Jim Ward | |
---|---|
Minority Leader of the Kansas House of Representatives | |
In office January 9, 2017 –January 14, 2019 | |
Preceded by | Tom Burroughs |
Succeeded by | Tom Sawyer |
Member of the Kansas House of Representatives | |
In office January 13,2003 –January 11,2021 | |
Constituency | 86th District (2013-2021) 88th District (2003-2013) |
Member of the Kansas Senate from the 29th district | |
In office January 1991 –January 11,1993 | |
Preceded by | Eugene Anderson |
Succeeded by | U. L. Gooch |
Personal details | |
Born | December 5,1957 Omaha,Nebraska,U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Karen |
Children | 2 |
Education | Creighton University (BA) Washburn University (JD) |
James Ward (born December 5,1957) is a Democratic former member of the Kansas House of Representatives,who represented the 86th district from 2013 to 2021. [1] He was first elected to seat 88 in 2003 and served as the House Minority Leader from 2017 to 2019,succeeded by Representative Tom Sawyer as of January 14,2019. Ward ran for the 28th district of the Kansas Senate against incumbent Mike Petersen but was defeated. [2]
Prior to his election to the House,Ward served in the Kansas Senate from 1991 to 1993 and on the Wichita City Council in 1991.
In 2017,Ward announced but later withdrew his candidacy for the 2018 gubernatorial election in Kansas.
James (Jim) Ward was born in Omaha,Nebraska,on December 5,1957. [3]
Ward received his bachelor's degree from Creighton University and his JD from Washburn University in Topeka,Kansas. He practices law in Wichita,Kansas. He is a member of the Wichita Bar Association,Project Freedom,and the Wichita Youth Court Project. [4]
Before his election to the Kansas House of Representatives,Ward served on the Wichita City Council,then beginning in 1991,in the Kansas Senate through 1993,and later the Wichita School Board. He was elected to state House seat 88 in 2002,defeating Republican Hoyt Hillman and Libertarian David Moffett. [5]
In 2018,Ward supported the Kansas Legislature's override of former Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's 2012 tax cuts. [6]
In November 2017,Ward spoke in Washington D.C. to U.S. Senate Democrats at a hearing examining similarities between a national Republican tax plan and former Kansas Governor Brownback's 2012 tax plan which was overridden in 2017. Ward said "The great experiment was a complete and utter failure that nearly bankrupted our state...You put that on steroids and pass it around the country. Not only will it hurt the U.S. economy,it'll affect the world economy." [7] [8]
Ward was named a Public Official of the Year for Bipartisan leadership in 2017 by Governing . [9]
Ward is a supporter of Medicaid expansion,and he has repeatedly introduced legislation to expand the program. [10] [11] [12] Ward also opposes efforts to impose work requirements and lifetime caps on Medicaid recipients. In 2018,he said,“There is no independent data that shows work requirements do anything except reduce the number of people who get health care." [13]
In 2015,Ward called for an audit of the Kansas Department for Children and Families after several children died in state custody. He spoke to the Kansas Legislative Post Audit Committee on July 29,2015:“In the last couple of years,I’ve been getting more and more and more concerns presented to me about supervision not being done,placements being changed fairly radically quickly,and care plans not being followed through with." [14]
Later in 2015,Ward requested another audit of DCF on the grounds that the agency was discriminating against same-sex couples who were trying to adopt children. [15] An audit of DCF was conducted in 2017. [16]
Ward is an advocate of greater K-12 education spending in Kansas. In 2018,he said,“We are not adequately funding schools,and the outcomes are proving that." [17] When the Kansas House passed a $500 million school funding increase during the 2018 legislative session,Ward did not vote for it. He argued that a larger investment was required to make up for years of “chronic underfunding”and adhere to the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling that education funding in the state is inadequate and inequitable:“It’s frustrating. I don’t think anyone on our side of the aisle thinks we’ve fixed the problem or ended the litigation." [18]
During the 2018 gubernatorial campaign,Ward said he would reinstate an executive order that protects LGBT state workers from discrimination (which was originally signed by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius). He also said he would support an anti-discrimination law:“As governor,I would reinstate the executive order,in addition to encouraging the legislature to enact a law protecting every Kansan from discrimination." [19]
Ward supports substantial changes to gun laws in Kansas. He has worked to repeal the Personal and Family Protection Act,which allows concealed firearms on the campuses of public universities in the state. [20] He is opposed to arming K-12 teachers,while he supports raising the minimum age for semi-automatic firearm purchases to 21,implementing comprehensive background checks for all gun buyers,preventing people with domestic violence or other violent crime convictions from possessing or purchasing firearms,and banning bump stocks in Kansas. [21]
Ward served as Assistant District Attorney for the 18th Judicial District [22] prior to opening his own practice in 1990. He worked on the first case in Kansas history to utilize DNA as evidence in a murder trial. [23] (State v. Pioletti [24] )
On August 19,2017,Ward announced his candidacy for the 2018 Kansas gubernatorial race. [25] He withdrew from the race in May 2018,instead announcing that he would seek re-election to the Kansas House of Representatives.
