TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – When he was one of the nation’s most powerful governors, Sam Brownback could ask fellow Kansas Republicans to slash income taxes and they fell into line. He made the state a lab for conservative ideas, and lawmakers faced serious risks if they balked at his demands.
But with Kansas now struggling to pay its bills, the governor’s star has fallen so low that legislators don’t fear crossing him anymore. And recent reports indicate that Brownback is preparing to take a low-profile ambassadorship in Italy that would end his administration almost two years early.
Even some fellow Republicans are hoping he leaves, seeing him as a roadblock to fixing the state’s budget problems. But if he doesn’t depart before the GOP-controlled Legislature finishes its annual session, bipartisan majorities are drafting proposals to roll back his cherished tax cuts even if he vetoes the idea.
“We’re feeling that we have the responsibility to fix the budget – without him,” Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, said Thursday.
Wagle’s emergence as a Brownback critic is a stark illustration of how much the governor’s political clout has waned. She is a conservative who became the Senate’s top leader after Brownback allies purged most of the chamber’s GOP moderates in 2012. She said she does not fault Brownback for trying to use tax cuts as economic stimulus in 2012 and 2013. But since then, she said, he has resisted fixing serious mistakes.