the 19 years for the Republicans.

• Rep. Jan Meyers: The only woman ever to hold the seat currently held by Congressman Dennis Moore, Meyers was another Kansas Republican woman in the vein of Sen. Kassebaum: a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. She was the first woman in more than 40 years to chair a House standing committee and a staunch defender of a woman's right to choose. She served from 1985-1997.

• Rep. Kathryn O'Loughlin McCarthy: We have to apologize- we left Rep. McCarthy out when we originally wrote this piece. It's sad, because she was the first woman ever elected to the United States Congress (elected in 1932), and one of the only single women ever elected to the body at all (she married during her term). MCarthy's district was the 26 counties in the northwest corner of Kansas along the Nebraska and Colorado border.
  

Serving only one term, she was swept into office in the Roosevelt wave, beating a 2- term Republican in the process. She wanted a seat on the Agriculture Committee, but leadership refused, instead putting her on the Insular Affairs Committee, which is still in charge of issues relating to our federal territories. She was furious, and and in protest she said, “Where, pray tell, are the islands of Kansas?” Leadership relented, removing her from the Insular Affairs Committee, but still denied her a seat on the Agriculture Committee, instead putting her on the Education Committee. She was targeted for defeat by powerful Republican Governor Alf Landon and his handpicked replacement, Frank Carlson did just that- but only by 2,800 votes of more than 120,000 cast. She passed away in 1952, the same year the man who defeated her became Majority Leader of the United States Senate.

• Also, and we think often forgotten, Governor Bill Graves appointed Sheila Frahm to serve the remainder of former Senator Bob Dole's term after he resigned to run for President in 1996. She served only 5 months before being denied renomination, and a full term of her own, in a special election primary fight with now-Sen. Sam Brownback. She left her seat only days after Sen. Brownback defeated Jill Docking in the 1996 general election.

Nancy Boyda is currently one of just 89 women in Congress, and she joins a list of extraordinary Kansas woman who have served before her. She fits in well, too- a centrist, with the best for Kansas in her heart, and a woman willing to do what is right even if it isn't what everyone in her party wants her to do.

Boyda: "The New Center"

Published today and on newsstands this weekend, The National Journal's 2007 Vote Ranking issue is out- and Congresswoman Nancy Boyda is on the cover.

The cover story, called "The New Center," puts Boyda smack dab in the middle of members of Congress in the magazine's annual most liberal/conservative ranking.

[Rep. Tim] Mahoney has plenty of freshman classmates to keep him company at the center, including Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan. She said she viewed her moderate ranking as "third-party validation" of her nonpartisan approach, which, she emphasized, is "not based on ideology or beholden to a party."

"Kansans don't get involved in the politics," Boyda contended. "They want to know how the issues affect them." She is so independent that she has refused to join the House's moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats and has turned down entreaties to participate in party programs to promote her re-election. "I told [House Democratic Caucus Chairman] Rahm [Emanuel] in no uncertain language that I didn't care what he thought about how I should run my campaign," Boyda said. "I told him to leave me alone, and I won't tell him how to run [other] campaigns. After three weeks, he learned to leave me alone."

Boyda's centrism is all the more compelling because she defeated GOP Rep. Jim Ryun, who was the No. 1 most conservative House member in NJ's 2006 vote ratings. Ryun is trying to regain the seat this year, but he faces a primary challenge from a more moderate Republican.

Moving from a member on the radical extreme (Ryun as #1 most conservative) to Boyda in the very middle of the body, is a refreshing change for Kansans, who, certainly, are better represented by a centrist than by a radical on either end of the spectrum.

Congresswoman Nancy Boyda: 203rd most liberal, 227th most conservative. Exactly where her district is: exactly in the middle of the country.

[Update: Congresswoman Boyda's office included the following information in a press release sent out announcing the cover story and we wanted to pass it along:

(Please note that the mention of the Blue Dog Coalition is slightly inaccurate. Nancy did apply for membership in the Blue Dog Coalition early last year, and at the time the Blue Dogs had reached their membership limit. Since then Nancy has found that not being a Blue Dog has helped to preserve her independence.)

We think the other blog covering this race needs to issue a retraction..but, well, we know they won't.

BoydaBloc Does Some Upgrading

Happy weekend, readers!

Anyone visiting the site will notice a shiny new box at the top left hand side: We're proud to announce we're taking subscriptions to our little blog via e-mail. So, if you'd like BoydaBloc to appear in digest form in your Inbox every single evening, we'd love for you to take advantage. It's free (of course) and just another service we're excited to supply.

