Boyda strikes independent tone during first term in U.S. House2008

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Oct 12, 2008 by JAMES CARLSON / THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

Rep. Nancy Boyda is fighting to retain a seat most say she shouldn't have won.

The reliably red 2nd District hadn't supported a Democratic president in decades. It was (and still is) composed of four Republicans for every three Democrats, and it had already dealt Boyda a 15-point loss in 2004.

Voters bucked that trend in 2006.

Still, Boyda's narrow victory against five-term Congressman Jim Ryun buoyed GOP hopes to recapture the seat, and three weeks after Boyda took office, Republican congressional committee chairman Tom Cole had already branded her as a high-level target.

She has responded by striking a populist tone in her two years and sponsoring popular legislation.

But her first term in office hasn't been without missteps, none of which have gone unnoticed by national Republicans nor her challenger, state treasurer Lynn Jenkins, who highlights those incidents as proof Boyda is politically out of touch with her district.

But Bob Beatty, Washburn University political science professor, said Boyda has done a good job inoculating herself to traditional attacks from the right.

"If Jenkins is going to try painting Boyda as liberal, it won't work," he said.

A different path

Her candidacy nearly didn't happen.

Days after losing by 15 percentage points to Ryun in 2004, Boyda got a call that her mother had had a stroke. She spent five months in Creve Coeur, Mo., and following her mother's death Boyda returned to her house in Marshall County.

Here, she contemplated joining the United Methodist ministry, the church she praised for its openness.

"It's not so much about what you're not supposed to do and more about grace," she said.

But after a talk with Kansas Bishop Scott Jones late in 2005, in which he told her Washington, D.C., needs faithful politicians, she changed her mind. She would run again -- this time with a different outcome.

Independence

In her first year in Congress, she sponsored a bill that stripped retirement benefits from any federal politician convicted of bribery and related crimes, and she helped write a measure that allowed military families to receive the earned income tax credit. Both passed overwhelmingly.

She also has supported legislation beefing up veterans' funding - - though she is quick to say they deserve more -- and voted for a measure increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour.

Coming from the 2nd District, Boyda has a balancing act. She can't appear too liberal for fear of alienating her independent bloc. An August Survey USA poll showed 61 percent of moderate 2nd District voters supported her candidacy then.

"She needs every single Democrat, a few Republicans and a lot of the unaffiliated voters," Beatty said.

Her first four campaign advertisements were decidedly low-tech, costing a total of $2,500 to produce. And she has continued her unusual 2006 tactic of distributing newspaper inserts that lay out her positions, which some national Democrats still deride as an outdated campaign tool. These moves weren't so much about perceptions, Boyda said, as they were about steering away from her failed, national-party-backed bid in 2004. "It's not about a message, it's about how I want to run this campaign," she said.

Most notably in July, she told the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which planned to spend more than $1 million on her behalf, to "get the heck out of my race."

But critics point out she still accepted more than $20,000 from party stalwarts like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

Boyda said there is no conflict between her outsider image and party contributions.

"I don't want them speaking on my behalf, but if you want to pay for my message that I want to talk to Kansans about, then I'll be happy to have your help," she said. "I mean, I'm in a crazy race. It's nuts. "

Walkout

Boyda's first steps were awkward.

During a Jan. 4, 2007, interview, ABC News' Charlie Gibson asked about anti-war voters who elected Democrats with hopes for an end to the war.

Boyda, voted in by a predominantly Republican district, responded, "They should have thought about that before they voted for President Bush not once, but twice."

She later apologized for "an unclear and poorly stated response."

It's a House Armed Services Committee hearing about troops levels that year that continues to fuel critics.

Retired Gen. Jack Keane's testimony in July 2007 on a bill increasing down time between troop deployments turned into an assessment of Iraq.

"Schools are open. Markets are teeming with people," he told the committee. He saw success and said Congress should step back from "senseless and embarrassing resolutions."

Upset by his assertion that Congress should butt out, Boyda got up, exited into a side room and returned after about 10 minutes. When she was later called upon, she said, "There was only so much that you could take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while."

Boyda defends the incident, saying she had to leave to cool off and that it was her duty to question officials about the conduct of the war.