tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/sam-brownback-13399/articlesSam Brownback – The Conversation2018-02-01T11:40:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/907462018-02-01T11:40:35Z2018-02-01T11:40:35ZWhat’s behind America’s promotion of religious liberty abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204091/original/file-20180130-38190-1flu5gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Samuel Brownback appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 24, the Senate confirmed Sam Brownback, the governor of Kansas – a Methodist, who converted to Catholicism and today attends an evangelical church – for the <a href="https://religionnews.com/2017/07/27/5-faith-facts-about-sam-brownback-political-champion-of-religious-freedom/">position of ambassador-at-large</a> for international religious freedom. On Jan. 30, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/trump-state-of-union-quotes-1.16451099">touted</a> in his State of the Union address the “historic actions to protect religious liberty” as a major achievement of his administration.</p>
<p>Brownback’s victory was a razor thin 50-49. Conservative leaders, who know Brownback as an ally in the fight against abortion and homosexuality, were <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/january/sam-brownback-is-ambassador-international-religious-freedom.html">quick to lavish praise</a> with Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/july/sam-brownback-ambassador-international-religious-freedom.html">calling</a> him “an outstanding choice.” Democrats, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-new-ambassador-sam-brownback-could-weaponize-religious-freedom-around-the-world">criticized Brownback</a> for <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/lgbtq-groups-slam-confirmation-brownback-religious-freedom-ambassador-n841481">rolling back LGBTQ protections</a> in Kansas. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.genezubovich.com/book/">historian of religion and foreign policy</a> in the United States, I know that this is not the first time Americans have disagreed about the meaning of religious freedom. The United States has, in fact, been promoting religious liberty abroad since its founding, but there has always been disagreement on what exactly it is. </p>
<h2>Religion and American empire</h2>
<p>In 1775, in the early days of the American Revolution, George Washington prepared the Continental Army to invade the Canadian colonies in order to convince the inhabitants to join the rebellion against the British. As Colonel Benedict Arnold prepared to lead the charge, Washington warned him to respect the religious liberty of Catholics in Quebec and avoid unnecessary conflict. <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0355">He wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“While we are Contending for our own Liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the Rights of Conscience in others.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204309/original/file-20180131-157495-12ctbf6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of George Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APortrait_of_George_Washington.jpeg">Rembrandt Peale, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Washington’s advice was followed in Canada but not in the newly founded United States, where Catholics found themselves facing discrimination. </p>
<p>Although Congress passed the First Amendment to the Constitution in 1791, religious liberty applied only to “respectable” Protestant denominations, like Baptists and Methodists, who grew rapidly in the first decades of the 19th century. As historian <a href="http://history.gsu.edu/profile/david-sehat-3/">David Sehat</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-myth-of-american-religious-freedom-updated-edition-9780190247218?cc=us&lang=en&">explains</a> Protestant denominations created a “moral establishment” that acted like official churches did in Europe. As in Europe, this moral establishment <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-myth-of-american-religious-freedom-updated-edition-9780190247218?cc=us&lang=en&">persecuted</a> minority faiths, like Catholics, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses. </p>
<h2>A way of projecting American power</h2>
<p>America’s record of promoting religious liberty abroad was also spotty. Religious liberty largely meant the rights of missionaries to go out and convert “heathens” to Protestant Christianity. </p>
<p>For example, government agents and missionaries in the 19th century trampled on the religious rights of conquered Native American nations by taking away their children and placing them into faraway residential schools that <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9780803235168/">forbade them</a> from practicing their native faiths. The United States banned certain native religious ceremonies, like the <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807859353/we-have-a-religion/">Ghost Dance</a>, because of fears that the ritual stirred up rebellion.</p>
<p>In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain and took possession of the Philippines and Puerto Rico, Spanish colonies that were both predominantly Catholic. As historian <a href="https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/tisa-wenger">Tisa Wenger</a> has <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">pointed out</a>, promoting religious freedom in the colonies was a way for the United States to expand its empire.
