U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, Missouri’s 6th District Republican congressman, coasted to victory Tuesday night despite an expensive and energetic challenge by former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes.

Graves was outpolling Barnes 59 percent to 37 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting in unofficial returns. Dave Browning, the Libertarian candidate, had 4 percent.

In other Missouri congressional races, 5th District U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat, handily defeated Republican rival Jacob Turk 65 percent to 35 percent with 98 percent of precincts reporting.

Democrat Ike Skelton, 4th District congressman since 1977, beat Republican challenger Jeff Parnell 66 percent to 34 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting.

In the 6th District, Graves, who has been in Congress since 2001, once again capitalized on his farming background and rural roots to garner support in the largely conservative northwest Missouri district.

“It turned out well,” Graves said of his victory. “I know the district very well. … I think that made the difference.”

Graves said he will use his next term to advocate aggressively for energy independence, including pushing for ethanol and domestic oil drilling. He said he will fight against any tax increases that might be forthcoming under a Barack Obama administration.

Barnes thanked her staff and said she had no regrets.

“We knew going in it would be an uphill battle,” she said. “I made some wonderful friends all across the district. It was a good experience.”

This is Graves’ fourth easy victory over a Democrat, and it appears to solidify the district’s reputation as a Republican stronghold.

“I really question whether any moderate-to-left Democrat can win in the 6th,” said Gary Armstrong, political science professor at William Jewell College in Liberty.

Barnes had started her campaign 17 months ago with high hopes of parlaying her success as Kansas City mayor into a new seat for the Democrats in Congress. In one of the nation’s most closely watched contests, she spent more than $2.6 million, including loaning the campaign $250,000 of her own money.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee viewed Graves as a potentially vulnerable candidate, given his allegiance to an unpopular Republican administration, and spent about $400,000 on Barnes’ behalf.

Barnes had hoped to capture a majority of support in Kansas City’s Northland suburbs and in her hometown of St. Joseph while chipping away at Graves’ popularity in the district’s 23 rural counties.

But despite outspending Graves, who raised about $2.5 million, Barnes never caught up to him in the polls. She lost by nearly as big a margin as Graves’ previous three challengers, who had much less name recognition than she did.

She struggled to transcend Graves’ labeling her as a “big-city, big-spending liberal,” especially as Graves pounded her for supporting tax increases and increased city debt levels during her crusade to revitalize downtown Kansas City.

“Her track record was somewhat blemished by having given away (tax breaks) to all kinds of groups,” Armstrong said. “This is a fiscally conservative district.”

Monday, October 27, 2008

Sam Graves’ record — his real record, not the one portrayed in negative campaign ads — makes a strong case he should be returned to Congress for a fifth two-year term.

Rep. Graves, 44, is a Tarkio Republican and sixth-generation family farmer. He is seeking to turn back a challenge from former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes, 70, the Democratic nominee for the 6th District seat.

There is no doubt Rep. Graves leans conservative; so does the majority of his district.
There is no doubt he votes regularly with his party; he supports its guiding principles but has broken ranks when his views differed.

There is no doubt he favors low taxes and limited government; he has advocated these ideas for years.

On issue after issue, Rep. Graves has taken stands that square with the views of the majority of his constituents:

On the war in Iraq: He has visited the troops and is strongly supportive of the military effort there. He opposes withdrawal timetables that would tie the hands of the military commanders. He has defined success as “a stable region and country that is not a safe haven for terrorists.”
On energy: He supports an “all of the above” strategy that includes extensive domestic drilling for oil far beyond that supported by his opponent. He favors drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which he believes can be done without harming the environment. He also favors development of wind energy, clean coal, nuclear and alternative fuels. He is a strong backer of ethanol and has supported wind-energy legislation when presented with “clean” bills not heavily laden with pork projects.

On education: He won support from members of both parties when sponsoring an amendment requiring that 95 cents of every No Child Left Behind dollar be spent in the classroom. He defied his party leadership in opposing school vouchers, saying his vote was consistent with his district.

On illegal immigration: He supports securing the border with 700 miles of real fencing and penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. However, he also favors making it easier for employers to verify employees’ status.

