Topeka shocker: Kansas state Rep. Marvin Robinson learns that politics happen there | Opinion

In all of the countless retellings of the legend of Faust, the lesson is that those who sell their souls never quite get what they bargained for.

Poor Kansas state Rep. Marvin Robinson, so shocked that politics happen in Topeka, is the latest to learn how this works, and also how it doesn’t work.

After Robinson, who in theory is a Democrat, voted with Republicans over and over in his first year in office, in ways that will disproportionately harm his constituents in Kansas City, Kansas, his friends in the GOP wanted to do something nice for him. So — surprise! — they put a little something extra in the state budget as a thank you.

State Sen. J.R. Claeys, vice-chair of the Senate budget committee, said in front of Jesus and the world that he’d asked for $250,000 in funding for Robinson’s longtime passion, the development of the Quindaro Township ruins in KCK, because he wanted to give Robinson “a win in his first year since he was clearly being treated poorly by some select individuals.”

No quid pro quo here, said everybody, even though this payoff in broad daylight, for services rendered, was a textbook trade of “this for that.”

Only, that’s not where the story ends.

This week, Gov. Laura Kelly used a line-item veto to strip that $250,000 for the Quindaro Ruins right back out of the budget.

Quindaro, a Civil War town in what’s now KCK, was a stop on the Underground Railroad for enslaved people trying to escape to Canada. Its history should be preserved.

But Robinson was the only Democrat in Topeka who helped Republicans override Kelly’s vetoes of bills restricting the rights of transgender Kansans, requiring doctors to tell women that their drug-induced abortions could be reversed, and making it harder for older Kansans to get food stamps, even though Robinson used to get food aid himself.

His defection made a difference, and not for the better; his was the deciding vote in overriding Kelly’s veto of four bills.

In vetoing the funding for Quindaro, Kelly said, “This request for funding for a master plan for the Quindaro Ruins historic site was not considered until the final moments of the 2023 session. As a result, there was no opportunity to vet this proposal to ensure that it truly serves the needs of the community for whom the site is named.”

The governor said she wants “to elevate this fundamental piece of Kansas history” but “advocates should work through the proper channels to seek funding for this measure and ensure that it receives the recognition it deserves.”

While it’s true that Kansas doesn’t normally award funding in such vague terms, without any vetting of how the money is to be spent, this veto was still more about payback than process. Democrats are so few in number in Topeka that the only power they do have is in sticking together. And as in every party and political body, unity is encouraged through the application and disbursement of sticks and carrots.

That’s why Republicans who step out of line are told they’ll have a primary opponent unless they find their way back to the fold. It’s why Republican state Sen. Rob Olson was immediately stripped of his committee chairmanship after bucking his party by voting against bringing a vetoed flat income tax proposal back into consideration last month.

“His services are no longer required,” Senate President Ty Masterson announced minutes later.

Dissenting as a matter of conscience is one thing, but seeking to deny other people the same food aid you used to get didn’t really come across as that.

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins declared himself horrified by Kelly’s baldly political move: “Preserving the archaeological and educational importance of the Quindaro Ruins should be a bipartisan priority and excluded from the wrath of political punishments.” Oddly, this has never been a priority before.

Robinson has said he would never have run for office “if I had known it was going to be so contentious and full of so many heart-breaking personal, private choices.”

His cousin, former Democratic state Rep. Broderick Henderson, whose seat he ran for after Henderson retired, should have told him that’s the job. He also should have told him what Democrats are for and against.

This story was originally published May 17, 2023 at 5:09 AM.