The congresswoman from the 2nd District is Lynn Jenkins, a Republican who won the seat by defeating one-term Democrat Nancy Boyda in 2008. Jenkins was born in Topeka and grew up in the rural town of Holton on a dairy farm. After graduating from college, she worked for close to 15 years as an accountant. She was elected to the state House in 1998 and served one term there and one in the state Senate. In 2002, Jenkins was elected Kansas treasurer and four years later, even as Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius won a second term, she was re-elected. She next set her sights on the 2nd District House seat. In 2006, Boyda had pulled off one of that year’s biggest upsets by unseating Republican Jim Ryun, but she was up against the district’s Republican tilt. Read More

The congresswoman from the 2nd District is Lynn Jenkins, a Republican who won the seat by defeating one-term Democrat Nancy Boyda in 2008. Jenkins was born in Topeka and grew up in the rural town of Holton on a dairy farm. After graduating from college, she worked for close to 15 years as an accountant. She was elected to the state House in 1998 and served one term there and one in the state Senate. In 2002, Jenkins was elected Kansas treasurer and four years later, even as Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius won a second term, she was re-elected. She next set her sights on the 2nd District House seat. In 2006, Boyda had pulled off one of that year’s biggest upsets by unseating Republican Jim Ryun, but she was up against the district’s Republican tilt.

In the GOP primary Jenkins faced Ryun, who had held the seat for five terms and wanted it back. Many leading Republicans saw Ryun’s loss as an anomaly that would be easily corrected in a rematch with Boyda. The contest also fell along the divide between the two long-warring wings of the state Republican party. Ryun was a staunch conservative, while Jenkins had a profile as a pro-business and pro-abortion-rights moderate. Ryun called on Jenkins to sign a “clean campaign pledge,” and after she declined, he attacked her for voting to raise taxes in the legislature. But Jenkins effectively turned Ryun’s arguments against him. Calling him her “friend” all the way through the primary, she countered that Ryun had run up a large tab in Congress by adding earmarks for special projects to spending bills, and she promised to limit the number of earmarks she sought for the district. Although heavily outspent by Ryun, she eked out a win by just over 1,300 votes. Eager to quash any bitterness from the contest, Ryun heartily endorsed her.

Jenkins still faced an uphill battle in the general election. Boyda had carefully crafted a voting record mostly in line with her constituents’ views. The incumbent also sought to distance herself from her party in July 2008 by publicly renouncing the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But Jenkins tied Boyda to liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi every chance she got and accused her of supporting tax increases by voting for Democratic budgets that phased out the Bush era tax cuts for high income earners. The strategy paid off. Jenkins won 51%-46%, turning the come-from-behind winner in 2006 into one of the rare Democratic losers of 2008.

Jenkins had a bumpy first term. After criticizing federal spending earmarks during the campaign, Jenkins in April 2009 submitted requests for 23 earmarked projects totaling $68 million to the Appropriations Committee, including $1.5 million for the Great Plains Sorghum Improvement and Utilization Center at Kansas State and $1.3 million for wheat genetics research. The conservative group Club for Growth removed her from its “Sworn Off Earmarks” list. She responded that her pledge “only set rigorous standards for how a congressional member must go about requesting those earmarks,” and that she wouldn’t seek an earmark without a specific federal purpose. In August 2009, she got more negative publicity at a town hall meeting in Hiawatha. Discussing possible Republican candidates’ future prospects, Jenkins said, “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope.” She later apologized and said she did not realize the phrase had a negative connotation. She said she was referring to GOP House leaders, not the Republican field of challengers to President Obama in 2012.

Jenkins had an easier time of it when Republican leaders chose her in early 2009 to deliver the party’s response to Obama’s radio message and specifically his massive economic stimulus bill. Jenkins said that the legislation “was supposed to be about jobs, but it’s gone off the rails in practically no time at all, and millions of your tax dollars are being wasted.”

Back home, some conservatives were unhappy with Jenkins’ record. State Sen. Dennis Pyle challenged her in the 2010 primary, and although he didn’t spend a lot of money, he held Jenkins to a 57%-43% win, not a strong percentage for an incumbent in her party’s primary. She won the general election easily against Democrat Cheryl Hudspeth, 63% to 32%.