Slightly further down the page, you'll see a link to subscribe to our blog feed as provided by FeedBurner. Again, please, we'd love you to sign up however you're comfy signing up- but please don't think we want you to stop visiting...the page views make us nearly giddy.

This blog has grown from infancy in the middle of October last year to become the hottest blog in Kansas- and, of course, the best place to get all your Nancy Boyda related news. We'll have a party in a few days...we're approaching 10,000 hits, and we'll want to let you know the minute that happens.

Nancy Boyda: Making our kids better off tomorrow than we are today

Brand new positive radio ad being run supporting Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's work to improve our lagging economy.

You can also listen to the ad here.

Boyda at K-State: Earmarked research monies necessary

The K-State Collegian, the college newspaper at our purple university, has a good article today about Congresswoman Nancy Boyda and earmarks that quite fairly discusses the good and the bad of earmarking.

It comes to the correct conclusion that while some earmarks are filthy, miserable things (like the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska...which happened when Jim Ryun was "leading by example," by the way), many earmarks, if not most of them, serve incredibly important purposes and those, my friends, can't be just eliminated.

On the good side, universities like K-State receive several millions of dollars each year from earmarks, including funds for stem-cell and biosecurity research, said Sue Peterson, director of government relations at K-State.

Peterson said she has not determined the final amount K-State received from earmarks during the last fiscal year, but she estimated the funding was between $14 and $15 million.

The earmarks will fund projects at the Midwest Institute for Comparative Stem Cell Biology, Great Plains Sorgham Improvement and Utilization Center, and the Biosecurity Research Institute, among other projects.

[...]

Boyda said many of the earmark projects would falter if they did not receive funding from earmarks. It is possible that several of these projects would not receive funding from other areas like separate government grants and private contributions.

"Without this funding, some of these programs could be interrupted," she said. "They could have to stop - it would be a mess."

Congresswoman Nancy Boyda said again that one of the most significant problems with earmarks is that the dirtiest ones, the ones that give the whole process a bad name, are hidden from the eyes of members of Congress- and from the public.

Boyda said this allows legislators to withhold reasons for questionable earmarks from their constituents and other members of Congress.

"They don't want to take all the questions and criticisms that come," she said. "And my view is if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

Boyda said the easiest solution to a lack of transparency is forcing all members of Congress to post every earmark they introduce, not just the ones that pass.

Of course, Boyda has lead by example on this particular issue (are you listening, Jim?):

Boyda said she was called a maverick two years ago when she announced she would post earmark requests online, but fellow Kansas Democratic representative Dennis Moore, as well as other legislators, soon followed suit.

"The crazy thing is four members of Congress in Kansas, two in the House and two in the Senate, still haven't," she said.

The article also notes that earmark have decreased in number and in cost since the Democrats took control of Congress, and we'd just like to add the most significant reform in the history of the earmarking system happened while the Democrats were in control.

Ryun promises not to do his job if sent back to DC

Newsflash: Jim Ryun has sworn off earmarks if returned to Congress, in a move that seems much more like a chain smoker announcing, "This time I'm really going to," rather than like a principled stand taken by a would-be elected official.

A shout out to our "friends" at Bounce Boyda and Stay Red Kansas for breaking this story- but, funny, they seem to have left something out. What could it be...oh, that's right, the fact Jim Ryun is a flip-flopper and a hypocrite.

Oh, we say such mean things. If it weren't for pesky facts getting in the way, the Republicans could call us liars, but, those silly facts are just everywhere today!

Jim Ryun said in a press release today this:

“There is no greater way to lead than by example and I challenge my primary and general opponents to join this effort for reform,” Ryun said.

Late to the game, of course, Jim, since Congresswoman Nancy Boyda voted for the most significant overhaul of the earmark system in history in her first month in office- something you certainly should have been championing the whole time you were in Congress but, oops, you must have forgotten...or it didn't matter to you until you saw a poll that told you how to think...or maybe, oh, heck, who knows why you've decided to be the champion of reform after you got kicked out of office while during your tenure earmarks increased by either 653% or 376%, depending on which study you prefer.

Nothing like leadership by example, huh?

It's foolishness, pure and simple, to think every single earmark is wasteful. Deeply important projects are funded through earmark requests, projects that range from life-or-death law enforcement issues, to infrastructure rebuilding that we all know can also be a life-or-death deal. So promising to request nothing- none, nada, zilch- promises you won't do the right thing for your district.

