An hour with Lynn Jerkins

From the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, KPR presents an hour with U.S. Representative Lynn Jenkins. I'm K. McIntyre. Jenkins was elected to Congress in 2008, she's now serving her fourth term representing the second District of Kansas, which includes Lawrence, Topeka, and much of Eastern Kansas, excluding the Kansas City Metro area. Jenkins gave the annual Dole lecture on April 26, 2015, speaking here with Dole Institute director Bill Lazy. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here. It is just a humbling experience, especially to be at the Dole Institute, founded by one of my mentors and heroes, Bob Dole, delighted to see the chancellor with us today. Thank you for greeting us. We're listening to Caleb's essay, and I'm sure if I read the other two, I think they've got it all figured out.

I don't think they need any advice and counsel from me. But I think leadership is just blooming where you're planted, and that is so important for all of us, and for us to teach our children when they're very young. I got my started in elected office when I was treasurer of the Prince of Peace Preschool, where my kids went to preschool, and I ran for the treasurer position of the preschool, and then my next elected position was the J. Schildler, PTO president, when Haley was in kindergarten there, and you know the work that I did then, and those positions I believe is just as important as the work that I do today. It doesn't matter what position you find yourself, as long as you find your passion, you just work incredibly hard to make this world better wherever you are.

I think that's just the essence of leadership. Tell us about your upbringing and education, and kind of how you got interested in politics. You know I grew up like many of you in rural Kansas, I grew up on a dairy farm in Holton. We milked a hundred head of Holstein cattle every morning and night, and my parents were leaders in the true sense that they knew they had to get involved if they wanted to make their community better. And so I learned as a child, you know they got involved in the church, they started an Optimus Club to help young kids, and they always were involved in Republican politics. I remember as a child probably, I don't know, maybe it was five years old, walking for Bob Dole in the Jackson County 4-H day parade with a sandwich board on my front and back,

and those dorky Styrofoam caps with a bumper sticker across it, because that's what you did to make your country better, was supported the candidate of your choice. And so I just grew up knowing that that was important, so as an adult, I mirrored what my parents had taught me, got involved in my community, you know, running for things like treasure of the Prince of Peace pre-school, and I would walk door to door for the local Republican candidates in my neighborhood, and one day I was minding my own business practicing public accounting there in Topeka and my state representative retired. And so some friends that I'd made in Republican politics over the years called and said, well why don't you run for that seat?

And I thought they were not at first, but you know, my kids were getting ready to start elementary school, and as we've all seen in the headlines recently, the state government's main function is to fund, you know, through 12 education, so a pretty important issue. I'd always worked on the tax side, I was concerned about some of the things happening with taxes then. So I decided to run and just been incredibly lucky as far as being in the right place for another opportunity, and so that's how I got started. So I always tell kids, you know, be careful what you say to somebody, you could find yourself running for public office, just kind of stumble into it the way that I did. Did you ever have a clue when you first ran that you'd wind up the fifth-ranking member of the U.S. house majority? You know, no, never a goal of mine, you know, I would have, you know, if somebody told me I was ever going to run for office, as a young mother, I would have said they were

nuts. But again, it's just important. I can't think of anything more important to be doing right now, and I just see opportunities present themselves, and I'm going to try my best to make a difference for the short time I have on this earth. So yeah, I'm just delighted to be there trying to make a difference. Okay. You're the vice chair of the House Republican Conference. Can you explain everybody what the conference does and then what your role as vice chair is? Okay. We still have a two-party system, so most everyone in the House is either a registered Republican or a Democrat, and so they conference with either the Republicans or the Democrats. Now in the Senate, there are, I think, as an independent, and I think they caucus with the Democrats, but so right now Republicans are in the majority in the House and the Senate, and we have like 246 members, and so at least once a week we meet with our members, and

the Democrats meet with them members, to get everyone up to speed on some of the things going on in our committees to talk about messaging, to talk about a vision and where we want to take the country, and so within those two groups they elect leadership, and so not only do I run to represent the people of Kansas in the second district, then once I got there, I asked my colleagues, all of the Republicans in the House, to give me an opportunity to be a leader within that conference, and so it's a position that we elect, you know, the 246 of us, all cast ballots, and we elect our leadership, and so we've got John Bainer, is the speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is the leader, Steve Scalise, is the web, and with Morris Rogers is the chairwoman, and then I'm the vice chair, and so that's the

