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It's always an interesting race when Kevin Yoder is on the ballot. No, we won't make a cheap shot about skinny-dipping in the Holy Land. We mean whoops! We're very sorry. But, seriously?
THE CANDIDATES
Our Kansas City race consists of incumbent (R) Kevin Yoder and his challenger (D) Kelly Kultala.
(R) Kevin Yoder (Incumbent) - The incumbent Congressman was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives during the "Tea Party Year" in 2011. Prior to serving in Congress, Yoder was a State Representative in the Kansas Legislature for eight years, starting in 2003. During his time in the Kansas Legislature, he "chaired the House Appropriations Committee where he led the effort to cut spending, balance the state budget and fight tax increases." With that experience at the state level, the Congressman is now on the House Appropriations Committee in the United States Congress.
Before his 12 years of political office holding, Yoder went to the University of Kansas, where received both his Bachelor's degree (with honors) and his law degree in 2002. It is widely said in Lawrence that while the Congressman was at KU, he was the President of the College Democrats. After receiving his J.D. Yoder practiced law in the KC area, while he was a State Representative before being elected to the United State Congress. The Congressman supports many social causes (head start education and down syndrome) and has received many awards for his efforts.
(D) Kelly Kultala - The Democrat challenger, like her opponent, is fifth generation Kansan. She has an impressive list of political experience and accomplishments as well. She "served on the Piper School Board, as a commissioner on the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas and as a State Senator for the 5th District, which included western Wyandotte and Leavenworth Counties."
Her bio further states that "she served on the Ways & Means Committee and was the Ranking Minority Member on the Transportation Committee and Utilities Committee. She was part of the leadership team that crafted the T-Works Comprehensive Transportation Plan, creating 175,000 jobs throughout the state and she was instrumental in working with local and state officials to bring the Sporting KC Soccer Stadium and Cerner office complex to Wyandotte County, creating over 5,000 jobs."
Both candidates have impressive resumes and have shown instrumental leadership in accomplishing big and important tasks.
THE ISSUES
1. EDUCATION: Kelly Kultala's website presents her deep commitment to assuring that Kansas schools are properly funded and that teachers have all the resources they need. Kevin Yoder's website does not list issues. We are aware that he has received the Kansas State Head Start Champion's Award in 2012 and that he is for cutting unfunded mandates like No Child Left Behind. However, we don't really have much to provide here.
WHO WINS THE ISSUE:
There's simply not enough information. While its true Republicans are for cutting funding to social programs, such as education, in order to cut spending, both candidates did benefit from public education and both claim it's something they want to enhance. Surely there is wasteful spending on education, but improving education needs to be top priority for our leaders in Washington. An educated workforce is essential to improving the economy and reducing spending on Welfare programs for the lower class.
We lean towards Kultala, but we aren't going to pledge a full victory for her on the issue either. She provides good rhetoric here, "We need to educate our kids for the jobs of the 21st century in science, technology, engineering and math. And we need to make it easier, not harder, for middle class families to send their kids college", but good rhetoric isn't enough.
2. MIDDLE CLASS: Kelly Kultala refuses to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class. She will not support cuts to Medicare or Social Security and she supports more efficient measures to take care of veterans. She accuses Congress of trying to slash those programs as well as education, in order to maintain tax cuts for the wealthy. She is opposed to shutting down the government, which she believes burdens small businesses and is for raising the minimum wage.
In 2010, Yoder was on the record for opposing the privatization of Social Security and retirement accounts. Nothing of his voting record suggests he has changed his position on the issue. He's also not nearly the high profile U.S. Representative of Jenkins or Huelskamp which makes it more difficult to accurately access his voting record.
WHO WINS THE ISSUE:
Still not enough information. Kultala probably has more in line with typical independent voters, but due to her lack of specificity on the issues and Yoder's lack of publicity of votes on them, its hard to determine who really represents Independents in the 3rd District the best.
3. THOSE ARE THE ONLY ISSUES: We're not joking. Yoder doesn't have an issues page and Kultala only lists those two issues on hers. Still though, there must be some way to measure them up. That's why we have decided to consult with American Conservative Union, the right wing interest group that calculates every member of Congresses 'conservative' score. We've decided to compare Yoder to his fellow Republicans (both in Kansas and high profile out-of-staters).
Yoder has a lifetime score of 88.
Lynn Jenkins (KS - 2) has a lifetime score of 91.2.
Tim Huelskamp (KS - 1) has a lifetime score of 93.33.
Mike Pompeo (KS - 4) has a lifetime score of 96.
Eric Cantor has a lifetime score of 95.07.
John Boehner has a lifetime score of 86.99.
Pat Roberts (KS - Senator) has a score of 86.4.
Jerry Moran (KS - Senator) has a score since of 89.51.
Paul Ryan (WI - 1) has a score since of 90.67.
Trey Gowdy (SC - 4) has a lifetime score of 98.67.
Michelle Bachman (MN - 6) has a score of 99.35.
Marco Rubio (FL - Senator) has a score of 98.67.
Mitch McConnell (KY - Senator) has a score of 90.16.
Rand Paul (KY - Senator) has a score of 98.67.
Ted Cruz (TX - Senator) has a score of 100.00.
CONCLUSION
We are under the impression that Yoder still holds on to some of his previous 'Democrat' beliefs and that he probably represents Independents about as well as any Republican in Congress. Further, since he is in the Kansas City metro area, and as a result is required to break from political dogmatists more often because his constituents are more 'moderate' by their nature. We're okay with that.......for now.
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