The junior senator from Kansas is Republican Jerry Moran, who won the seat in 2010 after nearly 15 years in the U.S. House. Moran grew up in the tiny town of Plainville on the western plains of Kansas, the son of an oil-field worker and a secretary at the local electric utility. He was known in high school as an ambitious student with a potentially bright future in politics. “I sat in government class and knew that this guy was going to do something,” Bonnie Staab, one of his classmates, told The Hays Daily News in August. In college, Moran worked as a summer intern for then-Rep. Keith Sebelius, R-Kan., whose son later married current Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a former Kansas governor. The job enabled Moran to have a seat at the 1974 impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Moran spent four years as a banker. He returned to the University of Kansas to get a law degree, and then practiced law in the town of Hays for 15 years. He also got involved in politics, winning election in 1988 as a state senator and rising to become Senate majority leader in 1995. When 1st District Rep. Pat Roberts, a Republican, ran for the Senate in 1996, Moran stepped into the House race to succeed him. With the help of GOP leaders, he avoided serious primary competition and won with 76% of the vote, which was tantamount to election. Read More

The junior senator from Kansas is Republican Jerry Moran, who won the seat in 2010 after nearly 15 years in the U.S. House. Moran grew up in the tiny town of Plainville on the western plains of Kansas, the son of an oil-field worker and a secretary at the local electric utility. He was known in high school as an ambitious student with a potentially bright future in politics. “I sat in government class and knew that this guy was going to do something,” Bonnie Staab, one of his classmates, told The Hays Daily News in August. In college, Moran worked as a summer intern for then-Rep. Keith Sebelius, R-Kan., whose son later married current Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a former Kansas governor. The job enabled Moran to have a seat at the 1974 impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Moran spent four years as a banker. He returned to the University of Kansas to get a law degree, and then practiced law in the town of Hays for 15 years. He also got involved in politics, winning election in 1988 as a state senator and rising to become Senate majority leader in 1995. When 1st District Rep. Pat Roberts, a Republican, ran for the Senate in 1996, Moran stepped into the House race to succeed him. With the help of GOP leaders, he avoided serious primary competition and won with 76% of the vote, which was tantamount to election.

In the House, Moran developed a reputation as a moderate, although he says he sees himself as a traditional Republican. He has sometimes gone his own way on major issues that split the two parties. To the dismay of GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert, he was one of 25 House Republicans who opposed the 2003 GOP Medicare prescription drug bill. Moran said the bill did not do enough to lower prescription drug prices, and he favored a Democratic proposal to give federal officials negotiating authority to lower drug costs. He later joined Democrats in backing an expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. He has called for easing restrictions on trade with Cuba, which he said would benefit Kansas’s farmers. 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 veto from President Bush.

As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, he was a defender of the U.S. system of farm subsidies, which 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 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.

Moran also became known for his devotion to meeting with constituents. Each year, he has logged about 50,000 miles visiting every county in the district—no minor task considering that the 66 counties cover an area roughly the size of Illinois. He was re-elected in 1998 with 81% of the vote and did not face another Democratic challenger until 2006, when he got 79%. He resisted state party leaders’ pressure to challenge popular Gov. Sebelius in 2006, but decided to run for the Senate when Republican Sam Brownback announced that he would step aside to run for governor.

But he had to first get by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, another Republican House member who wanted the seat. Tiahrt preceded Moran in the House by two years. The two waged a nasty and costly primary race, with their campaigns spending nearly $7 million combined. Tiahrt sought to turn the contest into a referendum on which of them was more conservative, and the candidates battled over endorsements. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was in Tiahrt’s camp and recorded a phone message for him. He also drew the support of former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Fox News personality Sean Hannity. Moran secured the backing of Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and received most of the major newspaper endorsements. Moran won the contest with 50% of the vote to 45% for Tiahrt, prevailing on the strength of his home base in the state’s most Republican district.

The general election was uneventful. Moran faced Democrat Lisa Johnston, an assistant dean at Baker University and a newcomer to politics. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, so Moran had little to fear. He won 70%-26%.

Moran refused to debate Johnston, giving her no opportunity to raise her profile or to be seen as a credible challenger. He spent $6.5 million on his campaign; she was able to raise just $32,000. During the campaign, Moran highlighted his vote against President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill and called for extending the Bush-era tax cuts for all taxpayers. Johnston said the stimulus was working. She took the position that the Bush tax cuts “just aren’t sustainable,” and said she favored a return to Clinton-era tax rates. Moran also called for repeal of Obama’s health care overhaul, while Johnston said she would tinker with it, but leave most of the legislation intact.

One of Moran’s first acts as a senator was to join the Senate Tea Party Caucus. The group was formed to capitalize on the momentum of tea party activists during campaigns around the country in 2010. The caucus initially attracted four members: Moran, DeMint, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah.