Monday, November 3, 2008
The race for 2nd District Kansas Senate has been heating up between incumbent Democrat Marci Francisco and challenger Republican Scott Morgan as they compete to represent Lawrence and the University of Kansas.
Scott Morgan has lived in Lawrence for 20 years and has served on the Lawrence School Board for six years. Calling himself “an independent voice of reason for Lawrence,” Morgan has set education as his top priority for the Senate, including increasing tuition costs.
“Education is really the underlying thing that drives me, because so many things come from education,” Morgan said.
First-term incumbent Francisco calls herself “the green candidate” and has lived in Lawrence for 34 years. She previously served as a city commissioner and mayor of Lawrence. Francisco has pinpointed energy and the environment as her most important issues and said she believed she had helped make a difference in the Kansas Senate.
“I really earned a reputation for reading the bills and was able to get a number of amendments added,” Francisco said. “As a member of the minority party, it’s often easy to be excluded.”
Morgan said his experience with the school board and owning a small business gave him a strong background to represent Lawrence. He said he would be more effective than his opponent at working with people of both parties to solve problems.
“You can’t just have a viewpoint, you have to be able to work with others,” Morgan said.
Francisco had the best environmental voting record in the Kansas Senate as part of a scorecard from the Kansas Natural Resource Council. She said this indicated her proven record of making tough votes in the Senate.
Morgan has said that Francisco voted present-but-passing on more votes than anyone else in the Kansas Senate. He said that demonstrated his opponent can’t make tough votes for Lawrence.
“I know it’s hard to make some of those votes, but to me, that’s what you’re there for,” Morgan said.
Another point of debate between Morgan and Francisco has been her role in legislation to limit funeral picketing, particularly in response to Fred Phelps. Morgan said she voted against the bill to limit picketing, while Francisco said she wanted to make sure the bill was free of any religious language before voting for it.
“I’ve taken an oath to uphold the separation of church and state,” Francisco said. “I took action on the laws that prevented funeral picketing.”
Both candidates have long-standing ties with the University and say they believe issues related to higher education are very important to the city of Lawrence in this election. Francisco and Morgan have both advertised heavily in The University Daily Kansan and have tried to make their campaign goals accessible to KU students. KU students should be a part of the election process because it is part of the American democratic tradition, Francisco said.
“We govern ourselves, and the more you learn by participating, it is going to have an effect on your life,” Francisco said. “This is the time to learn, find out what you’re interested in, what you care about.”
Morgan said KU students should be concerned with this particular race because it affects their day-to-day lives in meaningful ways.
“It’s in their own self interest to be aware, because those are the people that control KU,” Morgan said. “The state government affects your lives in almost more real ways than Congress ever will.”
— — Edited by Kelsey Hayes
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