On the bailout and taxes: He voted against the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package, contending it was laden with special-interest tax breaks that should have been brought to vote separately. He says he ran for office the first time to fight unnecessary tax increases and wasteful spending, and he continues to run on that platform.

If anyone is a tax-and-spend candidate in this race, it is Rep. Graves’ opponent. Kansas City’s improvements to its downtown are impressive, but the public’s investment is enormous and will continue for years to come.

And as for Rep. Graves’ “eight planes,” Ms. Barnes knows the truth of this. The congressman flies one plane, a 1967 Piper Cub, and has others that are in various states of disrepair. Two — literally junked planes used for parts — were not taxed because the Democratic assessor in Atchison County judged them to have no value.

Rep. Graves has deep roots in Northwest Missouri and has worked hard to assist individual constituents, local governments and businesses in their dealings with Congress. He is the clear choice on the Nov. 4 ballot.

WASHINGTON -
The father of Republican Rep. Sam Graves is threatening a libel lawsuit against his son’s Democratic rival, escalating an already caustic congressional campaign to new heights.

Bruce Graves says he will take legal action against Democratic congressional candidate Kay Barnes unless her campaign changes a negative television ad that he claims makes false charges against his family.

Barnes spokesman Steve Glorioso calls the legal threat “frivolous” and says the campaign has no intention of withdrawing the ad.

The 30-second spot, currently running in the Kansas City area, alleges that a Tarkio, Mo., airstrip on Graves’ “private property” was renovated with $750,000 in federal taxpayer dollars.

In a letter Thursday forwarded by his lawyer to the Barnes campaign, Bruce Graves said his family donated the airstrip to the city of Tarkio in the 1940s and no longer owns the land.

“It is owned in fee simple absolute - ownership by the city in the fullest sense,” Graves wrote. “In no way, shape or form is that land owned by any member of the Graves family.”

…

The race in the state’s 6th Congressional District has grown increasingly negative as Graves battles a strong challenge from Barnes, a former two-term Kansas City mayor.

Graves, seeking a fifth term, has labeled Barnes a liberal, big city politician with little understanding of rural values. Barnes has branded Graves as an extension of the Bush administration and hopes to ride the change wave that is expected to increase the Democratic majority in the House. She has been able to raise more money than the incumbent.

Ryan Steusloff, a spokesman for Sam Graves’ campaign, said Graves “is used to false and slanderous things being said about him.” But he said Graves father “will not stand by while a politician lies about him and tries to drag his reputation through the mud.”

Steusloff also offered a statement from Blu Dow, president of the Tarkio City Council, that sided with Graves.
“Gould-Peterson Municipal airport is Tarkio city property and has been since S. J. Peterson donated it to the city in the 1940s,” Dow said. “Any statement to the contrary by the Kay Barnes’ campaign is an outright lie, strictly for political gain.”

The dispute is even more of a family affair because Bruce Graves’ letter was forwarded by an attorney at Graves, Bartle & Marcus, the law firm headed by his other son, former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves. But Bruce Graves is being represented Edward Greim, not his son Todd.

Bruce Graves said the matter is personal to him because the airstrip was donated to the city by his grandfather in memory of a family member who died in World War II. Graves said the TV ad impugns his reputation because it “suggests that I have financially benefited from a legislative official act of my son.”

Read full article here

“I know that I can never repay my gratitude for their service, but I am determined to keep our country’s commitment to them,” Graves said. “Those who are defending our freedom deserve our gratitude. I will continue to fight for our veterans.”

The IAVA’s 2008 Veteran Report Card was based on the key veterans’ legislation that came to a vote during the 110th Congress and graded every Senator and Representative on their level of support for our troops.

Since Sam Graves has been in Congress, veteran’s funding has increased by over 111 percent. He co-sponsored the Wounded Warriors Bill to ensure our veterans receive the care they need. Graves also was a co-sponsor of the bi-partisan 21st Century G.I. Bill which provided the men and women serving our country access to a four year college education.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Action Fund is a nonprofit, non-partisan advocate for our nation’s returning warriors and their families.

The full report card is available at http://www.veteranreportcard.org/reportcard.pdf.