The idea that the United States would spread religious freedom through its policies made Americans feel like liberators even when they acted like conquerors. </p>
<p>According to historian <a href="https://www.law.utoronto.ca/faculty-staff/full-time-faculty/anna-su">Anna Su</a>, the United States attempted to <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286023">remake these colonies</a> in its image by separating church and state and divesting Catholic religious orders of their property. President William McKinley reasoned that the Filipinos could not be trusted to make that separation themselves. </p>
<p>Ironically, the American claim that promoting religious freedom in the world was its sacred mission <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">was one of the reasons</a> the country became an empire. </p>
<h2>Two versions of religious freedom</h2>
<p>Many Filipinos, Puerto Ricans and Native Americans <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">demanded the right</a> to worship freely and to organize their lives as they saw fit. Their appeals, however, fell on deaf ears until the early 20th century, when liberal Protestants and Jews began championing a vision of religious liberty aimed at protecting minority rights, not just the rights of the Christian majority. </p>
<p>These progressives wanted to disassociate religious liberty from empire and promote it through international law. Lutheran academic <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/19/archives/dr-o-frederick-nolde-dead-active-in-world-peace-e-ftort-theran.html">O. Frederick Nolde</a> <a href="http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/all-peoples-and-all-nations">led a liberal Protestant effort</a> to enshrine religious liberty in the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> in 1948. </p>
<p>For Nolde, religious freedom was important among other human rights, including social and economic rights. He argued that people had the right to live free from discrimination and that religious freedom was one of the ways of protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Nolde <a href="http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/all-peoples-and-all-nations">was hired by Federal Council of Churches</a>, one of the most powerful religious lobbies in the United States. </p>
<p>Nolde and his associates were in the vanguard. It was only over time that the liberal Protestant and Jewish communities <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10008.html">came to be more accepting</a> of same-sex relationships and more supportive of church-state separation and other causes to protect minorities.</p>
<h2>Evangelical view</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, evangelicals and conservative Catholics embraced a different version of religious freedom, one that had the promotion of Christianity at its heart. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204093/original/file-20180130-38219-779axr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evangelist Billy Graham.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Pierre Gleizes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evangelist Billy Graham, for example, worried in the 1950s that the Soviet Union was <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674052185">promoting atheism</a> across the world, so he highlighted the country’s oppression of religious people and called on the United States to do more to free them. At home <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674052185">Graham opposed</a> many of the court decisions that removed Bible reading and prayer from public schools. </p>
<p>Ironically, many conservatives seemed to believe that religious liberty was largely for people abroad, not at home. <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Evangelicals/Frances-FitzGerald/9781439131336">They opposed</a> court decisions that they saw as infringing on the rights of Christian communities to pass on their values to their children. Evangelicals were also skeptical about Catholics having a more prominent role in American society, especially following the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. </p>
<h2>Religious freedom abroad?</h2>
<p>More recently, the legislation that created the position of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom – Brownback’s new job – was in essence, the result of evangelical concern over the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/11/world/gop-leaders-back-bill-on-religious-persecution.html">persecution of Christians in China and the Middle East</a> in the 1990s.</p>
<p>It was under <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/11/world/gop-leaders-back-bill-on-religious-persecution.html">pressure</a> from evangelical groups, such as the Christian Coalition, the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals, that Congress, in 1998, passed the International Religious Freedom Act to do more to protect Christians abroad.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/11/world/gop-leaders-back-bill-on-religious-persecution.html">bill gained support</a> among more liberal Protestant, Catholic and Jewish communities as well, along with secular human rights groups. But disagreements about religious liberty remained. While evangelicals were fretting over the fate of Christian communities, progressive groups wanted to see <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10008.html">religious freedom</a> as part of a broader human rights agenda. </p>