You know what's funny? Jim Ryun used to understand that. In 2004, when he was running for re-election in the toughest race he'd ever faced until Nancy Boyda beat him in '06, Jim couldn't stop reminding everyone he saw how hard he worked to secure tens of millions of dollars in federal earmarks for the City of Topeka- specifically for a new Topeka Boulevard bridge. Yes, folks, Jim Ryun, Mr. "I will never take an earmark again" campaigned- hard- on the fact he was good at bringing home the bacon.

Don't believe us? Read here, here, here, here, or even, here.

That last one is great, because it's the most recent- from the day he filed for his ill-fated last run in 2006. It says, briefly, this, regarding why he was the best choice in '06:

He also touted his work to secure federal funding for replacement of the crumbling Topeka Boulevard Bridge.

Also, separately, he was very proud of himself for securing $5 million in earmarks for transportation projects in a bill...regarding which he said:

"I am pleased that this bill provides much-needed funding for critical transportation priorities," said Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., who represents the Topeka area.

Still think we're just liberal liars? Jim Ryun took, secured, announced, brought home hundreds of millions of dollars while in Congress and trumpeted it on his official web site- click here, here, here, here or, yes, here to see for yourself.

He certainly was for earmarks before he was against them- because he knew they were important.

And you know what- thank you, Jim, for working to get these funds for the bridge and other projects- thank you. You did your job asking for that money. If you hadn't, like you're promising now, you would have been failing the people of your district.

One thing does make you a hypocrite in all of this, though, outside from the fact you used to be willing to do your job and now you aren't- you voted against the bill that included the money for that bridge...but you took credit for it anyway. That, sir, is disappointing.

You heard it hear first, folks, Jim Ryun's first campaign promise of 2008: "If you will elect me, I promise to fail you. I will not do my duty to the people of the 2nd Congressional District of Kansas."

Boyda one of the "best" for America's children

Getting a 100% rating from a special interest group isn't something that always plays really well for members of Congress- it because all too easy for critics to say, "Who's interests are you really representing, mine or that group's?"

Congresswoman Nancy Boyda is in that kind of pickle right now... but, actually, we're not sure anyone would have a problem if she said she was indeed representing this particular special interest group with all her heart: She's been given a 100% rating by the Children's Defense Fund and has been listed as one of the best representatives on children issues in the entire United States Congress.

She joins Congressman Dennis Moore on the "Best" list, while fellow Kansas delegation member Congressman Todd Tiahrt is at the other end of the spectrum, finding himself listed- again- on the "Worst" list.

You can find the complete list and the votes used to create the ranking in this PDF.

Making Tom DeLay Smile

Our newest "fancy" YouTube vid:

Ryun & Jenkins: Bringing Unethical Leadership Back

We certainly have taken a great deal of glee out of the news reports of Lynn Jenkins and her unethical ties to the company running TV commercials for her all over the district.

We've even said several times that we agree with Jim Ryun and his campaign manager, Kyle Robertson, for calling on Lynn to do the right thing and tell American Century to stop airing the ads.

Lynn's made this all pretty easy, though, for Ryun's campaign and for this blog. We had a commenter say she needed to keep herself from being "Swift Boated," and, yes, while she needs to defend herself, the spastic way her campaign responds to being pinned shows exactly how out of her league she has found herself. Comparing Jim Ryun to Hillary Clinton and trying to skew a poll on a new channel's web site were both childish and, honestly, unbecoming of someone who holds a statewide office.

You know, it does make us pause and thing, though. Patrick Leopold, who is Lynn's campaign manager, makes a good point through all of this: Jim Ryun has no business calling anyone unethical because he was, indeed, the epitome of the corrupt Republican Congress that was just thrown out on their heels in 2006.

We all know that one's true, we know that's one of the reasons Jim is "Ex-Congressman" instead of "Congressman," but, heck, we didn't know Lynn was right there with him, too. But, really, please keep up the good work- you both just keep on reminding all the voters in Nancy Boyda's district why neither of you are fit to serve in the US Congress.

Boyda: US security should not be outsourced

The FISA debates has kind of side tracked everyone in the rest of the county from other important national security related problems we're facing, but the people of Kansas are deeply aware of a recent decision made by the Air Force.

If you aren't aware, the United States Air Force has decided to award a $3.5 billion contract for the construction of new tankers to the French company Airbus, instead of US (and Kansas) company Boeing.

Congresswoman Nancy Boyda was quoted in the Topeka Capital-Journal article:

"It just makes no sense for America to outsource our ability to defend a nation," she said.

