Kansas Republicans and conservatives are having a hard time trying to swallow the concept that the Democrats' current leading gubernatorial candidate Sen. Tom Holland is a "moderate." The Democratic Senator from Baldwin City and his campaign supporters are touting Holland as "politically moderate", a label that free-market leaders say just doesn't fit.

There are a select few Democrats who will occasionally side with the Republicans on certain issues, but Holland's voting record indicates that he does not fit into this category. Instead, Holland is a consistent supporter of a liberal agenda to increase government spending, said Americans for Prosperity-Kansas State Director Derrick Sontag.

“He understands that you can’t run as a big-government, free-spending liberal and expect to win a statewide race in Kansas,” Sontag told Kansas Liberty. “He knows that, and that is why I would expect he is calling himself a moderate.”

Holland can expect to face off against Paola resident Herbert West and Wichita resident Marty Mork in the Democratic primary race. Conservative Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is the only GOP candidate in the race.

Holland served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 2003 to 2008 and has been in the Kansas Senate since 2008. Sontag said that during these seven years in office Holland has not voted in any way that demonstrates a “moderate” position and pointed out that Holland has been a supporter of numerous tax increases, including the tax packages advocated by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita and chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, said that she also disagreed with Holland’s classification of himself and said she thought it would be more accurate to label Holland as a “tax-and-spend liberal.”

Landwehr said House members were surprised when Holland campaigned for the Senate because of how he had treated his position in the House.

“There was an issue of him not being in attendance most of the time on the House floor or in committee,” Landwehr told Kansas Liberty. “He didn’t take that job seriously.”

Landwehr also questioned how Holland would be running his campaign while maintaining his Senate seat.

According to Project Vote Smart information, Holland’s lifetime rating from the Kansas Taxpayers Network is 18 percent, and his 2008 rating was 16.7 percent.

Although Holland supported the interests of the liberal Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce 100 percent in 2004, he received a 38 percent rating from the conservative, free-market promoting National Federation of Independent Businesses in 2007-2008.

Kent Eckles, vice president of government affairs for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, agreed that he would not classify Holland as a legislator who could claim to be moderate because of Holland's pro-tax stance. The Kansas Chamber of Commerce releases its “honor roll” each year to acknowledge the legislators who have supported business, and Eckles pointed out that Holland is missing from that list.

“He has helped us on some things, but if you look at the whole body of work, he is voting for tax increases or more spending,” Eckles told Kansas Liberty. “So we would not say he is pro-business.”

In recent sessions, Holland has sided with his Democratic colleagues on abortion issues and opposing attempts to increase governmental transparency, while supporting increased governmental control and tax increases.

The tax-increase-promoting organizations, Kansas Families for Education and the Kansas National Education Association, endorsed Holland in 2008 because of his consistent support of their tax-increasing initiatives. A report by the Kansas Association of School Boards also indicates that Holland's votes aligned with the Kansas Association of School Boards position on each of the pieces of legislation the group highlighted.

One of the bills noted by the report was an initiative to increase taxes by $60 million.

During the 2009 session, Holland sided with every Democrat — except Sen. Chris Steineger, D-Kansas City — in voting against an amendment that would have closed the budget gap between spending and revenue through budget cuts. Holland instead supported increasing taxes to close the gap.

Holland voted with every Democrat — except Steineger and Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City — in opposing a requirement for all school districts to post fiscal information online for the public to view during the 2009 session.

Holland voted to support a mandatory seat belt law in the 2009 legislative session and the 2010 session along with every other Democratic senator, again with the exception of Steineger. Holland did however vote against the state-wide smoking ban when the legislation went through the Senate in 2009.

Holland opposed attempts by the Senate in 2009 to make reporting requirements for abortion providers more specific and to state that an abortion “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” The legislation would have also eliminated “health” from the Kansas partial-birth abortion law so that it would match the federal law.

In 2008, Holland voted against the Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act, legislation that sought to provide additional information to women regarding an abortion procedure, allow families and patients to file lawsuits if an illegal abortion had occurred, and help protect women and girls from being coerced into abortion.

The measure did gain bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate, though Holland was not one of the Democrats who supported it.

Last week, the Senate voted on a Senate Concurrent Resolution that sought to declare the importance of maintaining state sovereignty. Although SCR 1615 did garner the support of a mixture of conservative and moderate Republicans along with three Democrats, Holland voted against it.

Like most Democrats, Holland was also an opponent of the Holcomb coal-fired plant expansion.

Sontag said he was interested to see whether Holland would be changing his voting approach during the 2010 session in an attempt to prove that he can be moderate.

“I don’t know if he is going to stick to his beliefs — which are to grow government and tax Kansas businesses and families,” Sontag said. “I hope he votes against tax increases, but we will just have to wait and find out.”

Resources:

State Sovereignty vote

Tom Holland for governor

Brownback for governor

The Week in Review