<p>To the progressives, religious freedom was part of a larger canvas of human rights issues. It was no surprise that President Barack Obama, for example, appointed <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/cook-suzan-denise-johnson-1957">Suzan Johnson Cook</a>, a religious leader with a passion for human rights and subsequently <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-first-non-christian-tapped-for-us-religious-freedom-post/">David Nathan Saperstein</a>, Brownback’s predecessor. Saperstein was a rabbi who had advocated on a range of social justice issues. </p>
<p>These appointments were in keeping with progressive beliefs. As political theorist <a href="http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/%7Eesh291/Elizabeth_Shakman_Hurd/home.html">Elizabeth Shakman Hurd</a> <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10626.html">explains</a>, religious freedom could not be isolated from many social, economic and political forces that lead to conflict. Elevating religious concerns above other human rights issues could, in fact, lead to more harm than good.</p>
<p>The question now is whether Brownback will treat religious freedom as a human rights issue or use the position to promote the interests of Christian abroad?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gene Zubovich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>America has been promoting religious liberty abroad since its founding, but there has always been disagreement on what exactly it means.Gene Zubovich, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338712014-11-17T10:39:13Z2014-11-17T10:39:13ZBrownback’s Kansas tax experiment may prove death knell for corporate reform<p>Republican gains in this month’s election, which handed the GOP united control of Congress for the first time since 2006, have lifted hopes that the government can pass corporate tax reform next year. </p>
<p>But how justified is this optimism? Not only do Democrats and Republicans have different ideas of what “tax reform” means, there are also underlying fractures within the business community, the traditional constituency for reform. In addition, a recent tax reform experiment in Kansas that the GOP had planned to use as a partial model for their national efforts has led to plunging revenues and budget cuts, emboldening critics. Together, these disagreements make prospects for tax reform in 2015 uncertain at best. </p>
<p>Democrats and Republicans generally agree on the need to lower federal corporate income tax rates. US rates are <a href="taxfoundation.org/blog/us-has-highest-corporate-income-tax-rate-oecd">higher than many other wealthy countries</a>. Yet many large companies, by taking advantage of a variety of exemptions, deductions and tax avoidance strategies, actually pay a <a href="http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/sorrystateofcorptaxes.php">much lower effective tax rate</a>. Nonetheless, lawmakers and lobbyists argue that the high rates and very complex nature of the tax code still discourage investment and make tax enforcement needlessly difficult to manage. </p>
<h2>Little common ground</h2>
<p>Agreement largely ends here. For conservatives, the goal of tax reform has to go beyond merely recalibrating rates and closing tax “loopholes” while still ensuring that the corporate tax continues to generate the same amount of revenue. Many in the GOP would like to see overall corporate tax burdens reduced and major changes made to its structure. In particular, <a href="waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/intl_quotes.pdf">some Republicans have advocated</a> that the US should adopt a “territorial” tax system in which only corporate profits earned in the US are taxed. The current method taxes all income that American multinational companies earn globally.</p>
<p>Many Democrats, on the other hand, would like corporate tax reform to generate new revenue that could be used for public investments. Much of this revenue would come in a one-time windfall from the repatriation of corporate profits now being held overseas which could then be taxed at a lower rate to generate funds for infrastructure spending. Liberals are also generally distressed at the declining role that the corporate income tax plays in the American revenue system. They see <a href="waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/intl_quotes.pdf">corporate tax reform as an important opportunity</a> to restore this progressive tax to a more prominent role in revenue generation.</p>
<h2>Satisfying disparate business interests</h2>
<p>With control of both the House and the Senate in GOP hands, Democrats have less leverage over the corporate tax reform process than in the past, and this shift has increased the likelihood of legislative agreement around a proposal. However, Republicans still have to work out a reform plan that satisfies business interests. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/11/05-tax-reform-moment-blah-gale">this might be the hardest task of all</a>. Any tax reform plan creates winners and losers, and success hinges on being able to eliminate a wide variety of tax preferences built into the current system in order to pay for lower rates for everyone. The status quo may be inefficient and unwieldy, but some segments of the business community have benefited from <a href="themonkeycage.org/2010/07/16/the_politics_of_drift/">what political scientists Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker call “policy drift”</a>. That occurs as policies like corporate taxation fail to keep up with changing circumstances on the ground. In other words, some businesses will actually pay higher tax rates if tax reform is successful. The beneficiaries, or winners, if the status quo remains in place tend to be large, multinational corporations that gain the most from our complicated and inefficient tax system</p>
<h2>Bringing the losers to the table</h2>