Boyda also released a press statement that went into some additional detail:

Boyda said, "This is just wrong in so many ways. By sending the tanker contract to France, the Pentagon has effectively jeopardized 44,000 American jobs. It's a very real loss to the industrial base." EADS-Northrop will use American workers only for assembly. "And let's not forget that Boeing has experience building tankers. Airbus has none. This is about more than keeping jobs in Kansas. It's about relying on a company with the proven ability to do the job."

"In addition to the economic blow," said Boyda, "it is an issue of national security. EADS is subsidized by a number of European governments. How can we guarantee that supplies from EADS will continue to flow to the United States if those countries do not agree with America's foreign policy?"

[...]

Said Boyda, "It just makes no sense for America to outsource our ability to defend a nation. In World War II, our nation's manufacturers turned on a dime to produce the planes and trucks we need to keep America safe. With every contract we send overseas, we lose our capacity to build for our own military."

"Please know," added Boyda, "I will fight to help protect jobs in Kansas and our nation's security when it comes to awarding military contracts."

You know, it's funny, because both of our US Senators have released press releases and have been quoted in the papers bemoaning the situtation, too, but that's an awfully strange position for them to be taking, since they, along with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain voted to make it easier for this very disaster to happen.

In 2003 Senators Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback voted for a John McCain amendment that encouraged the Department of Defense to buy military equipment from foreign countries. And yet, since the Air Force announced their intent to bypass Boeing Co. for the second largest defense contract in history, the two Kansas Senators have been among the most vocal dissenters.

[...]

"We've seen a lot of 'Buy American' talk from Sen. Roberts and Sen. Brownback in the days following the Air Force's decision, but their record doesn't back them up," said Kansas Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Gaughan. "Where has this concern been as members of the Senate?"

We agree totally with what Sen. Pat Roberts said in the Topeka Capital-Journal:

"If this decision holds, it will be at the cost of American jobs and American dollars, if not our national security," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.

We only wish he would have voted with those considerations in mind before this was allowed to happen. Hopefully the other members of the delegation, including Congresswoman Boyda, and help correct the mistakes made by the previous Republican majority on this issue before too many Kansans have to go without work.

KTKA calls Lynn Jenkins out on being paranoid

Since the story broke in the Kansas City Star, Lynn Jenkins has been racked over the coals by this blog and two of the major TV stations in Topeka for what the Ryun campaign (rightly) calls unethical campaign ads being paid for by people Lynn kindly awarded with a multi-million dollar state contract.

Yesterday we published the e-mail Lynn Jenkins sent out to her supporters asking them to vote in a poll on the KTKA web site- in hopes, of course, that they would sway the poll and prevent her from public embarrassment. By the time we even knew there was a poll, it was too late, and Lynn's minions had already effected their rigging.

No matter. KTKA comes back today with a piece by Jesse Fray, that does a fine job explaining what it is Jenkins has done, and what her Republican opponent, Jim Ryun, has to say about it:

We agree wholeheartedly with both Mr. Robertson (that's got to stop...) and Mr. Smith- it's obvious Jenkins knows she's done something wrong, or she wouldn't be trying so hard to fix it, and it's obvious that Lynn Jenkins is the most paranoid candidate running for anything in Kansas in 2008. Her e-mail attacking Ryun was over the top, and her efforts to prevent the public from being heard on KTKA's poll were foolish.

It's all par for the course, though- like we said yesterday, she's overreacted every time she's been confronted with a "campaign crisis." Tell me, how much confidence does that instill in all of you folks with her ability to deal with real problems. It's scares the hell out of all of us

Boyda continues to win FISA war of words

The story that just keeps getting better and better for Congresswoman Nancy Boyda- her courageous stand on FISA is garnering her even more press this week than it did last.

First, another newspaper piece, this time in the Leavenworth Times:

"I am adamant about protecting the Constitution. They're giving nothing in return for it. We're not getting any more security and they're shredding the Constitution," said U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Second Dist.

The fourth amendment to the Constitution protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure, requiring probable cause for issuing search warrants.

[...]

"What shocks me is how members of Congress from Kansas would so readily give up 230 years of our Constitution without gaining any additional security," Boyda said.

It shocks all of us, too, Nancy- and it's clear everyday Kansans are shocked, too, that the Republicans in Congress and the President would willfully throw out our Constitution in order to save the telephone companies some money.