Sam Graves didn’t set out to be a politician.
He got a degree in plant science from the University of Missouri and joined his family on the Tarkio farm, growing corn and soybeans and raising cattle. But he says he got so mad about tax increases and wasteful spending that he ran for the state legislature and then for Congress.

Now, as Graves, 44, seeks his fifth term as the Republican congressman from Missouri’s 6th District, he says he’s running for the same reason as when he started.

“Washington has a spending problem,” he says. “You fight that. It’s a constant battle.”

Much of the campaign battle, in fact, comes down to whether voters think Graves is working for solutions or is part of the problem.

His opponent, Kay Barnes, says Graves is in lockstep with a highly unpopular Republican administration and it’s time for new representation.

Graves insists that he has remained independent on issues of importance to his constituents: supporting public schools, taking a strong stance against illegal immigration and pushing for energy independence.

“I don’t represent the Congress,” he says. “I represent my district.”

Former Kansas City Councilwoman Bonnie Sue Cooper, a Northland Republican, describes Graves as a conservative but with an easygoing, down-to-earth manner that helps him fit right in at coffee shops like the Corner Cafe in Riverside.

“He’s real comfortable in a setting such as that,” she said. “He’s a really friendly kind of person.”

John Dillingham, a Northland civic leader who traditionally has been a Democrat, says Graves also bends over backward to help the country folks who are the backbone of the district.

Dillingham says his family has long had a farm in the Missouri River bottoms of Holt County, not far from Graves’ in Atchison County. When the river rose two years ago and broke through the rock levee, it flooded acres of the Dillingham property.
He says he called Graves’ office, and the levee got fixed.

“I’ve never seen the U.S. government move as quickly,” Dillingham said. “How can I walk out on a guy like that?”

One priority on which Graves earns kudos locally is education. When Bush and the Republican Party repeatedly pressured him to support vouchers to let children attend private schools, he told them no.

“This district isn’t a school-voucher district,” Graves said. It’s something he said he believes he knows because he and his wife, Lesley, are products of the public schools, and Lesley has taught elementary-school children for years in Tarkio.
As one of his key accomplishments, he cites his sponsorship as a freshman congressman of an amendment to spend 95 cents of every No Child Left Behind education dollar in the classroom.

It’s that type of support that has prompted the National Education Association to recommend Graves in the 6th District race.
“The NEA doesn’t often support Republicans,” said Charles Smith, vice president of the Missouri NEA. “But he always puts children and schools ahead of party.”

Keri Martensen, who teaches computer applications in the Park Hill School District, says Graves wants to hold teachers accountable but is working to change the No Child mandates that punish high-performing schools.

She said Graves also appeals to her as a “regular guy” who shares the small-town virtues she grew up with in Iowa.
“He has similar values — low taxes, low government,” she said.

Mayors in Kearney and St. Joseph praise Graves for helping with their infrastructure requests and for preventing an Air National Guard unit from moving. In the metro area, he has helped secure funding for major roadways and for Synergy Services, a Northland agency that works with abused children.

Graves sees frivolous earmarks as one of Washington’s biggest problems. He voted against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, which he ridicules for providing huge tax breaks for the motion-picture and wooden-arrow industries.

“I believe every earmark ought to be broken out,” he said. “We need earmark reform.”

“Congressman Sam Graves has been a consistent supporter of our children and their public schools,” said Chris Guinther, President of the Missouri NEA. “Sam Graves earned the recommendation of the NEA because time and again he has worked to strengthen public education, maximize student learning and respects school employees. He has worked with the National Education Association to make the mandates of No Child Left Behind more reasonable and achievable, and he has voted against vouchers which would divert public funding to private schools.”

“Congressman Graves did not back down when he was pressured by President Bush to support vouchers, he stood up for our teachers and students,” said Keri Martensen a local middle school teacher. “That is why Sam Graves is one of the few Republicans to earn the recommendation of the Missouri National Education Association.”

Sam Graves has stood up for our children and pushed for increased investment in education. Federal funding for local school districts has increased every year that Sam Graves has been in Congress. In fact, since 2001 funding for Title I education has increased by 63%. Federal funding for special education has increased by 50% in that same time period. Sam Graves also added the amendment to No Child Left Behind that sets the goal of spending 95 cents of every education dollar in the classroom.

