Other than Santorum losing by close to 20%, the best news this election cycle came from Kansas:
In a bitter race credited with influencing voters statewide, Democratic challenger Paul Morrison decisively wrested the attorney general’s office from Republican Phill Kline on Tuesday.
Nationally, Democrats prepared to take control of the U.S. House in an election that some saw as a referendum on the war in Iraq.
In Kansas, fissures in the Republican Party and the divisiveness of the Kline-Morrison race may have prompted moderate Republicans and independents to support Democrats, said Joseph Aistrup, head of the political science department at Kansas State University.
***Morrison assailed Kline’s efforts to get abortion-clinic medical records, saying it invaded privacy. Former Attorney General Carla Stovall Steckline, who crossed party lines to endorse Morrison, accused Kline of pursuing a personal anti-abortion agenda.
Kline defended his actions, saying he was investigating potential child abuse and illegal late-term abortions — arguing his case in recent appearances on Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox.
Tuesday night, Morrison called the election “a victory for Kansans who want to make sure that their most private and personal records are kept private.”
It is a lesson I hope the national GOP takes to heart, as Kline lost 58-42, in Kansas. Get out of our bedrooms and get out of our medical decisions, guys.
jcricket
Even better is when Kline and his office get convicted of leaking private medical records to O’Reilly.
Never, ever, give the current Republicans the “benefit of the doubt”. They don’t deserve it, and Kline is a perfect example of that.
The Other Steve
The anti-abortion people had a really bad night.
Steve
I don’t understand. Darrell assured me this guy had behaved very reasonably and that there was no kind of winning issue for Dems in his conduct. How confusing.
Face
O’Lielly’s been sucking this guy off for years. That’s why you couldn’t pay me a C-note to miss the O’Lielly factor tonite. See him defend Phill in all his losing glory.
Tax Analyst
I was really wondering if the Voting Public would ever get around to reminding these creeps to “get off our backs (and out of our drawers, too)”. It took a lot, but it looks like enough folks finally woke up – I hope.
jcricket
Wonder if O’Reilly or his producers will end up in trouble for HIPAA violations :-)
lard lad
Good news, John, to be sure, but even better for this Californian was seeing that fucker Richard “Stripmine” Pombo get nuked. Too sweet for words…
Darrell
Kline’s investigations into under-14 girls who were impregnated in order to prosecute child sex abusers were reasonable. Kline had other serious problems though, including financial shenanigans, in which among other things he paid himself out of campaign coffers and allegedly horrible handling of victims’ rights cases, in which his office didn’t answer victim’s hotline phone calls.
Carol
Kansas is slowly emerging (with the help of governor Kathleen Sebelius who easily won a second term yesterday) from the reputation as a ‘flat earther’s paradise.’ First the pro-creationism school board was booted and now sicko Phill Kline. If I were the mother of a 13 or 14 year old who had accompanied her daughter to the abortion clinic I would not want that creep getting his hands on her records. These kinds of things are kept private for a reason–the people involved don’t want what has transpired between the patient and her doctor made public. I hope Phill Kline, FOX news, and O’Reilly are investigated by the Kansas Justice department like the doctor O’Reilly is trying to crucify has asked. And then sued for billions. In his witch hunt, O’Reilly has put this doctor’s life in jeopardy.
Darrell
13 year old girl? I understand that in most cases involving the pregnancy of a very young girl, it is a result of sexual abuse of an older male. Why in the hell would you not the AG to go after those sexual predators? The names of the girls on the medical files are REDACTED. And even if they weren’t, the AG was not going to go after the little girls to make their names “public” as you assert.. he’s going after those who abuse them.
Jess
If the girl and her family wishes the AG to go after her abuser, then they have every right to provide her medical information. I don’t know what kind of America you’re dreaming of living in, but most Americans prefer individual choice and privacy over a nanny-state. And, speaking as a woman who was in fact sexually assaulted as a teenager, having my medical records invaded afterwards would have been like getting raped all over again.
