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(Topeka, Kansas) GQ magazine declared he would do
anything to stop abortion and called him the future of the anti-abortion
movement. Planned Parenthood put him on a list of 15 Americans it saw as major
threats to abortion rights.
Attorney General Phill Kline is frustrated that,
as he seeks a second term, the national attention he has received for fighting
abortion and championing conservative causes may overshadow his crime-fighting
and other activities.
That has come to the forefront since a campaign
memo he wrote in August, outlining an aggressive plan to court conservative
Christians, was leaked anonymously to reporters. Kline's memo discussed
political receptions held after services, directing his staff to get friendly
pastors to invite "money people."
Democratic challenger Paul Morrison, the Johnson
County district attorney, already was suggesting that Kline was pursuing a
narrow, personal agenda as attorney general and has called Kline's memo cynical.
While Kline and his supporters believe he has
received unwarranted attention for the memo, saying it demonstrates the tendency
of news organizations to focus on his social views, it is those issues -
particularly abortion - that have put Kline on the national stage.
"To a certain extent, he has sought out
national attention," said Bob Beatty, a Washburn University political
scientist. "When GQ wants to do an article and asks to take your picture,
you can say no."
Kline has received perhaps the most attention for
a nearly three-year legal battle with two abortion clinics to obtain information
from patient medical records. GQ profiled him in November; critics still contend
he's on a fishing expedition that invades patient privacy, and Morrison has
promised publicly to drop the battle.
Still pending is a federal lawsuit filed over
Kline's legal opinion that health care providers and others are required under
state law to report underage sex between consenting adolescents as potential
evidence of abuse. A federal judge ruled otherwise, and Kline appealed.
Kline also supported the amendment to the state
constitution banning gay marriage, and he defended a law that allowed the state
to punish illegal sex involving minors far more harshly if the participants are
of the same sex, until the Kansas Supreme Court struck it down last year.
Also last year, Kline told some State Board of
Education members that he would defend them in court if the board ordered
stickers placed in science textbooks saying evolution is theory, not fact. The
board didn't pursue it.
"I think it's Phill's personality,"
said Ryan Wright, executive director of the Kansas Traditional Republican
Majority, a moderate group that is nevertheless supporting all GOP candidates.
"Phill is charismatic and out in front. People either really like that, or
they don't. With personalities like Phill, there's usually no gray area."
In the abortion records case, Kline said he needs
information to determine whether the clinics are violating restrictions on
late-term abortions and to prosecute rapists with child victims. Even before the
Kansas Supreme Court said his access shouldn't be unfettered, a judge had
restricted what he would see, and Kline has said he's never wanted to discover
patients' names or disclose their identities.
"My position on the life issue is not born
out of my faith but out of what I view the role of the government to be - to
protect the most innocent and the most vulnerable," Kline said. "I'm
not doing anything but enforcing the law."
Supporters contend some of Kline's
accomplishments have been forgotten.
In 2003, he intervened when the nonprofit Health
Midwest hospital system was being sold to the for profit HCA Inc. Twenty percent
of the assets of that $1 billion-plus sale eventually stayed in Kansas.
He also successfully argued the state's case
before the U.S. Supreme Court in defending its capital punishment law.
Kline, pointing to the memo flap, said it's
reporters who make his conservative politics an issue by focusing on them.
Fellow conservatives are as frustrated as Kline.
They note that a Johnson County group that has
criticized him, Mainstream Coalition, has among its founders a retired minister
and sponsored a meeting in January at a Lawrence church - something the media
has not focused on.
"Morality appears to be higher on his radar
screen than other politicians'," said State Republican Chairman Tim
Shallenburger. "It does make him a bigger target from the left."
But Morrison suggests that Kline's preoccupation
with a "personal agenda" has distracted him from fighting crime.
"The attorney general should represent the
interests of everybody in this state, as opposed to those who share your
beliefs," Morrison said in an interview.
Kline argues one reason abortion is an issue in
the campaign because abortion rights activists and groups have targeted him for
being willing to enforce restrictions.
He has been their target before, of course. In
2002, Dr. George Tiller, whose Wichita clinic is one of the two fighting Kline
over access to patient records, contributed $153,000 to ProKanDo, an abortion
rights political action committee. It then donated the same amount to a
Democratic group, which sponsored radio ads against Kline on the eve of the
election.
In July, ProKanDo had a fundraiser in Washington,
and Kline said the group is certain to finance ads against him. Group
spokeswoman Julie Burkhart, noted that Morrison didn't attend. The group hadn't
contributed to Morrison's campaign through late July, but it still could help
him directly, by financing its own ads or by giving money to Democratic groups.
"It's no secret that we are not fans of the
attorney general, but we're raising money this cycle to benefit various
pro-choice candidates across the state," she said.
This year, Planned Parenthood Federation of
America's online magazine listed Kline as one of 15 "anti-choice extremists
and political hard-liners," along with Supreme Court Justices John Roberts
and Samuel Alito.
On the same page was a link to material about
"terrorists and extremist organizations."
"Who is being extreme here?" Kline
said. "They want attorneys general who believe in abortion on demand
without any restriction up to the moment of birth."
Stephanie Foster, the federation's vice president
for public policy, said Planned Parenthood views Kline as the most active state
attorney general in attempting to invade women's privacy and restrict abortion
rights.
"We are certainly aware at the national
level about Phill Kline," Foster said. "I think he's somebody has
risen to the top in terms of a national awareness."
Beatty said Kline's case is an example of how a
state politician who doesn't avoid - or even seeks - national attention on an
issue can become defined by it.
"If you start getting that national
attention, it can turn on you, too," Beatty said. "What you've
accomplished can be overshadowed by other things."
©365Gay.com 2006
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