leadership team on the Republican side of the aisle, and then the Democrats have elected like Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and their leaders on their side. Does that help? A number of people have been very critical of Congress in saying it's a do nothing Congress blame the Republicans, what's your response to that? Well, I tell you it's been incredibly frustrating, the whole experience since I got there, I was elected in 2008 for the first time, sworn in in 2009, and that was when we had President Obama, was just being sworn in as president, we had Nancy Pelosi ran the House, she was speaker of the House, and then Harry Reid was leader of the Senate, and so my first two years, I mean in one instant, we were literally walked out of a committee room, the minority opinion was not welcome, so that was a tough couple years, because you don't run for Congress to sit on the sideline, I mean you run it for Congress to save the world, that's what

you want to do, and so that was a really tough year, and then there was kind of this wave election and Republicans took back the House and did held the House as a majority for a couple election cycles, but the Senate was still run by the Democrats. Today I will tell you, we have had one of the most productive first 100 days of a Congress in a very, very long time. We've passed more legislation through the House than in most recent congresses, we've had more bills come out of committee as a percent of those that have been introduced, and we've had more bills actually signed into law, I think there have been eight bills in the first 100 days that have already been signed into law, one of the most productive first 100 days since maybe 2002, and so it's kind of a new day in Washington, and it's given me renewed hope and faith, and not only the process, you know, that it can work

again, but the people, we've got a lot of new faces in Washington now after a couple of big elections, and so I am more optimistic today than I have been the entire six years that I've been there, that maybe we've gotten past the gridlock and that we're finally, you know, really going to put people before politics and get something done. So I'm encouraged, and I hope people are encouraged by the progress that they see as of late. You know, now it can all come to a screeching halt, don't get me wrong, but it's a good, good way to start out a new congress. There are signs that the president and congresses are actually finding middle ground on some key issues. Can you talk about a few of those where you may actually see, you know, government work? I know, and keep in mind, we still have a divided government. I mean, that's the really promising thing about this. It's not like one party is running roughshod over the other. I mean, we still have Republicans on Capitol Hill and the Democrats,

the control of the administration. So all of this that has gotten done in the first hundred days has been entirely bipartisan, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. But we've, this week we've got our budget reconciliation on deck to pass through both chambers. This hasn't happened for years, folks, where the House and the Senate would both pass budgets and then they'd be reconciled. That is truly something to celebrate. And the budgets, the budget resolution should pass both chambers. The budget should balance, which is a new concept in Washington, to actually live within our means. That's encouraging. In addition to that, just a couple, well, last week the president signed a Medicare bill that we did. I know we have a physician in the room because I visited with them earlier about this SGR, you know, we've talked about it every year. I think we've punted on this thing 17 times in the eight last 18 years. We finally fixed it after 18 years of kick in the

can down the road. The president signed a bill that passed with broad bipartisan support with some reforms to Medicare to help secure that program for the next generation. That's been exciting. Last Thursday, in our Ways and Means Committee, we spent 13 hours marking up some trade bills. Again, this is an issue where we've got bipartisan support. It's the administration working with Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to open up new markets. Certainly a big, big deal for Cansons. One in five jobs in the state of Kansas is directly tied to opening up free markets and trading with other countries. If we don't do it, the Chinese will write the rules. We have a vested interest. That's on deck to do. We're talking about a transportation plan. That will need to be renewed this year. There's a lot of discussion amongst Republicans and Democrats a lot alike about doing something

long-term and not patching this thing again, but going long eight, ten years, wouldn't that be nice to have a transportation plan for infrastructure, for safe roads and bridges that we could actually plan on. I'm encouraged. I really feel like maybe we've turned a corner here and we're going to be able to get some things done. Given that you've got a leadership position in the house, do you find yourself working more on a variety of issues or do you focus on one or two? A couple of things that are particular interest to you. We have a lot of balls in there. Obviously, my first priority is to Kansas and taking care of whatever they need. We have two offices in the district that primarily just do case work. If someone in the district has problems maneuvering their way through the bureaucracy that is the