<p>Social science research <a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/content/tax-expenditures-what-they-are-and-who-benefits">has demonstrated</a> that beneficiaries of tax preferences tend to be good at defending their turf. They also have the most political sway and potential to block tax reform from going forward. Successful reform will require agreeing on who the “losers” will be and getting them to come to the table anyway. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64674/original/qjq8xz4f-1416186260.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US has a statuatory tax rate of 35%, the highest among OECD countries, yet the effective rate due to loopholes and breaks is significantly lower.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">OECD</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If these fractures prove difficult to manage, the GOP may end up only enacting a set of less comprehensive tax changes that reinforce rather than reform the corporate tax system. That could include <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-tax-extenders-20141103-story.html">extending some existing tax breaks</a> that are set to expire at the end of the year and will likely be considered during the lame duck session, before the new Congress even takes office.</p>
<h2>Kansas’ tax reform referendum</h2>
<p>Last Tuesday’s election results at the state level may also point to an unexpected wrinkle in the upcoming debate over federal corporate tax reform. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who spearheaded massive tax cuts to the corporate and individual income tax in his state, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kansas-governor-sam-brownback-unexpectedly-survives-his-own-experiment-33767">was narrowly re-elected</a> despite a heated debate over the state’s budget woes. Brownback’s tax cuts – and over-optimistic revenue projections that relied on assumptions that the tax cuts would stimulate greater economic growth – led to a major budget deficit in the state that deepened just weeks before the election. Then, a few days after Brownback retained office, state budget analysts announced the <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article3729756.html">numbers had continued to worsen</a>, and the state would have to cut an additional $280 million from the current fiscal year’s budget. </p>
<p>The governor’s reforms – or to critics, the <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4110.#_ftn5">radical implementation</a> of supply-side economics – initially proved popular at the polls. However, the widening deficit in Kansas will give new ammunition to opponents of the Republican vision for corporate tax reform at the national level. </p>
<p>A unique plank of Brownback’s state-level tax reform passed in 2012 was a <a href="kslegislature.org/li_2012/b2011_12/measures/documents/summary_hb_2117_2012.pdf">full exemption</a> of business income for companies whose profits get taxed as part of the owner’s personal income, which is the case for many small businesses. Brownback’s office expected the change to <a href="http://taxfoundation.org/article/not-kansas-anymore-income-taxes-pass-through-businesses-eliminated">eliminate income tax</a> for almost 200,000 businesses. Republicans are eager to see similar provisions included in national corporate income tax reform, and the numbers coming out of Kansas will inject new controversy into the perennial discussion over the economic and fiscal effects of tax reform.</p>
<p>Electoral shifts in Congress have produced a window of opportunity for new debates on corporate tax reform. Whether the GOP can capitalize on these shifts will depend on the lessons they draw from the Kansas experiments, but most of all on how they manage the political task of balancing winners and losers among the business community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>From 2010-2014, Elizabeth Pearson received support for her graduate research on taxation in the United States from the U.S. Department of Education through the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program.</span></em></p>Republican gains in this month’s election, which handed the GOP united control of Congress for the first time since 2006, have lifted hopes that the government can pass corporate tax reform next year…Elizabeth Pearson, PhD Student in Sociology, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/337672014-11-06T18:55:03Z2014-11-06T18:55:03ZKansas Governor Sam Brownback unexpectedly survives his own experiment<p>The 2014 midterm elections were full of surprises, mostly bad for the Democratic Party. Many Democratic candidates were defeated in races where the polls showed them with small but consistent leads. </p>
<p>Chief among those races where Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory was the Kansas governorship where incumbent Republican Sam Brownback surprisingly won reelection 50%-46% over his Democratic challenger, state legislator Paul Davis.</p>
<h2>Brownback’s “radical experiment” in Kansas</h2>
<p>After 14 years in the U.S. Senate and a failed 2008 presidential campaign, Brownback easily won the Kansas governorship in 2010. A stalwart of the Christian conservative movement, his rise to the governorship signaled the triumph of staunch conservatives within the Kansas Republican Party.</p>
<p>Kansas is a strong Republican state, but it is more Republican than conservative. Gallup 2014 <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/177821/kansas-gop-numbers-advantage-support-drops.aspx">data</a> showed that 47 percent of Kansans identify as Republican, but 62 percent are moderate or liberal. Kansas has long functioned as essentially a three party state, with Democrats fighting the winners of conservative versus moderate brawls in Republican primaries. </p>