Ward has two adult children;Zack and Emily. [26]
Samuel Dale Brownback is an American attorney,politician,and diplomat who served as a United States senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party,Brownback also served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom during the administration of President Donald Trump and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2008.
Tom Sawyer is an American politician who served as the minority leader of the Kansas House of Representatives. A Democrat,Sawyer has represented the 95th district,covering southwest Wichita,since 2013. Sawyer previously represented the same district from 1987 to 1999 and from 2003 to 2009,serving as both Majority Leader and Minority Leader during his first stint in the legislature.
James A. Barnett is an American Republican politician from Kansas. Barnett ran for governor in 2018,ultimately coming in third place in the primary.
Susan Wagle is an American politician who served as a Republican member of the Kansas Senate,representing the 30th district from 2001 to 2021. She was elected Kansas Senate President in 2013 and was reelected in 2017. She is the first woman to hold this position.
The Kansas Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the state of Kansas and one of two major parties in the state,alongside the Republicans. The chair of the party is Jeanna Repass.
Laura Jeanne Kelly is an American politician serving since 2019 as the 48th governor of Kansas. A member of the Democratic Party,she represented the 18th district in the Kansas Senate from 2005 to 2019. Kelly was elected governor in 2018,defeating Republican nominee Kris Kobach. She was reelected in 2022,narrowly defeating Republican nominee Derek Schmidt.
Dennis D. Pyle is an independent member of the Kansas Senate,representing the 1st district since 2005. He ran for governor of Kansas in the 2022 election.
Jean Kurtis Schodorf,a former three-term Republican Kansas state senator,was the Democratic Party nominee for Kansas Secretary of State in 2014. She was defeated on November 4,2014 by incumbent Kris Kobach by a margin of 59%-41%.
Jeffrey William Colyer is an American surgeon and politician who served as the 47th governor of Kansas from January 31,2018,to January 14,2019. A member of the Republican Party,he was the 49th lieutenant governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. Colyer served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009 and the Kansas Senate from 2009 to 2011. He assumed the governorship when Sam Brownback resigned to become United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Colyer ran for a full term as governor in 2018,but narrowly lost the Republican primary to Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach,who in turn lost the general election to Democratic nominee Laura Kelly.
The 2014 Kansas gubernatorial election took place on November 4,2014,to elect the Governor of Kansas,concurrently with the election of Kansas' Class II U.S. Senate seat,as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Jim Denning,is a former Republican member of the Kansas Senate,representing the 8th district from 2013 to 2021.
Jacob Andrew Joseph LaTurner is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district. A member of the Republican Party,LaTurner was the 40th Kansas State Treasurer from 2017 to 2021 and a state senator from the 13th district from 2013 to 2017.
Barbara Goolsbee Bollier is an American physician and politician. From 2017 to 2021,she was a member of the Kansas Senate representing the 7th district,which includes Mission Hills,Kansas in Johnson County. Bollier is a member of the Democratic Party,after having left the Republican Party in 2018. Bollier was the Democratic nominee in the 2020 United States Senate election in Kansas,losing in the general election to Republican congressman Roger Marshall.
The Kansas experiment was a name given to a controversial and widely noted tax-cutting policy/agenda of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback that began with Brownback signing a bill cutting state taxes,in May 2012,and ended with the Kansas legislature's repeal of the bill in June 2017. It was one of the largest income tax cuts in the state's history. The Kansas experiment has also been called the "Great Kansas Tax Cut Experiment",the "Red-state experiment","the tax experiment in Kansas",and "one of the cleanest experiments for how tax cuts affect economic growth in the U.S." The cuts were based on model legislation published by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),supported by supply-side economist Arthur Laffer,anti-tax leader Grover Norquist,and the influential industrialists Charles and David Koch. The law cut taxes by US$231 million in its first year,and cuts were projected to total US$934 million annually after six years,by eliminating taxes on business income for the owners of almost 200,000 businesses and cutting individual income tax rates.
The 2018 Kansas gubernatorial election took place on November 6,2018,to elect the next governor of Kansas.
A special election was held on April 11,2017,to determine the member of the United States House of Representatives for Kansas's 4th congressional district after the incumbent,Mike Pompeo,resigned because of his nomination by President Donald Trump as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Republican Ron Estes received 52.2% of the vote and won,while runner-up Democrat James Thompson lost with 46% of the vote.
John Resman is an American politician. He has served as a Republican member for the 121st district in the Kansas House of Representatives since 2017.
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Richard Lee Bond was an American politician who served in the Kansas Senate from the 8th district from 1986 to 2001. A member of the Republican Party,Bond also served as the Majority Whip and President of the Senate. Prior to his tenure in the Kansas Senate,he served as an assistant to three members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Anita Judd-Jenkins is an American politician. She served as a member of the Kansas House of Representatives for the 80th district from 2017 to 2019.
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