federal government, they can call our office, we'll open a file and we'll help them with their issue with the VA or Social Security Administration or the IRS or what have you. That's job number one. I love that part about the job because that has absolutely nothing to do with partisan politics. We're going to go through the wall for you no matter whether you agree with us on any issue or not. That's very rewarding to be able to help everybody. Then the other side is the public policy side. Again, we can't agree with everybody every day on every issue on that front. What we try to do is take our lead from Kansas and work on the issues that are important to them. That's why we're involved in this trade discussion. There's just nothing that's going to do more for the Kansas economy than opening up markets for ag and aircraft industries. We're going to work really hard on that. The rural health care is an issue that has been really front of mind for us. We have 25 counties in

my district and most of them are rural and access issues are concerning to a lot of seniors in these rural communities. We're taking our cue from Kansas working on the issues that are important to them. Certainly as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, we're the Chief Tax Writing Committee. We have jurisdiction over all things, tax, trade, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, health care. We have a lot of work that we focus on in our office just because we're on that committee. Tax reform is an issue that I'm fully vested in given my history as a CPA working on the tax floor in my real life. We're really working hard on those issues and yet we still have to find the time to help my 246 colleagues in the Republican conference with whatever they need help with, whether it's a messaging issue, some information that they need to get

good, in fact, based information to their constituents. And then of course we spend a lot of time in meetings. Washington is still a seniority based system. I'm sure you remember that from your time there. If you hang out long enough, you're going to be able to have some influence. But that's why I'm glad that I ran for the leadership position so early in my career because now, you know, we sit at the table with John Boehner and the leader, the ones that are setting the calendar and setting the priorities every week. And you all have a direct pipeline to the people that are making the decisions. If you want me to get a message to the Speaker of the House or the leader, just tell me, or they're every week. That's what we're there for, is to help Canzans have a voice. And Bob Dole was one that would really encourage me to do that because I really don't intend to be there as long as some folks in

Washington. So I probably won't hang around long enough to be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. So I'm going to find the way that I can be most effective in the shortest amount of time possible. The 2014 elections are a lot of very impressive Republican women elected to both the House and the Senate. Speak a little bit about some of your colleagues that you've got to know and that you really enjoy working with and that people may not have heard about yet, but they will be hearing about. Yeah, you will hear about. We had a really impressive class. Certainly on our side of the aisle last fall win election. We had the youngest female Republican, Elise Stefanik from New York elected. She's just this impressive young woman. I'd love to get her to Canzans sometime. She'd make a great program, this really impressive resume for such a young, young lady. The first female black Republican elected from Utah, Mia Love is a rock star. Talk about a gal that's going to set the world a fire.

She's got the fire in the belly. She's going to do great things. And the whole class, the last couple election cycles has really breathed new life into our side of the aisle. I think on average we're about six years younger than our colleagues across the aisle. Our leadership team is about 20 years on average younger than the other side. And we have double the folks that are under 40 on our side of the aisle than the other side of the aisle. I hear from a lot of Canzans, Republicans are just a party of grumpy old white guys. Well, sorry folks, the facts just don't bear that out. We've got these young vibrant conservatives that are getting involved in elected office. And I think it's really energized our party. The majority of our conference, the 246 have been there less than the time that I've been there six years.

So we've really had good turnover. We've got fresh blood. I think that's helped in getting some of these things moving again is just having new life in the body, if you will. So it was a good class. One of the things that you've worked on that would be a particular interest to members of our student body and maybe parents or future students or the 529 plans. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, that's been a passion of mine since my days when I was state treasurer and we managed the learning quest program for Canzans and tried to do some innovative things from the Treasurer's office. And so I took that base of knowledge and my passion for that to Washington. And we had an opportunity to expand those 529 plans if you're not familiar. Those are the savings vehicles. You can set up accounts to send a student on after high school, any post secondary education.

You can save money to send a student to vote tech school or community college or four-year degree medical school. There's no limit on age. You can set it up for me if you'd like. And I could go back to college. I mean, they're really neat vehicles and they're tax advantage. That's when the popularity of these plans really took off when we gave people an incentive to save to send their kids to college. And research shows that folks my age, short of retirement, our biggest worry is how we're going to pay for our kids to get through an institution of higher ed. And I've got two in college. So I know this is a big, big issue. And so we've really tried to modernize these accounts and we've introduced legislation in the last couple years. Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin, is a colleague of mine on the Houseways and Means Committee. He and I worked well together on this issue for the last couple of congresses.