<p>Brownback promised that his governorship would be a “radical experiment” in conservative governing that would show America that conservative Republican principles created prosperity. </p>
<p>After successfully purging most moderate Republicans from the state legislature with the help of the Chamber of Commerce and political action committees affiliated with the billionaire Koch Brothers, Brownback enacted the centerpiece of his experiment: deep income tax cuts for most citizens, the elimination of income taxes on business owners (and eventually all Kansans) and a higher sales tax. </p>
<p>Brownback promised that his experiment in supply-side economics would create economic boom and reverse the state’s population loss. However, that promise has not come to fruition.</p>
<h2>A painful experience</h2>
<p>Instead, the state’s economic and job growth rates <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article3209717.html">lag</a> behind its neighbors and state revenue projections have fallen massively <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Governors/2014/1031/Do-voters-still-like-tax-cuts-The-curious-case-of-the-Kansas-governor-s-race.">short</a> of their desired targets.</p>
<p>During the 2014 fiscal year, Kansas took in $330 million <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/upshot/kansas-faces-additional-revenue-shortfalls-after-tax-cuts.html?_r=0">less in tax revenue</a> than was forecast, and $700 million less in revenue than during the previous fiscal year. Out of a state budget of roughly $6 billion, that is a gigantic hole to fill. The state’s poor financial situation has led both <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/usa-kansas-ratings-idUSL2N0QC1MO20140806">Standard & Poor’s</a> and Moody’s to downgrade the Kansas credit rating.</p>
<p>Rather than modifying his experiment, Brownback reassured Kansans that there would be pain in the short term, but growth in the long term. </p>
<p>Part of that pain, however, has come from substantial budget cuts, especially to education and other popular government services. Indeed, at a time of slow but general economic recovery in the U.S. when most states are restoring education budget cuts from the recession, Kansas has been one of the few states <a href="http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article3190341.html">cutting education investment</a>.</p>
<h2>The public responds</h2>
<p>Brownback’s experiment cost him dearly with Kansans. </p>
<p>In his first month in office in January 2011, he earned strong positive job approval ratings from Kansans: 55 percent approval versus 34 percent disapproval. But those numbers soured by late 2011, sliding to just 38 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval days before the 2014 election. </p>
<p>Surely, no politician with a negative 16 job approval could survive. Yet Brownback did.</p>
<p>Judging from the exit polls, Brownback survived because only two-thirds of Republicans who claimed to support Davis in the tracking polls actually voted for the Democrat in the end. With Republicans constituting nearly half of the Kansas electorate, that reversed the polls in Brownback’s favor. </p>
<p>However, the same electorate that gave him a second term also said in the exit poll that his tax cuts hurt rather than helped the economy by a 52%-41% margin. </p>
<p>Brownback campaigned strongly on the message that Davis was just another “liberal Obama Democrat.” Evidently, many Kansas Republicans found that message persuasive, holding their noses to reelect Brownback as an anti-Obama message. That combined with stronger than expected Republican turnout on Election Day saved him.</p>
<h2>The message from Kansas</h2>
<p>Most Republicans, including the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/391773/conventional-wisdom-brownback-finished-eliana-johnson">National Review </a>and many party leaders, gave Brownback up for dead. Indeed, shortly before the election Brownback even closed his presidential campaign account, a stunning move given that many conservatives thought his experiment could carry him to the 2016 Republican nomination. </p>
<p>That made it all the more jubilant for Brownback when he declared his underdog victory to be a mandate for his experiment—staying the course on tax cuts and trimming the state budget even further. And for many of his conservative allies in the state legislature, that perceived mandate also includes freedom to move Kansas in an even more conservative direction on hot button social issues like abortion and gay rights. </p>
<p>For Kansas, a second Brownback term means the status quo—continuing policies that have not stimulated the economy as promised. For Kansans’ sakes, one only hopes that that trend reverses. But Brownback’s close call should be a warning sign for Republicans, especially Tea Party conservatives. </p>
<p>Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon from how they talked about racial issues, voters do not like to be experimented on. </p>
<p>Kansas voters declined to hold Brownback accountable for his perceived policy failures, choosing party above policy. Voters in other less Republican states might not be as kind to conservatives looking to enact their own experiments. With less of a Republican tidal wave, Brownback likely would have lost. </p>
<p>Conservatives looking to survive politically will misinterpret Brownback’s narrow win as a mandate at their own peril.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick R. Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 2014 midterm elections were full of surprises, mostly bad for the Democratic Party. Many Democratic candidates were defeated in races where the polls showed them with small but consistent leads. Chief…Patrick R. Miller, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of KansasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.