Boyda pointed out that Congress is being asked to give phone companies immunity without knowing why they need immunity. "The question is why the president is completely unwilling to tell Congress what he did," Boyda said. "It seems to me it's probably about domestic surveillance."

[...]

Despite her objections to the Senate Bill, Boyda acknowledges wiretapping and conducting terrorist surveillance is "job number-one," but cannot compromise civil liberties.

She said FISA was adopted to safeguard the rights of Americans, not to protect terrorists.

"Keeping America and Americans safe is my number-one priority," Boyda said.

She cautioned that despite many Americans having no objection to wiretapping because they have nothing to hide, the stake of American democracy is hanging in the balance.

"If you are willing to have the government come into your home and into your personal life without any probable cause and without any oversight or any warrant, then you have just given up our democracy," Boyda said.

In 1759, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

It's so clear Boyda's position on this issue is the winning one, but the other side continues to attack her on it, hoping the message of fear will win the day. Today the Topeka Capital-Journal ran a letter to the editor from Christian Morgan, the Executive Director of the Kansas GOP. Christian isn't creative, so he just repeated all of the same, tired rebuttals you've all already heard. Our friends over at Blue Tide Rising did a superb job taking Mr. Morgan down a notch, and we thank them for it.

Congresswoman Boyda also had a letter in the Cap-J today, counter Mr. Morgan- please, partake (and make sure to read the comments).

Finally, we're going to do something we've yet to do here on BoydaBloc- we're going to ask you to send Congresswoman Boyda a donation- through one of the two different ActBlue accounts that have been set up to allow us to help defend members of Congress who, along with Nancy Boyda, voted the right way on this version of FISA:

ActBlue: Help Nancy Boyda Fight Back or ActBlue: Fight FISA.

Even though Boyda's right on this issue, the forces who want to tear our Constitution to shreds- and who want to scare you to death so you'll let them- aren't going to stop just because a pesky thing like "fact" gets in the way. Call Nancy Boyda and tell her she's doing the right thing.

Boyda speaks to students, drives point home on FISA

In another reminder this election cycle promises to result in record-breaking numbers of young voters coming out to the polls, last Saturday the two high schools in Lawrence hosted a rally called "Promote the Vote."

The event was organized by the LHS Young Democrats, and included speeches by Ballard, Davis, state Sen. Marci Francisco, Boyda, local environmentalist Simran Sethi, and State Board of Education members Bill Wagnon and Janet Waugh.

Boyda's remarks both praised the students for wanting to be involved in the political process, but also reminded them of the very significant threats our nation faces under the current administration.

One student asked Boyda about the debate surrounding warrantless wiretapping. Boyda unequivocally voiced her dismay with Congress’s lack of action to curb warrantless wiretapping.

“The foundation of our democracy … is at stake in the House of Representatives,” she said. She said Bush’s attempts to stifle inquiries into wiretapping and the role of telecom companies was “a massive cover-up … because he doesn’t want you to know that the Constitution has been shredded and he doesn’t want you to know how long” wiretapping has been happening.

Two dozen new voters registered at the event.

Writing about the other side

Every once in awhile we get a few comments that run another the lines of, "I thought this was supposed to be about Nancy Boyda, why do you spend all your time attacking Jim Ryun/ Lynn Jenkins?"

Those comments and e-mails are....tedious.... because from where we sit it's so abundantly clear we do spend almost all of our time talking about Nancy Boyda and only a tiny, tiny amount of time is spent on her Republican opponents.

While one would think simply, oh, reading the blog would prove that point, we're starting to think some of our readers actually can't read, so we'll put the numbers together for you.

With this post, we've posted 126 times since October of last year. A full 100 of those posts have been either about something Nancy Boyda has done or have been defending her against unwarranted attacks. In other words, nearly 80% of the time, this blog is Boyda stem-to-stern.

We're written about Jim Ryun 14 times- or 11% of the total posts. We've talked about him campaigning in Hawaii and Disney World to represent you and me, and we've made it a point to tell you he can't manage his own money.

Lynn Jenkins, who interestingly enough has only appeared in the blog 9 times (7% of the posts), but has generated the most comments of anything anyone has done in relation to this race. We're guessing it's either because she and her supporters or particularly sensitive and, thus, out of their league, or that she's got one or two really dedicated supporters who just like to type. Either way, she never fails to drive the hit count up...so much so, it'd be lovely if we could find more to write about her..but she doesn't make the news very often. When she does though, boy, it's a doozy!

