U.S. House of Representatives Lynn Jenkins

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Oct 19, 2008 by James Carlson

By James Carlson

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

Kansas Treasurer Lynn Jenkins is ready to step to the national stage in the U.S. House of Representatives after rising through the state Republican ranks, from the Kansas House to the Kansas Senate before becoming the state treasurer in 2002.

The sixth-generation Kansan grew up on a dairy farm in Holton and sometimes found herself on family road trips, driving west toward the little marker off US-36 highway that designates the place where Brewster Higley, author of "Home on the Range" and a distant relative, used to live.

She graduated from Kansas State University and Weber State University and entered the private sector as a certified public accountant, a job she worked at for nearly 20 years before joining the Kansas House.

The Republican Party that has controlled Washington, D.C., "perfected the art of borrowing and spending," a habit she says needs to be reversed. She said she got into the party for its principles of less spending, less government interference and "more freedom."

On the campaign trail, she says her background in accounting makes her uniquely qualified to serve in Congress during the current economic turmoil.

"Fiscal issues are what brought me to government, and this is where I have the most to offer," she said.

She has taken a pledge against any tax increases and said she would vote to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. In the tight fiscal environment, a no-tax pledge can be achieved, she said, if the federal government would take a better look at the spending side of the ledger.

Jenkins said if elected to Congress, she wouldn't seek any earmarks for local projects unless they dealt with military, roads or bridges -- only projects with a federal purpose.

The earmark system is one "that entices members of Congress to waste your tax dollars," she said.

Jenkins wants to drill offshore, in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but says an all-of-the-above approach that includes wind, solar and nuclear power is necessary.

James Carlson can be reached at (785) 233-7470 or james.carlson@cjonline.com.