Kansas Losing Political Seniority, Clout

Tired of congressional seniority and the perks of office? Want to trade in your clutch of back-slappers, glad-handers, pork-barrelers and influence-peddlers for a new bunch of dedicated public servants?

So go cold turkey. Move to Kansas.

Here’s a six-member delegation that boasts the Senate majority leader, three committee chairmen and 75 years’ worth of seniority. This is serious clout, enough so that a “small” state like Kansas (population 2.5 million) can thumb its nose at California’s 54-member delegation. It’s not the votes, baby; it’s the people casting them.

Next year, however, in a laudable bow to self-imposed term limits, Kansas’ seniority will drop to, at most, only 2-1/2 years or perhaps even zero.

The presumptive dean of the delegation (pending his re-election) will be Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt, currently tied with several dozen freshmen colleagues for seventh to last in seniority out of 435 House members.

He would replace, as dean of the delegation, Sen. Bob Dole, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee who is abandoning Congress to run for president and taking his 27-1/2 years of seniority with him.

Tiahrt, a 44-year-old conservative, believes in slowing the growth of federal spending to a crawl and recently trimmed his mustache “to show people what a real cut is.”

Actually, Congressman, a real cut is losing 72-1/2 years of seniority, as Kansas soon will discover.

Eight months ago, Tiahrt was sweating bullets. The Wichita press was giving him a hard time, big labor was airing $100,000 worth of commercials portraying him as the enemy of working America and Democrats had voted him “most vulnerable” among Kansas’ all-Republican delegation.

Then weird things began to happen.

On Nov. 20, Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, announced she would not run for a fourth term. She has 17-1/2 years of seniority.

Eight days later, Rep. Jan Meyers, chairwoman of the House Committee on Small Business, announced her retirement, opening a safe seat for a race in November. Meyers has 11 years of seniority.

On Jan. 18, Rep. Pat Roberts announced he would run for Kassebaum’s Senate seat, abandoning his safe district and the chairmanship of the House Agriculture Committee. He has 15-1/2 years of seniority in the House, which is worth zip at the other end of the Capitol.

Then came the twister. On May 15, Dole announced his resignation from the Senate. Two days later, Rep. Sam Brownback, Tiahrt’s fellow House freshman, decided to abandon a third safe district to run for Dole’s seat.

So here’s Tiahrt, who admits “I’m still trying to get the hang of this job,” playing Lone Ranger. Shortly, he will be joined by Kansas Republican Lt. Gov. Sheila Frahm, who will take Dole’s seat on an interim basis in hopes she can defeat Brownback in the primary and a Democrat in November. If she wins, she will add six months of seniority to Tiahrt’s two years.

All this has cheered Tiahrt, not because he had designs on the delegation deanship but because the enemy now has fatter targets than him. “It will be harder (for me) to raise money” because there will be less of it to go around, Tiahrt said. “But it will be even harder for my opponent.”

At the end of March, Tiahrt had $136,108, modest by House standards but twice as much as opponent Randy Rathbun’s $68,199. “I’m smiling now,” Tiahrt said.

Maybe Kansas voters are smiling, too, especially those who believe incumbency is a disease.

But maybe not.

States that have majority leaders or committee chairmen can expect sweets in many bills making their way through Congress. But states with backbenchers carrying the mail can expect crumbs.

Dole has an office on the second floor of the Capitol where Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president. But guys like Tiahrt are stuffed in the bowels of the Longworth House Office Building next to the elevator shaft.

Dole gets on C-SPAN and moves huge pieces of legislation with his name on them. Tiahrt is proud to have gotten two high-schoolers from his district accepted as House pages.

Dole speaks at $5,000-a-plate fund-raising dinners. Tiahrt orders out for pizza and does telephone interviews with Wichita radio stations.

“I have a vision for a strong delegation,” Tiahrt said, trying Dole-ful solemnity on for size. “Of course,” he added with a grin, “I hope I’m around long enough.”