Rep. Jerry Moran (R)

The congressman from the 1st District is Jerry Moran, a Republican first elected in 1996. Moran grew up in Plainville in Rooks County and got his start in politics as an intern for U.S. Rep. Keith Sebelius, which entitled him to a seat at the impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon. Moran worked as a banker for four years before attending the University of Kansas Law School. He was elected to the state Senate in 1988 and became state Senate majority leader in 1995. When 1st District Rep. Pat Roberts, a Republican, ran for the Senate in 1996, Moran stepped into the race to succeed him. With the help of Republican leaders, he avoided serious primary competition and won with 76% of the vote in the primary, which was tantamount to election.

Moran’s voting record is moderate, though he says he sees himself as a traditional Republican. He has sometimes gone his own way in pursuing district causes. To the dismay of Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, he was one of the 25 House Republicans who opposed the GOP Medicare prescription-drug bill in 2003. “I have never been under such pressure to vote contrary to what I thought was right as I was with this vote,” said Moran, who didn’t think the legislation did enough to reduce drug prices. He has sought to give federal officials negotiating authority to lower prescription-drug costs, a popular Democratic notion, and he supported an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. He bucked the Republican leadership to lead bipartisan efforts to bar the Treasury Department from forcing Cuba, a major consumer of Kansas wheat, to pay in advance for shipments of food and medicine from the U.S.. In 2007, Moran’s amendment to ease restrictions on shipments of food and medicine to Cuba passed the House, though it was removed from the final legislation to avoid a White House veto.

Moran is the ranking member on the General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee. He is a defender of the U.S. system of farm subsidies, which has brought billions of federal dollars to his district. During the debate over the 2008 farm bill, Moran argued that the legislation was diverting too much money away from farm subsidies for nutrition programs and other uses. He also said urban legislators had too much say in the process. “More and more of the farm bill is being written to satisfy the desires of urban constituencies—not by those of us who represent the nation’s farmers and ranchers,” he said. He voted against the final bill because it contained cuts to federal subsidies for farmers.

Each year, Moran logs about 50,000 miles visiting every county in the district; his constituents expect to be able to speak with their congressman without driving to the next county over. He was re-elected in 1998 with a record 81% of the vote and did not face another Democratic challenger until 2006, when he got 79% against first-time candidate John Doll, a former schoolteacher. In 2008, Moran got 82% of the vote. He resisted state party leaders’ pressure to challenge popular Gov. Sebelius in 2006. In November 2008, Moran announced plans to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sam Brownback in 2010. He will face fellow Republican House member Todd Tiahrt in the race for the Republican nomination.