Finally, 4 posts, or 3% of the totally were about Jim AND Lynn...so, fine, a total of 20% of this Nancy Boyda blog is about her opponents. But those posts are (normally) so few and far between you've got to be pretty narrow in your view to think it's all we do. Honestly, Congresswoman Boyda does too much good for us to have much time to spend digging up the bad on the Republicans.

So, folks, chew on that. The blog is here to talk about Nancy Boyda, and we do most of the time. But, sometimes, the two people running to oppose her are just too easy of targets for us to ignore.

CALL TO ACTION! Tell Lynn Jenkins to clean up her act!

The Jenkins for Congress campaign sent out an e-mail just a little while ago that we want to share with all of you:

Jenkins Supporters - we need your help!

Jim Ryun is running a character assassination smear campaign against Lynn Jenkins and he is launching ridiculous claims against Lynn targeting her as "unethical". Ethics and Ryun's business dealings with convicted felon Jack Abramoff was, of course, a major issue for Jim when he lost to Nancy Boyda in 2006, so he's trying a trick out of Hillary Clinton's playbook and trying to drag Lynn down with him. Well, it didn't work for Hillary Clinton and it won't work for Jim Ryun either! We need your help to stop him now!

KTKA TV in Topeka is conducting a poll regarding this story and we need you to support Lynn by voting "NO, its her duty to promote the program". Forward this to all your friends and vote here tonight!

While, you're at it, email Jim Ryun at jim@jimryun.com and tell him to stop these baseless attacks! Or even better, go to Lynn's website and make a small contribution to help Lynn fight back.

These kinds of personal attacks are not productive for democracy, are not going to help us mend our broken party, and they certainly aren't going to help us defeat Nancy Boyda in November.

[...]

First, please, someone else laugh with us that she compared Jim Ryun to Hillary Clinton- really?

Second, thank you so much, Lynn, for going negative against Jim. You, of course, promised you wouldn't, so we're seeing your first major flip-flop of the campaign.

It's a quite an effective negative hit- no, we don't want someone as unethical as Jim Ryun representing us in Congress. It's just awfully clear Lynn's sense of what's ethical is muddied, too. Just why is it your face needs to be in the ads to effectively promote a college savings program, Lynn?

This embarrassingly over zealous response shows us all yet again how thin Lynn's skin really is. If the ads really are so perfectly squeaky clean, why does she have to work so hard to defend them? Nancy Boyda talks about earmarks passing the "smell test"- it seems to us the ads just don't pass.

This is twice Lynn Jenkins couldn't take the stress of a direct attack. The first time was when Club for Growth ran a TV ad against her correctly pointing out she voted to increase taxes. In that case she wrongly accused Jim Ryun of illegally coordinating the ads, and while we hate defending Ryun, she was way out of bounds.

Both of these incidences strike us as the acts of a desperate candidate struggling to maintain footing- or the amateurish mistakes of a candidates simply out of their depth. Either way, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

We'd like everyone to vote in this poll, too...but make it clear to Lynn Jenkins she can't continue using third parties to promote her race for the US Congress, vote "Yes, the company doesn’t have to use her in the ads."

KC Star: Jenkins unethical ties to firm called into question

In a story this blog broke weeks ago, the Kansas City Star has finally reported on State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins and her unethical ties to a firm running TV ads in Kansas featuring her smiling face.

The ads, paid for by a company called American Century, tout the college savings program "Learning Quest" which is administered through Lynn's office. While none of us are convinced Jenkins actually has anything to do with the program's operation in Kansas, we will say it's important, and we're happy Kansas families have access to it.

With that said, the TV ads are nothing more than campaign spots.

Ah, but splashing her face all over her district isn't the only thing American Century has done for Lynn Jenkins:

American Century’s then-CEO also donated to Jenkins’ campaign to be re-elected treasurer shortly before Jenkins extended the company’s contract in 2006. A lobbyist for American Century has contributed to Jenkins’ congressional campaign and her state treasurer bids. [Emphasis ours].

“It raises serious ethical questions of outside corporate interests in a federal election,” said Kyle Robertson, the campaign manager for Jenkins’ GOP primary opponent, former U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun.

Understand how much it pains us to say this, but Robertson is right. This is blatantly unethical, and a outright violation of the spirit of every campaign finance reform law passed in the last decade.

Jenkins, of course, sees nothing wrong with the ads, but that's just another examples of her cluelessness when it comes to the issues important to the people of her district. We want our politicians to be honest and to play by the rules, and these ads clearly give her an unfair advantage. That, of course, ignores the more serious ethical question: Did the contract with American Century get renewed by the Office of the Kansas Treasurer because Lynn was promised kickbacks, or were the donations just "thank yous" for making her fat cat friends even more weathly?

