Boyda's profile in courage

Before he became President, John Kennedy wrote a famous book Profiles in Courage. It was probably the first political book I ever read. I remember being impressed that a Kansan was among those profiled. Edmund G. Ross cast the decisive vote that prevented President Andrew Johnson from being impeached. Later, when I connected JFK's go slow stance on civil rights with his selection of Ross, I wasn't so proud. Kansas deserved a better hero.

Regardless of how one feels about PiC or Ross, Kansas had a real political hero last week: Congresswoman Nancy Boyda.

Boyda voted against the FISA bill. 41 House Democrats voted for it. Boyda is among the freshmen Democrats who narrowly won election in 2006. Her seat is one of the top GOP targets for 2008 and it is a district with a military base.

The Bill, S. 1927, the Protect America Act, which authorizes the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to acquire foreign intelligence of individuals "reasonably believed" to be outside the United States without a court order.

Boyda's statement

Tonight I voted to uphold something near and dear to America - the U.S Constitution. When the President signs this bill, anyone out of the country, including Americans, can have their communications monitored with virtually no oversight. Sadly, the slippery slope of our civil liberties has given way to a mudslide.

"It's never been easy to balance our security and our liberties. Our nation has struggled with this for over 230 years. As Benjamin Franklin said, 'They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.' Tonight our freedoms took a serious blow.

"For the past several weeks, Congress and the Administration worked closely to achieve a bipartisan agreement on foreign surveillance. An agreement was reached that would have provided our nation's intelligence community with the powers it needed while safeguarding the Constitution. But Friday night, at the 11^th hour, the Administration effectively eliminated oversight. "

"Over the next six months, we may hear reports of information gathered under this bill. Let me be clear - that same information could have been collected without giving up Constitutional oversight. "

Illegal Immigration Not Just American Issue

Name a country were ten percent of the residents are illegal residents from nearby poorer, slower growing economies? Where there is a powerful nativist backlash against the migrants? Where there's a movement to kick them all out, but widespread acceptance that the economy depends on their presence? Where there's a large scale roundup of the migrants? Where those rounded up have their legal rights routinely violated? Where the undocumented workers are subject to mistreatment and abuse?

Okay.

Not the US, but Malaysia. The bar association is mounting a campaign to abolish corporal punishment.

migrant workers have often received negative coverage in the media. Many Malaysians are worried about the incidence of serious crime. Others link the rising crime rate with the high number of migrants, estimated to number close to 10 per cent of the population, even though statistics reveal that they are not more prone to crime.

The country's top police officer was reported as saying last month that only 2 per cent of crimes in the country were committed by foreigners. However, he proposed that all foreign workers be confined to their quarters and have their movements monitored by management to prevent them from committing crimes.

Despite the inuman conditions, Malaysia's relative prosperity has continued to attract thousands of illegal or undocumented workers from such neighbouring countries as Indonesia, Burma, India, the Philippines and Bangladesh where job opportunities are scarce.

Boyda on the State of the Union Speech

The National Journal interviewed a bunch of the freshmen Dems on their reaction to Bush's state of the union speech. They gave lots of attention to Nancy Boyda.

But perhaps no freshman Democrat has as much at stake in her criticism of Bush as Rep. Nancy Boyda, whose sprawling Kansas district went for Bush in '04 by a whopping 20 points. Republicans are already gearing up to challenge Boyda, widely considered the most vulnerable Democratic freshman.

In an interview Wednesday, however, Boyda was undaunted. She said she was "dismayed" and "bewildered" by Bush's health care plan. And while she "appreciated" his efforts to strike a "bipartisan" and "personal tone," she added, "I think it would have been nice if he had actually complimented Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi on getting so much done in the first 100 hours. But hey, maybe that's too much to expect."

A freshman House Democrat from a Republican stronghold is demanding that a Republican president heap public praise on a liberal Democratic Speaker? We're not in Kansas anymore.

Way to go, Nancy!

Boyda making a race of it

Josh at Thoughts from Kansas

the non-partisan and widely respected National Journal has expanded its rankings of competitive House races from 50 to 60, and Nancy Boyda's challenge in the Kansas 2nd comes in at 59. This is in part a response to an independent poll from Cooper & Secrest showing the race as a statistical tie (45-41, within the margin of error), and evidence from national polling that shows the field of competitive races expanding dramatically. MyDD recently moved this race from "others to watch" to "likely Republican," and the campaign tells me they expect to win 52 to 48. They have good reason to think that.

American Prospect Pays Attention to Kansas-2

American Prospect's Midterm Madness blog gives some attention to the possibility of an upset in Kansas's 2nd Congressional District.

KS 2: RYUN ON THE RUN? Kansas Democrat Nancy Boyda has released the results of an internal poll for the second time in as many months. September's poll showed Boyda with a single-digit lead over her 2nd Disctrict foe, Republican incumbent Jim Ryun. At the time, the poll seemed too timely, coming closely on the heels of a Kansas Star story that claimed her campaign was foundering. But Boyda's most recent poll also shows her in a competitive race, trailing Ryun 42.6 to 40 percent.

Admittedly, both polls were Democratic-funded and Ryun's lead is possibly a few points more than Boyda reports. On the other hand, Ryun refuses to release any of his internal polls, typically a signal that a campaign is concerned with its data. Add that to an upcoming fundraising visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, and things in Kansas may be grimmer for the GOP than Ryun's staff is willing to admit.

In a TPMCafe quote, the National Journal's Chuck Todd mentions that a Boyda upset is possible: "It's the type of race that in a wave environment could go."

In any case, Kansas' 2nd District race is illustrating the pressure put on the Republican party by nationwide unhappiness with GOP rule, even in the reddest of regions.

--Jay Stevens

Boyda internal poll shows lead over Ryun

The Lawrence Journal World reported last Friday

Democrat Nancy Boyda ... released an internal campaign poll that shows she is leading incumbent Republican Jim Ryun in the race to represent the 2nd congressional district, which includes west Lawrence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the race is on,” Boyda said at a news conference. “David is beating Goliath. Grassroots democracy is beating big money.”

At the conclusion of the news conference, a Ryun campaign official handed out a statement criticizing Boyda.

“This is a desperate attempt to revive a fading campaign,” said Ryun’s spokesman Jeffrey Black.

The poll showed 42.5 percent favored Boyda; 41.2 percent favored Ryun and 16.2 percent were undecided. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4.6 percent.

The poll was conducted Monday and surveyed 456 likely voters that were randomly selected from a voter registration file list from the 2nd congressional district. Poll officials said the sample represented the political makeup of the district.

Boyda said the only reason she was revealing the data was that on Thursday a front page story in the Kansas City Star downplayed her chances against Ryun because she was receiving little attention from the national Democratic Party in Washington, D.C.

Boyda said it has always been her strategy to run independent of the national party.

“When I go to Congress, I want to represent the people of Kansas, not the Washington Beltway crowd,” she said.

Josh Rosenau comments on the story seem about right to me

What's almost more interesting is Ryun's response. If his internal polling put him well out of Boyda's reach, that's all he'd say. He'd release a poll that put him up by the 15 points he won by last time, and put this to bed. Instead the Ryun people just point to a hit piece they planted in the Star a few days ago. Yes, Boyda is running an outside the Beltway campaign. She was saying that in the winter. It isn't news, and it isn't surprising. Kansas is pretty far from DC, and apparently from Jim Ryun. Boyda didn't ask for DCCC help, nor for backing from the big PACs. She's running a grassroots campaign, and that's praiseworthy.