“Our kids are our future and we must provide them with the hope and opportunity that only a strong education can provide,” said Graves. “I believe in local control and supporting our teachers. Our education policy should emphasize local control of our schools, because parents and teachers will always know better than Washington bureaucrats what works in their communities.”

The National Education Association represents 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.

“We are proud to endorse Sam Graves because he has been a leader for Missouri agriculture,” said Mike Geske, president of the Missouri Corn Growers Association and farmer from Matthews, Mo. “Sam knows that the high costs of inputs are hurting our family farmers because he is a family farmer himself. He has pushed for investment in alternative fuels, expanded markets for Missouri agricultural products, and opposed excessive government regulations that could harm the basic foundation of our communities.”

As one of a handful of farmers serving in Congress, and as the only Missourian on the Agriculture Committee, Sam Graves is in a unique position to fight for Missouri’s farmers and ranchers in Congress.

“As a farmer himself, Sam understands agriculture,” said Vern Hart, Chairman of the Farm Bureau’s regional FARM-PAC. “In fact, he is the only member of Missouri’s congressional delegation that serves on the House Agriculture Committee. He supported the farm bill and is a strong proponent of renewable fuels, expanding agricultural markets, and cutting burdensome regulations for farmers. Sam deserves our support.”

Graves was a leader in the writing and final passage of the Farm Bill working to include common sense provisions that promote agriculture. Graves authored the amendment to the bill that permanently bans anyone convicted of defrauding USDA programs from being eligible again. The Farm Bill also included new flexibility for farmers, increased investment in bio-fuels, and increased the reach of broadband into rural areas.

“Agriculture is the backbone of our economy here in northwest Missouri,” said Graves. “There are 65,000 agriculture jobs here in 6th Congressional District. I will continue to fight for our farmers and ranchers, so they can continue to provide the safest and most abundant food supply in the world.”

Graves has also been endorsed by 200 6th district farmers and ranchers in all 26 counties.

Critics labeled it a stunt when Congressman Sam Graves and other Republicans kept the U.S. House in motion during the August recess calling for a vote on expanded energy exploration.
Now, it appears the exercise might have had an impact, if only a measured one.

The Democratic majority in the House opted to let a moratorium on oil drilling along the outer continental shelf expire on Tuesday. The coastal-drilling moratorium has been in place for more than a quarter-century.

Though a bargaining chip in negotiations on a larger stopgap spending, and a moratorium that might be reinstated depending on the outcome of November’s presidential election, the expiration was seen as a victory by Mr. Graves.

“This is the biggest step forward for our country’s energy independence in the last 25 years,” the Northwest Missouri Republican said.

Mr. Graves went to Washington on Aug. 20 as part of a revolving group of Republican representatives who occupied the quiet House chamber and advocated a vote on expanded drilling.

With high gas prices across the United States, public sentiment ran toward the broader exploration, and Republicans pushed it at their national convention with “drill, baby, drill” chants.

The drilling issue became a campaign hot-button in Mr. Graves’ re-election bid with claims that his opponent, Democrat Kay Barnes, favored the position of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in opposing the exploration.

Kay Barnes should be explaining her more than $1 billion in tax increases:
• Aug. 1999 Convention Sales Tax $2.5 million
• Nov. 1999 Convention and Sales Tax- $480 million
• Aug 2001 Fire Dept Tax- $276 million
• Aug 2001 Question 3 $2.5 million
• April 2002 Safety Sales Tax- $127 million
• Nov. 2003 Question 1- $110 million
• Aug 2004- Downtown Arena- $250 million
• April 2005 Health Tax Levy- $13 million

Kay Barnes also doesn’t mention that while she was Mayor she cost Kansas City thousands of jobs that were lost as a result of her failed economic policies. (KC Star, 5/18/08)

Kay Barnes also neglects to mention that she increase Kansas City debt from $561,900,079 to $1, 525,830,141 a nearly 300 percent increase. (Analysis of KC Budgets 2002-2007)

“Kay Barnes is trying to run from her liberal big city record of massive tax increases and skyrocketing debt,” said Ryan Steusloff, Graves for Congress. “Unfortunately the taxpayers are reminded of her record every time they get their tax bill. ”