KS teachers union warned candidate that criticism would result in ‘a buzzsaw’

A top official with the Kansas National Education Association warned a Democratic candidate for the state House that if he publicly criticized the organization’s endorsement process, he would be met with “a buzzsaw,” according to both men on the phone call.

The candidate, former Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple, said he interpreted the comment as a threat and filed a formal complaint with the organization. The teachers union’s legislative director, Tim Graham, said it was a misunderstanding.

“Have you ever heard the idiom you’re walking into a buzzsaw?” Graham said in a phone interview Friday. “That’s basically what I said.”

Whipple, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Henry Helgerson in the Democratic primary, told Graham he thought the union’s endorsement process was unfair.

“I said, ‘Brandon, if you’re going to continue to talk publicly, or if you’re going to go publicly and talk bad about our process, you’re going to be walking into a buzzsaw,’” Graham said. “And he just completely freaked out at that moment: ‘Are you saying you’re going to use a buzzsaw on me? Are you threatening me?’ I was like, at that point I was pretty dumbfounded.”

“I guess he didn’t understand that that’s just an old idiom that you tell people, like, you’re going to be walking into a hornet’s nest or you’re going to be opening up a can of worms. You know, I don’t know how he believed that somehow I was going to use a buzzsaw on him. That, obviously, was not where I was going with that comment.”

Whipple said he asked Graham, “Are you threatening me?” twice during the phone call and that Graham twice acknowledged that it was a threat. Graham denies acknowledging it was a threat.

Whipple — who was targeted by Republicans with a false smear campaign in 2019 and received multiple death threats as mayor — said he thought it was a threat of violence during and immediately after the call on Thursday, but by Friday he said he realized it was likely a political threat to try to keep him quiet.

“This is thuggery,” Whipple said. “You do not, in any professional setting, threaten someone using that kind of language based off them talking about a process. . . . Tim Graham should resign.”

Graham, who previously worked as Gov. Laura Kelly’s director of governmental affairs and as former Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley’s chief of staff, said he wasn’t trying to threaten Whipple.

“I used an old idiom, an old phrase that most people understand is not a threatening phrase whatsoever, and I’m not resigning, nor have I been asked to resign,” Graham said Friday.

“Did I make it clear that there would be people upset with him?” Graham said. “Yeah, because the whole goal of me making the phone call was to try to convince Brandon that even though we’re not supporting you in the primary, if you will go through with our process and answer the questionnaire, then we will immediately take a look at supporting you in the general election, should you beat Henry Helgerson. But he never let me get to that point.”

The warning comes amid a squabble over labor endorsements between Democratic governor candidates Cindy Holscher, who is leading by double digits in a recent poll, and Ethan Corson, Gov. Laura Kelly’s handpicked replacement.

Many Kansas union groups have thrown their weight behind Corson, despite both candidates voting records having 100% ratings from the Kansas AFL-CIO. Holscher, herself a member of the KNEA, questioned the selection process for this year's labor endorsements, saying it appears candidates are being chosen without interviewing or filling out paperwork with organizations.

Whipple’s complaints about KNEA run along those same lines.

A state legislator from 2011 to 2020 before serving as Wichita’s mayor, Whipple has a voting record on labor support and education that has been strong in the Statehouse and at City Hall. Despite that, he said KNEA sent him endorsement paperwork 10 days after the deadline, suggested there would be a candidate interview (there wasn’t) and told him that the union was already backing Helgerson, the incumbent.

Whipple said he called KNEA to find out whether the decision to endorse Helgerson was final or whether he would be able to make his case for why he should win the endorsement over his opponent or at least a friendly nod from the organization showing he supports the teachers union.

The answer was no. Whipple said he was told the decision was final.

“That process is unfair, and it was designed in part by Tim Graham,” he said. “It’s unfair not only to candidates but for the teachers and other hardworking professionals out there who deserve representation by the best possible candidates.”

Graham said the teachers union has had a “friendly incumbent” endorsement rule for decades, which means the organization endorses incumbents automatically if they have been friendly to the teachers union. Graham acknowledged that he developed the internal scorecard used to grade legislators to decide whether they get an automatic endorsement.

“Brandon Whipple has an excellent voting record for teachers and for public education,” Graham said. “That’s not an issue here at all. We have a friendly incumbent rule, and that has been around for at least 50 years, to where if you have . . . a 75 percent or better voting record with us, then you’re automatically considered a friendly incumbent, which Henry Helgerson, his opponent, has.”

Graham said Whipple’s criticism of the union’s endorsement process would likely upset the organization’s large membership of teachers.

“Quite frankly, those were the buzzsaws that he was going to walk into,” Graham said. “He was going to have a bunch of teachers that were upset with him by questioning the process, because these are just classroom teachers that are doing this on a volunteer basis.”

Whipple said that’s disingenuous.

“This the idea that teachers would be upset and that he was just defending teachers, that’s nothing but gaslighting,” Whipple said. “He’s protecting himself. He is the one who came up with the 25 questions for that scorecard. I confirmed that yesterday when I talked to executive director. He was upset because he knows he is the process.”

Graham said he thinks Whipple’s reaction is somewhat typical in an endorsement process where there are winners and losers. He pushed back on complaints from Whipple and said his warning to Whipple had nothing to do with Holscher’s suggestion that this year’s endorsement process somehow differs from the past.

“This is a quote ‘sore subject’ every two years,” Graham said. “There’s always candidates that are angry that they did not get our endorsement, and there’s always candidates that respond professionally, and then there’s always candidates that decide to discredit the process and to discredit the association. And my comment again was just like Brandon, if you’re going to discredit the process and the association the way he was in the conversation I had with him, then he was going to walk into a buzzsaw of very angry members that would take offense to that.”