Wolfdaughter
Darrell: “13 year old girl? I understand that in most cases involving the pregnancy of a very young girl, it is a result of sexual abuse of an older male. Why in the hell would you not the AG to go after those sexual predators? The names of the girls on the medical files are REDACTED. And even if they weren’t, the AG was not going to go after the little girls to make their names “public” as you assert.. he’s going after those who abuse them.”
I agree that the pregnancy of a 13 year old girl is the result of sexual abuse, and more often than not, of a family member. But I also agree with Jess. The girl and her family are the appropriate ones to request that the AG go after the abuser. Fishing expeditions are a gross violation of privacy. Also, you said that the girls’ names are redacted. If so, how would the AG find out who the abusers are, if he presumably doesn’t know the identities of the girls?
grumpy realist
Also, the guy came off as a panty-sniffing creep. If he had been allowed on his witch-hunt, how long do you think it would have been that he would have been clamouring to yank those 13-year-olds for a grilling session to Learn All Of Those Sordid Details?
jcricket
So a guy with a history of horribly handling victim’s rights cases suddenly wants the unredacted medical records of victims, and only relents (partially) when the courts force him to. That guy would neeeeever do something like, i dunno, leak the reports to O’Reilly? Find a way around the redaction to investigate the victims he’s supposedly interested in protecting. Of course not.
/snark.
People like Kline, with a demonstrated history of inserting their personal anti-abortion agenda into legal matters, absolutely deserve no benefit of the doubt. Glad Kansas thinks the same and voted him out.
Bruce Moomaw
“Former Attorney General Carla Stovall Steckline, who crossed party lines to endorse Morrison, accused Kline of pursuing a personal anti-abortion agenda.”
Given the number of Republicans who jumped the fence in that state this year, one is forced to conclude that there’s not nearly as much the matter with Kansas as Tom Frank thought. (What I would REALLY like to understand about this election is why Arizona became the first state in the Union to reject an anti-gay-marriage measure and South Dakota almost followed suit — at the same time that Wisconsin and Colorado supported theirs by landslides, with Colorado voting solidly against allowing gay secular civil unions either.)
Darrell
Does anyone else see the glaring contradiction in that statement?
Can’t go after the child abuser, which is often a family member, unless the family gives its permission. Great. So that way, a father who impregnates his 12 year old daughter, can block any investigation which could lead to his conviction. Or if the family decides to cover for a family member or family friend sicko who has a history of similar child abuse, they have the “right” to deny justice there too. That’s just batshit crazy, no two ways about it.
Darrell
He was not “forced” by the courts to relent. Kline requested medical records of under-14 yrs old girls who were impregnated, and when the courts said that the names had to be redacted first, Kline never objected. It’s a lie to characterize it as Kline having to be drug kicking and screaming to agree to redacting the names.
And yes, Kline appears to have badly handled victims rights cases, but not by leaking names or making public private details.. but by not answering hotline calls or following through as he should have.
ckreiz
Kansas is still a dominantly conservative place, but every now and then, the GOP overplays its hand. (Voter registration here leans GOP, and the state legislature is firmly GOP.) Kline’s overplay involved subpoena fishing expeditions into abortion records, all in the guise of discovering statutory rape. Inherent in that process was disgorging confidential medical records from the clinics. Most Kansans, even Reps, know that this is overreaching and therefore unacceptable. Polling shortly before the election showed that 30% of Reps were voting against Phill (love the 2 “l”s- but prefer “Phillll”). He got his clock cleaned as a result.
The Other Steve
He didn’t say AG. He said Phil Kline.
And while I didn’t make the statement, I suspect it was because Phil Kline was more interested in getting the girl for having an abortion, then going after the molester.
The Other Steve
Well, obviously Kline did seek the non-redacted records or this never would have gone to court.
So aren’t you glad that we have liberal justices in place to prevent this type of abuse?
Next question: Who did Kline prosecute for child molestation as a result of these records?
Darrell
Phill Kline was the AG, shit for brains.
Darrell
Sure it would have.. those clinics were looking to seize upon anything they could to block Kline’s efforts.