Faith-based potholes

Coffee clubs were likely unnerved recently when Mike Brown, the state’s ham-fisted Republican chairman, said Kansas should junk non-partisan local elections. He believes candidates for city and county offices and for school boards should declare party affiliation and campaign with partisan backing.
“It’s time to bring Kansas common sense and recognized Republican values back to the forefront and in our local elections to remind the voters who genuinely aligns with them and their values,” Brown said in a party newsletter last month.
Skeptics said such a change could infest local government with the ideological battles and turf wars that incubate Washington’s idiocy and inspire pratfalls in Topeka.
Out in the townships, the argument invites puzzlement: Are Democrats better at grading roads than Republicans? Or in town, do Republicans have the better touch for fixing potholes? Which party would best collect the trash or keep the lights on?
Party affiliation at the top invites a spoils system down the ladder. Do Democrats or Republicans make the better police officer, or superior parks superintendent or swim pool life guard? The parties would want their own in those jobs.
For lessons, see the systems in Chicago or New York ‒ or Topeka before its 1980s reforms.
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The end game for Brown and his “Republican values” is about religion, bringing faith-based government to Kansas, top-to-bottom. The vapors of religion shroud Republican campaigns already ‒ school vouchers, abortion, dirty books in the library, the many efforts to marry church and state, all and more a greater puritan outreach.
If the mission is to bring religion full-bore into political campaigns, let’s begin by tagging the incumbents and challengers with their faith rather than political party. Sen. Long Droughtquist is no longer R-Lindsborg but L-Lindsborg (for Lutheran). His challenger, Merry Rainmore, is M-Marquette (for Methodist).
This puts politics in religious order, where Brown and his Republicans want it. And to cover politics beyond the Christians, we should add Jews (J-), Hindus (H-), Buddhists (B-), and Muslims (MS-), for starters.
Because Kansas is largely Christian, faith subsets are essential for clarity. And subsets for the subsets: An Aufdenberg or Obermueller moved from Lincoln County to, say, Smolan, would be marked German-Lutheran (GL-) and Sen. Dustquist becomes SL-Lindsborg (Swedish Lutheran).
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With religious labels in full flag, the question in townships and farm cities is no longer whether Democrats are better at road maintenance than Republicans or whether Republicans have the best record for fixing potholes.
With faith-based government, campaigns get down to basics: Is a Lutheran chip-seal better for our streets than a Catholic chip-seal? Do Unitarians have a platform for the school lunch menu? When it comes to the county budget, Presbyterians ‒ as everyone knows ‒ are tighter than a Pullman’s window.
A Salina Episcopalian (E-Salina) might insist on funding for downtown lighting at Christmastime, but with cautions from a Baptist-Methodist coalition. In Reno County, Nazarene and Mennonite commissioners might block plans to cut the road budget.
Bishops and Monsignors, Pastors and Priests, Rabbis, Imams, Monks and Gurus would call the shots. Moms For Liberty, the Florida conservative cause-lobby, would be out-muscled by Arab Sheiks in any scramble for parental rights in schools.
Those recognized “Republican values and Kansas common sense”, as Brown sees them, would come gloriously to the fore in a wedding of church and state with political strings here, there, everywhere.
Rabbis, Bishops and Sheiks would drive issues to the origins of man and before civilization. With proper courtesies and compromise, school dress codes would be settled, county poor houses resurrected, new freedoms outlined, hospitals rationed, and oil and asphalt would be no trouble for road budgets.
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Broad labels in politics are quick and convenient but they are usually fleeting and off the mark. They invite bias, lead to vague cheers, crude scripts, ignorant policy and bad laws. Labels are best left to the attention seekers, the power-hungry and the cattle breeders posing as campaign consultants.
The best public servants naturally flick away the labels. They confront the base obligations – good schools, smooth roads, clean air and water, safe streets – without the stain of party politics or the scent of religious preference. They serve communities without milking them.
Public service is a matter of shared purpose, a desire to reach for the common ground without gummy labels and campaign cricket festivals.