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Poll available at link. To summarize the results among likely voters: KS Senate Race: Roberts (R) 49% Orman (I) 48% KS Governor Race: Brownback (R) 49% Davis (D) 49%

Here's how embattled Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback diagnosed his political problems in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody: “I think they (the mainstream media) want what’s happening in this state to fail that they’re shopping for a factual setting to back that up because it’s working.” Um, no. While blaming the media is both one of the most common strategic moves and one that regularly reeks of desperation, in this case -- like in most of them -- what Brownback is saying is simply not true. So why then is Brownback in so much trouble in a state...

Kansas governor Sam Brownback received a vote of confidence in his controversial tax cut program Thursday, as the Cato Institute gave him the top rating on its annual fiscal policy report card. The libertarian think tank ranked the Republican Brownback first among governors for his management of taxes and spending, tied with North Carolina's Pat McCrory, also a Republican. The report card, which gives high marks to efforts to lower taxes and spending, specifically cited the tax cuts engineered by Brownback as a "major policy success." The cuts have become a political liability this year for Brownback, who faces a...

The midterm elections of 2010 were good for Republicans nearly everywhere, but amid the national Tea Party insurgency, it was easy to overlook the revolution that was brewing in Kansas. That year, the GOP won every federal and statewide office. Sam Brownback, a genial U.S. senator best known for his ardent social conservatism, captured the governor’s mansion with nearly double the votes of his Democratic opponent. And having conquered Kansas so convincingly, he was determined not to squander the opportunity. His administration, he declared, would be a “real live experiment” that would prove, once and for all, that the way...

Kansas state government is on the verge of a financial windfall with the auctioning of thousands of sex toys seized by the revenue department for nonpayment of income, withholding and sales taxes, an official said Wednesday. Online shoppers for adult DVDs, novelty items, clothing and other products can participate in a bonanza shopping experience resulting from the four-county raid on a Kansas company known as United Outlets LLC. Owner Larry Minkoff, who was doing business under the Bang label, apparently resisted requests from the Kansas Department of Revenue for payment of $163,986 in state taxes. It is unclear how much...

Dr. Paul A. Ibbetson was an officer with the Montgomery County Drug Task force during the 1998 drug raid at the strip club where Paul Davis was rounded up in.

GOV. SAM BROWNBACK of Kansas says he has come to regret characterizing his policy agenda as a “real live experiment” that would test the efficacy of deep tax cuts to spur jobs and economic growth. In fact, Mr. Brownback’s choice of words was apt. Few if any governors have undertaken such an extreme trial-by-revenue-deprivation in a state so clearly lacking the economic means to withstand it. Now, as the damaging social and budgetary impacts of his slash-and-burn fiscal measures have become apparent, Mr. Brownback, a conservative Republican seeking reelection this fall in a state where every statewide elected official is...

WIBW) - A new poll shows tough battles shaping up for incumbents on the November ballot in Kansas. SurveyUSA conducted the poll for KSN Television in Wichita. In the governor's race, Republican incumbent Sam Brownback continues to trail Democrat Paul Davis. The margin of 48 percent to 40 percent is the same as that found in a Survey USA poll done before the August primary... In the U.S. Senate race, Survey USA says Independent candidate Greg Orman continues to cause a wrinkle for both three-term Republican incumbent Pat Roberts and Democrat Chad Taylor. The poll found Roberts with 37 percent,...

Kansas may have a Senate race after all. The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Kansas Voters finds incumbent Republican Senator Pat Roberts with just a four-point lead – 44% to 40% - over Democratic challenger Chad Taylor. Seven percent (7%) like some other candidate in the race, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

Author and broadcaster Tavis Smiley during the Kansas Conference on Poverty on Friday spoke out about Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget and called for a 2016 presidential debate that would focus solely on poverty and income equality. “Budgets are moral documents,” Smiley told a crowd gathered in the Sunflower Ballroom of the Capitol Plaza Hotel, 1717 S.W. Topeka Blvd. He said Brownback gave tax breaks to the “rich and lucky” and “cut K-12 education.” “The tax cuts are a good sound-bite politics but unsound policy,” Smiley said. He also said what Brownback has done to the state is “shameful.” Education is...

Jason Perkey cut his teeth in politics working campaigns in the Bluegrass and now the Louisville, Kentucky native is applying the lessons he learned from his time in the state to the Kansas governor’s race. Perkey, who is the executive director for the Kansas Democratic Party, is applying a strategy first implemented in the 2011 re-election campaign of Governor Steve Beshear in Kentucky. Democrats in Kansas launched a secretive mass endorsement of high profile former and elected Republican officials which has the GOP in the state off message and striking out at one another. More than 100 Republican officials endorsed...

Kansas has a problem. In April and May, the state planned to collect $651 million from personal income tax. But instead, it received only $369 million. In 2012, Kansas lawmakers passed a large and rather unusual income tax cut. It was expected to reduce state tax revenue by more than 10 percent, and Gov. Sam Brownback said it would create “tens of thousands of jobs.” In part, the tax cut worked in the typical way, by cutting tax rates and increasing the standard deduction. But Kansas also eliminated tax on various kinds of income, including income described commonly—and sometimes misleadingly—as...

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed HB 2578 into law today, 23 April, 2014.   The law strengthens state preemption by preventing local governments from banning  the open carry of firearms and making the disclosure of the possession of a concealed carry license a condition of employment.  From kansas.com: The governor has signed a bill that will bar local governments from enforcing local gun ordinances, his office announced Wednesday morning. Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/04/23/3419021/kansas-governor-signs-gun-legislation.html#storylink=cpy It requires adequate signage to prohibit the open carry of firearms by premises that choose to do so.   There is no penalty for open carrying in such...

Attorney General Eric Holder said hate crimes are an affront to what the United States stands for in comments at a memorial service Thursday for three people killed in a shooting at a Jewish community center in Kansas. “Every alleged hate crime, no matter the intended target, is an affront to who we are – and who we have always been – both as a country and as a people,”

Tuesday Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed what is being called the strictest Second Amendment protection law in the nation. “The Second Amendment Protection Act” does exactly as the name implies: It provides residents protection of their Second Amendment rights by exemption from federal gun control laws, including bans or restrictions on certain guns, magazines or ammunition, for all guns and accessories within the state’s borders. “Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the...

Friday afternoon Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed 11 bills into law, including SB 21 which amends several firearms-related statutes including authorizing official recognition of any valid concealed carry permit from another state for individuals traveling through or visiting Kansas. Thanks to Gov Brownback, Kansas now has the best Concealed Carry reciprocity in the nation!

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback says he won’t support Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger’s grant application to create a state-federal partnership health insurance exchange. The exchange is an online marketplace where individuals can by health insurance policies. A partnership is one of three choices for states under the federal health reform law. States could also choose to establish their own exchanges or let the federal government do it for them.

In this episode of the Conscience of Kansas radio program we talk about several bits of Kansas news including a liberal artists in Lawrence Kansas angry that his painting of Gov. Brownback burning in hell was removed from a local business. Doug Giles, author of the book, "Raising Boys Feminists Will Hate" will be on the show to talk about his new book. We invite you to listen and comment.

Analysis: Kansas governor owns aggressive tax cutsBy JOHN HANNA | Associated Press – Thu, May 24, 2012 TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Plenty of Kansas legislators' fingerprints are on the aggressive income tax cuts signed into law this week by conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, including those of some GOP moderates now describing it as a budget crisis in the making. But Brownback now owns the legislation, even though it strayed significantly from the tax plan he outlined in January and he and his allies sought less aggressive alternatives in the legislative session's final days. He not only signed the bill,...

Topeka — Gov. Sam Brownback on Wednesday called for a cut in the state personal income tax and minimal budget increases, saying that will put Kansas in the fast lane on the road to economic growth. "Let's put our 'lost decade' … in the rear view mirror and speed ahead — at 75 miles per hour — to make this decade the decade of growth and job creation," Brownback, a Republican, said in the State of the State address. But his plan hit immediate bumps from legislators. Brownback's proposal would cancel a scheduled decrease in the state sales tax rate,...