But it wasn't until this year where the president, I think he accidentally, and I just can't believe this was well thought out, proposed that we start taxing these vehicles. And every there was outrage from the American people, Republicans and Democrats alike that someone would suggest that we start taxing people's hard earned money when they're trying to save to send their kids on to vote tech school. And so because of that backlash, they moved our legislation and we got it through the House. It'll get through the Senate. There's an identical bill over in the Senate, again with broad bipartisan support, I think six senators introduced it. And the president has said in light of his opposition and wanting to tax them, he would sign the legislation. So I think that will be in addition to the aid he's already signed of the House bills, I think he'll sign that one probably in relatively short order once we get it through the Senate. So that's been another good thing for college students and anyone with kids or grandkids that you want to see get some kind of post-secondary education.

Have you as a woman and you've held several very significant positions, but have you faced unique challenges because you were a woman? Probably, but I'm just not really focused on that. My parents taught me that it wasn't any different than my brother. We all had to melt the cows, we all had to throw the hay bales up on the trailer and take our turns stack and it didn't matter that I was a girl. So I've kind of just taken that philosophy through life and just go do it. Do what they think standing away and I'm a real advocate for young women. I think education can be a hurdle, but right now I think we've got more women graduating from medical school than we do men. So guys, you're going to eat our dust if you don't try to keep up. We're kicking butt and we're not going to stop. So yeah, eat your weedies and try to keep up.

We've got two women at least running for president, Secretary Clinton on the Democratic side, Carly Fiorina on the Republican side. What do you think about the prospect of a woman being president or vice president? I think it's good. I think it's time and I'm not a big fan of voting for someone just because they're a woman or just because they're a man. I want the best person for the job and so I'm not going to get hung up on what their gender is. But I think we've got some great talent. Carly Fiorina is a tiger and she's proven to be a tough gal. Certainly, Secretary Clinton has proven herself in their arena, so I don't know who it's going to be, but I think the prospects are good. I think it'll be in a very few number of years that we see a woman president.

You're sitting in a building that's named for Senator Bob Dole and I know that you guys are close friends, but speak a little bit about your relationship and how you feel about him. Well, I think some of the friends I got to hear me earlier, but there are a few people that I hold in higher regard than Senator Dole. This is one of my mentors, friends and heroes. The friend that made me early on in my political career and has helped me every step of the way. I don't know how he finds the hours in the day to keep up with everybody that he keeps up with, but he calls me regularly on my personal cell phone and he straightens me out if we run a skew over on Capitol Hill. He may be 91, but he knows more about the issues that we're debating on Capitol Hill than most people on Capitol Hill.

He is a strong ally. He'll call and ask, who do I need to call to get him on board to get this deal done? And I'm just like, wow, I mean, what a gift he is to this nation, to be so engaged and still, after all he's done, still trying to help the country advance and move forward. I rely on him for advice and counsel. I was over a couple of weeks ago to see him, ran into him last week at the World War II Memorial. He just was a delight to travel with last year when he was doing his 105 county tour with every county he got stronger and younger. He appeared. It is the air that he breathes to get that connection with Cansons. He said it was his opportunity to tour Cansons and thank Cansons, but it sure was a nice gift for us because we had the opportunity to love on him and tell him how proud we are of him and all that he's done.

I need Bob Dole to hang around and continue to give me advice and counsel. I don't know what I'd do with that. A lot of us rely on him, so you've had a number of very interesting positions we've talked about that. What's been one of, not necessarily the toughest, but one of the tough challenges you had to fight through in one of those positions? Well, the toughest thing for me personally is just getting up every week and traveling to Washington, DC. I'm not a city girl. I'm a simple country girl. If there's a challenge in my job, it's not even the tough issues of the day. I signed up for that and I have a fairly clear idea of where I think the country should be going on a number of these issues. But for me, it's just leaving my friends and family and my home every week to get on a plane to commute to a city that is tough.