The company says it just might decide to run the ads again just before the general election in November, should Jenkins be the nominee. We're calling on Lynn Jenkins to publicly tell American Century, "thanks, but no thanks," and to direct them to stop ads and mailings that featuring her for the duration of her campaign for Congress.

Do the right thing, Lynn, and keep this race on the up-and-up. Tell American Century to keep their money.

(Or, you could do what the people of Kansas really deserve: Resign the office of treasurer. At least that way we can have a treasurer that we know is working for us and not their own personal ambition).

Washington Days!

Back home from the very best weekend in the whole year- and we'll have some in-depth discussion of what all went on later this week.

What we can share is, though, that, like always, the food in the Southeast Kansas room was wonderful, Jefferson County won awards with their ice cream, and Congresswoman Nancy Boyda showed the Republicans who's boss with a fantastic response to the TV and radio ads that are being run against here in a speech we'll call the "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" speech.

We know there's video- if we can get it, we'll share it.

More later- hope you had a wonderful weekend, even if you weren't in Topeka.

Pitt State for Boyda

I love college newspapers. I love colleges. Lets be honest, some of the greatest activists, Representatives, and volunteers come out of the college community. College is a time when people learn more about articulating their own ideas and understanding issues more to uncover their opinions and get started on how they can impact the world through their chosen field.

The Kansas 2nd District has more Colleges, Universities, Community Colleges, training academies, and tech schools in it than most districts do. And it creates a vibrant environment to engage our leaders at a more thoughtful level.

This week's Pittsburg State Collegio published a piece about Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's recent tour of the Kansas Technology Center and the Kansas Polymer Research Center. Both groups are on the front lines of building the next generation of Kansas workers who are staying here at home in the 2nd District to develop their communities.

"She's really engaged with the students - asking them where they're from," said Steve Scott, vice president for academic affairs.

PSU administrators say they have been working toward getting money for the technology programs for two years. Recently Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and Boyda teamed together for the final passing of the bill in Washington.

"Representative Boyda has been a good advocate," said Scott. "She sees this as an investment."

The Omnibus bill will give the second district of Kansas $387 million.
Pittsburg's funds will begin to arrive in March through the Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service.
More than $1.1 million of the grant will go to the KPRC and $263,310 will go to the technology center.

Most of the money will be used for updating materials and research projects.
"We have to submit a program to the USDA that hopefully they will approve," said Sara Riddle, director of administration for the KPRC.

The grants could be renewed annually because the funding is not an earmark but a line item on the bill.

"We are extremely pleased to be receiving these funds," said Steve Robb, director of the KPRC and the PSU Business and Technology Institute, in a press release issued in January. "It's not every day something like this happens. Our challenge is to leverage the federal money into some special projects that can benefit the state of Kansas and the country as a whole."

What better way to help students learn more and gain more experience than investing in our systems of education.

This is not the first time Rep. Boyda has been to Pittsburg State University (as the article attests). Nor will it be the last.

In fact, Rep. Boyda has gone above and beyond when it comes to connecting with folks in the 2nd District. Her own House website features a map that shows exactly what I'm talking about.

You can even go further to explore what activity or event took place in the area. Even zoom in to see what building it was in or where it was more specifically.

You can't very well represent the people if you don't know where they stand and what they are facing. This is a perfect visual representation that Rep. Boyda isn't another politician that is out of touch with reality. She's one of us.

Fact Checking can be Fun!

Newsweek has done a terrific story that I think you might find to be very very interesting.

I'm sure ya'll have noticed that there are ads running on TV and on Radio now that are slamming Congressional Democrats for their FISA votes. Congresswoman Boyda is one of them. I could link to the video, but I don't want to lend credibility to the lie.

The ads are run by a group called Defense of Democracies. I knew when I first saw the ad and the disclaimer at the bottom that it was probably a shady 527 run by the "rooty tooty republicans for less democrats society." Wow was I right.

