The presumption of innocence might be the foundation of American jurisprudence. But you&#8217;re guilty until proved innocent in today&#8217;s Kansas Republican Party.</p><p>That&#8217;s what Johnson County GOP committeewoman Jean Goodman learned Monday when she got a FedEx letter from state party headquarters.</p><p>&#8220;A complaint has been filed against you based on the attached information,&#8221; it said.</p><p>According to the party&#8217;s new Loyalty Committee &#8212; yes, comrades, they actually call it that &#8212; Goodman had brought into question her allegiance to Mother GOP.</p><p>To wit, her husband had put a sign in their Lenexa front yard supporting Democratic Congressman Dennis Moore.</p><p>This, she knew, might bring trouble.</p><p>&#8220;But he said &#8216;It&#8217;s my sign.&#8217;&#8194;&#8221;</p><p>And she had to agree that he didn&#8217;t lose his First Amendment rights just because of her position in the Republican Party.</p><p>However, she never got the chance to explain those circumstances before the Loyalty Committee, which passed judgment without giving her so much as a phone call.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like a kangaroo court,&#8221; said Republican state Rep. Pat Colloton of Leawood. &#8220;It&#8217;s a star chamber.&#8221;</p><p>Yet it&#8217;s how they do things in the Kansas Republican Party of Chairman Kris Kobach, who ought to know better. The guy teaches constitutional law, after all.</p><p>But when I got him on the phone, Kobach didn&#8217;t apologize for trying to purge the party of suspected turncoats in leadership positions.</p><p>He agreed that Goodman probably shouldn&#8217;t be considered one of them because of her husband&#8217;s sign.</p><p>&#8220;That would certainly exonerate the person,&#8221; he told me after hearing her explanation.</p><p>However, he had little sympathy for the 16 other GOP committee members stripped of their party voting rights in Johnson County this week.</p><p>In most cases, he said, there was clear evidence that they&#8217;d given money to Democrats or made some kind of public statement of support.</p><p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re an average Republican voter who sends money to Democratic candidates, then, hey, you&#8217;re free to do what you want,&#8221; he said.</p><p>&#8220;But if you&#8217;re a leader in the party, you shouldn&#8217;t be publicly helping the other team.&#8221;</p><p>It&#8217;s hard finding fault with the general principle. But in years past, both parties were able to handle such matters without Stalinist-sounding loyalty committees.</p><p>It was more the way things were done in &#8220;The Godfather.&#8221;</p><p>Say an elected official of one party tended to side too much with the positions of another. He might be cut out of the information loop, stripped of a coveted appointment or have few friends to turn to come re-election time.</p><p>The political equivalent of a mob hit.</p><p>In Washington, Senate Democrats contemplated such a punishment for Joe Lieberman for his support of John McCain. But in the end, Lieberman only got his legs broken, so to speak. He can no longer chair a certain subcommittee.</p><p>Not so lucky state Sen. Mark Gilstrap of Kansas City, Kan.</p><p>Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and state Sen. Anthony Hensley campaigned this year against their fellow Democrat, a three-term state senator and abortion opponent who ended up losing in the August primary.</p><p>&#8220;It seems like (Kansas Democrats) have an unwritten loyalty pledge,&#8221; Gilstrap told me Thursday morning. &#8220;As long as Anthony Hensley and Kathleen are in charge, you&#8217;d better not vote pro-life.&#8221;</p><p>Kobach claims the loyalty system he helped impose is far more civilized.