It's a tough town and is trying to survive there four days a week and then live to get back on the weekend and get re-energized and reconnected with Cansons to get up and go again. That's really the biggest challenge I've got really ever had is just finding the will to leave Kansas every week to go do a job that is very important. There are a lot of days it's not real enjoyable to do the job and that's okay because it's so important. I have one more question then we're going to open it up to your questions and answers but I just wanted to ask you why is it important for more women to get involved in public service and to run for office? I think we have different skill sets and I don't want to over generalize but I think as a general rule, women have different strengths than men.

I tell you what, when you've got a nation that's $18 trillion in debt, got our ran threatening nuclear capabilities every day of the week, Medicare going bankrupt to tax system that's broken, we all need to be engaged. We can't just rely on the strengths of one gender, we all need to be involved and that means women with their strengths that are unique need to step up because I'm sorry I don't think the guys should have to do this all by themselves and I'm ashamed to say I've had to be asked to run for office. When I first ran and for about every office I've ever run for I waited for someone to say hey would you be interested in doing that and that's wrong. Men sometimes just wake up one day look in the mirror and say darn I am so good I'm going to run for Congress.

Ladies just I don't know what it is about us but we're just not really wired like that but we need to be because we have a lot to offer and again whether we learn it as babysitters or big sisters or mothers we are good at keeping everybody happy and a lot of balls in the air and multi task and we just have unique skill sets that maybe some of our men don't have and we are needed. We are one and all we have to work hard to recruit women to do this job whether it's run for the local city council or the state legislature or for Congress and I'll continue to ask I think it's important because we need we need the skill sets of both genders but I sure wish women would just learn to be more aggressive and assured that they have something to offer and just step up. Because we still are saying you know more men have an interest in serving than women.

Okay we're going to open it up to your questions if you have a question please. If you're just joining us this is congresswoman Lynn Jenkins giving the dual lecture at the University of Kansas on April 26th 2015. She's speaking with Dole Institute director Bill Lacey and ready to take questions from the audience. You're listening to KPR presents on Kansas Public Radio. Thanks for coming and one thing that I would like to know is women often have to tailor their advertisements to get elected into office because they do have unique voices and bring a different element to the table when running against men. So I want to know what you did to kind of highlight your attributes as a woman and what you did to basically project that so that you could be elected again. Great question. Kansas are special in that I think we have a long history of understanding the strength and leadership qualities of women.

I think we were the first state to have a female mayor. We certainly were the first state to elect a United States female senator that was elected in her own right. We have a long history of being leaders on women so I don't think I really had to convince anyone that being a female wasn't a good thing. I think Hansons know the strong Kansas women have value and so just a lot of people though think Lynn is a guy. I still have people that think Lynn is a guy. They call our office an ask for the congressman but hopefully our advertising will overcome that. But then it just became an issue of focusing on the issues that I'm passionate about and I don't think the issues that females are concerned about are really any different than issues. Then males are concerned about you know as a CPI ran for the fiscal issues getting our fiscal house in order balancing our budget fixing our tax code.

And yet all the while there are some pretty important things like education the 529 plans mental health issues that are really important to me. So I think it was a bigger challenge for me is trying to identify just the few issues that I could talk to people's hearts on to let them know what my priorities are and that I'd work hard for them. Okay we have a question in the back. I really black spot on Kansas politics was when those dear children in Sandy Hook were massacred and I believe all the Kansas delegation voted against very minimal very minimal gun measures that would have perhaps protected some of those children. And I'd like to know why you keep voting against the people that that really wants a minimal gun control measures.

Yes I support the second amendment and people's rights to bear arms certainly as a Kansas country girl I understand people's desires to have guns and I don't know. You know this is one of those issues where I'm not going to please everybody in Kansas obviously you have a different view than I do. And so I don't get to vote maybe I get to vote yes or no and on this particular issue I support the second amendment and we'll always do so. Okay we have a question right here.

Lynn I was wondering if you think that the formation of super PACs is going to have a positive negative or perhaps no effect at all in future elections in keeping the power of voting in everyday people's hands. Great question yeah we've I think the best thing we could do with money and politics if you will is just provide transparency I think that's what I desire. I haven't met a cans and yet that thinks their votes for sale. We can't be bought you know we know what we stand for. You can run a billion dollars worth of advertising but you know what if I don't agree with you I'm not voting for you. And all I want to know is who it is that's saying what so that I can be well informed to make up my mind. And so you know I'm for transparency and but other than that I think we all just you know buyer beware you just have to do your homework it's tough sometimes. I understand everybody's busy and we're all busy but our government's pretty important there's just nothing in your life that's not affected by government at some level whether it's local state or federal.