"The ads began running Friday, Feb. 22 in 17 media markets targeting 15 Democratic members of the House. A national version was up and running Monday on the major cable networks, and it was expected to air for most of this week. It appeared during a commercial break in Tuesday night's MSNBC-sponsored debate between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The group behind the ad, Defense of Democracies, was set up just last week. It was spun off from a nonprofit called Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which was formed after 9/11 and is headed by Clifford May, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The three listed members of the foundation's board of directors are Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of the business magazine Forbes and a Republican candidate for president in 1996 and 2000; Jack Kemp, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 and GOP nominee Bob Dole's running mate in 1996; and Jeane Kirkpatrick, best known as Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the United Nations. Kirkpatrick died in 2006, however. A few Democrats were sprinkled in among the parent group's advisers (as well as Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman), but several of the most prominent, including Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Donna Brazile, the former campaign manager for Al Gore's presidential bid, have resigned because of this ad. Brazile issued a statement calling the ad campaign "misleading and reckless" and saying it would "have the effect of emboldening terrorists."

The piece moves forward to specifically target each word and detail the ways in which it is both misleading and includes important facts that the ad conveniently leaves out.

Narrator: Midnight. February 16. The law that lets intelligence agencies intercept al-Qaeda communications expires.
This is simply not true. First, if government eavesdroppers want to listen in on communications between two suspected terrorists who are outside the U.S., they can. That would likely include a lot of al-Qaeda-related chats. No warrant is necessary as long as the communication isn't intercepted over a wire in the U.S.

Second, even if one of the parties targeted for tapping is in the U.S., the government still can rely on the granddaddy of laws that deal with wiretapping as a foreign sleuthing tool, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under FISA, intelligence-gatherers must apply to a special court for a warrant to tap the communications of a person in the U.S. The process can be cumbersome, although officials have said that court approval sometimes takes only minutes. And if there's an emergency and the government has strong evidence, the wiretap can proceed before an order is sought; authorities have up to 72 hours to get their application to the FISA court, which seldom swats the government down. Of the 2,181 applications made to the FISA court for authority to conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches in 2006, just one was denied, and only in part, according to the Justice Department's annual report on the statute.

What the ad's narrator really means is that a law updating and expanding FISA to make the government's work easier, which was passed last August, has expired. The Protect America Act was given a life of only six months because lawmakers wanted to put something in place while continuing to debate its civil liberties and national security implications before deciding whether to make it permanent. That's the law that vaporized on Feb. 16, with disagreements between the House and Senate still unresolved.

The Protect America Act, among other things, expanded the range of situations in which the government could operate without a FISA warrant. Controversy arose because the wording of the law could have allowed the government to wiretap the conversations and e-mails of Americans without a court order when targeting a foreigner abroad.

Narrator: Senate Democrats and Republicans vote overwhelmingly to extend terrorist surveillance. But the House refuses to vote and instead goes on vacation.

It's true that the Senate passed a bill replacing the Protect America Act, and it was largely to the White House's liking. It's not as though the House sat on its hands, however. It passed its own bill, the Restore Act, back in November.

The Bush administration opposes the House bill, as do its allies at Defense of Democracies, and the point of the ad is to pressure House members to accede to the Senate version...

I know this is a lot of information. But this is important. As we mentioned earlier today:

"The Senate bill would give telecommunications companies retroactive immunity from lawsuits arising from their cooperation with the Bush administration's post-9/11 intelligence-gathering program. In December 2005, the New York Times broke a story revealing that after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, President Bush secretly authorized a program that allowed the government to bypass FISA in pursuit of terrorists, even when collecting communications in the U.S. More than 40 lawsuits contending that the program was illegal and that telecom companies violated citizens' constitutional rights by participating in it are pending in federal court in California, consolidated from around the country. Bush has accused Democrats who oppose this immunity provision of shilling for the trial lawyers' bar, and he has cast the House Democrats as roadblocks on this issue almost daily...

Critics of the immunity provision point out that it provides blanket immunity and is not specifically targeted to lawsuits arising from the companies' cooperation with the post-9/11 program. Some suspect there may be another secret program that hasn't yet come to light. Telecom companies already have immunity for actions they take in connection with surveillance conducted under the law.

But wait... here's the golden part. This is where it gets crazy

The ad's play to public fear echoes the tactics used by the administration to put strong pressure on Congress. In an interview late last year with the El Paso Times, McConnell even went so far as to say that without quick approval of the law, "some Americans are going to die" because of continuing public discussion of the issue. The reporter asked McConnell how he makes the case that the new law is important.

El Paso Times: You have to do public relations, I assume?

McConnell: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. ... The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means. ...

El Paso Times: So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

McConnell: That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public.

Wow... I mean.... wow. Seriously.... what do you say to this? I think I just threw up a little in my mouth..... Anyone seen the movie The Lives of Others? Nice little German flick about what it was like living under communism... deserves a poignant mention.