Former State Representative Mark Treaster of Pretty Prairie announces he’ll run for State Senate.
Former State Legislator and local businessman, Mark Treaster of Pretty Prairie made it official Monday afternoon that he’s running for State Senate against incumbent State Senator Terry Bruce. He made the announcement to a small gathering at Avenue A Park and explained why he’s running.
He says, “to make the Kansas economy work for Kansas families, the state of Kansas must also lower the tax burden in a way that if fiscally fair and responsible.” He adds, “this year, the Kansas Legislature enacted the most regressive tax plan in our state’s history. As a result, the states wealthiest residents and big businesses will see tax reductions, while property owners and middle class families will have their taxes go up dramatically.” He say tax relief should be provided, first and foremost, to middle class families and Kansans living on fixed incomes. “Not big corporations and wealthiest of Kansans.”
He also talked a lot about cuts to education, saying, “I am committed to providing a top quality education to our children.” He says this school year, every Kansas School child received 620-dollars less in per pupil funding. He says, “legislators made the largest cut to public schools in Kansas history and then pushed through a tax bill that he called “draconian,” that he believes will require more budget cuts in future years, forcing local school boards to further increase local property taxes.
Treaster sees the improved economy and more money coming into state coffers as an opportunity to invest in things that have been cut as a result of the recent economic downturn of the past couple of years. That would include public safety, transportation, our social welfare safety net, and education.
He says sending the incumbent’s back to Topeka will being more gridlock with nothing getting done for the citizen’s of the 34th district and the rest of the state. He says his running gives voters a choice of of whether they want the results of the last legislative session of head in a new direction.
He says if elected, he will work to pass bi-partisan legislation, instead of contributing to the gridlock of the past two years.
Treaster served as State Representative in the 101st District for four years before being defeated by Joe Seiwert.
Meanwhile, in some of the other races, Jan Pauls who announced she will move into a former church so she can run again for state representative of the 102nd District. She and her husband own the old First Congregational Church. She face Erich Bishop in the Democratic primary, and assuming she hold’s on in that primary, she would face Dakota Bass who has filed to run for that seat on the Republican ticket.
Pauls moving takes her out of the 104th District where she would have run against retired Judge Steve Becker, however Becker will have an opponent in the Republican primary. That being current State School Board member and conservative Ken Willard. He has apparently filed with little or no fanfare that he will seek that legislative seat, after incumbent Mike O’Neal who has been the House Speaker and says he will not run for re-election.
In the 101st, Incumbent Joe Seiwert will face Republican challengers Mark Holich, Dan Kerschen, and Wade Waterbury.
In the 114th, which will be new to Reno County, Democrat Carol Moore of Hutchinson will run against Republican’s Bob Booth and Tom Simpson, both of Sterling. They’re running for the seat held by the late Bob Bethel who was killed in a car accident at the end of the last legislative session. That was actually in the 113th legislative district, but after the realignment, they’re now running for the 114th District seat. The 113th, no longer covers any of Reno County, or the Sterling area of Rice County.