So we're all just going to have to invest a little time in doing some research and you know finding out which candidates are good batter which issues if it's an issue oriented campaign which side of the issue you are on. And so I think the money is here to here to stay we just have to be good consumers about it. Okay we have a question right here with a lot of students and attendance today can you elaborate on some of the details of your 529 plan. One of the biggest things about the 529 plan is it allows you to use 529 plans to buy a laptop that's one of the modernization features. And I think that's really important because anymore I know my kids are even taking online classes or Haley will get her notes online rather than take them long hand. And so anymore your success is going to be enhanced if you have access to a laptop and up until this legislation gets signed into law you're not able to use the money that you saved.

And a lot of times it is a barrier because some people I don't know if you have a scholarship but I know a lot of students get scholarships to pay for their tuition or what have you but they've got just enough in their 529 plan to do some things like a laptop and right now you can't get to it. So that's probably the thing that would most affect you about the legislation. Okay we have a question here. Lynn I appreciate very much about the 521 plan and those are for people who actually can afford to set aside savings after they possibly put a little bit aside for their retirement. However most of our students are financing and borrowing and in 2014 our government made 41.3 billion dollars off the interest of our students. And I've asked you this before would you possibly support legislation that would allow students to either refinance at 0% interest or a reduced percent interest.

Right well first of all the 529 plans any family can save you can open an account for 25 dollars which for a lot. Let her answer the question please. Yeah actually it does add up when you're talking about getting if a student gets a scholarship and all they're looking for is to subsidize their housing and or buy computers or buy their books. You can literally make a break a kid going into debt or not by having a 529 plan which 25 dollars a month. And so it was designed to help every family just forego McDonald's one night a month and say to send a kid to college. And your right you know I believe student debt is one of the largest issues that's why we're really pushing these 529 plans. But right now when the when the nation is 18 trillion dollars in debt I don't think the answer is to just move that debt over to the federal government and the taxpayer.

So what we need to do is have a vibrant market competitive market with student loans and Dodd Frank went the opposite way and they did a government takeover of the student loans which is not the right answer the government doesn't do much efficiently or effectively. Okay where's our next question and okay right here. We want to thank you for your support of the free of the national heritage areas and hope you will continue to do so. And how do you feel about the role of the heritage area particular freedom frontier which is in the 29 counties in eastern Kansas and 12 counties in western Missouri can play an economic development of this area as far as tourism. Great point you know canzans are the most wonderful people in the world we have a lot going for us but a lot of times you know we get our head down and we say well we don't have a mountain we don't have an ocean you know why would people come to Kansas. And all you have to do is look around and see some of our historic areas like Compton's a perfect example and what you've done there has done great things for growing people in off of ice 70 to take in some of those things and visit the local coffee shop and stay in the hotels and we do have a product to sell in Kansas.

And that's our rich history and the tourism spots and we need to ramp that up and really sell ourselves and be proud of what we have and hopefully we can encourage folks to come to Kansas. We'll read the benefits. Okay we have a question right here. Thank you so very much for doing what you can for Kansas that's great. I do my best to be as hopeful for the future as possible but as a science graduate and a science former science teacher the thing that I worry about the most when I do start to worry is about all the increased levels of catastrophic weather events and climate change. And it's not even a debate anymore I mean climate scientists talk about it is a fact now do you are you hopeful for the ability of Congress to pass legislation that will help decrease levels of carbon dioxide or immeliorate the effects of climate change and if so you know how is that going.

You know it's a debate that is ongoing in Washington right now obviously there are some differences of opinion on how best to approach it right now I think the the issue is how best to balance the issue if United States addresses it and Asian China don't. Is that really moving the needle internationally at all are we just hamstringing our businesses and our industry and our economic growth at the expense of our competitors worldwide and so it's threading a needle finding the balance where we get you know common sense regulation we all want you know safe environment we want clean water clean. You know food supply we all want the same things but it's finding that balance and so that that debate will be ongoing I don't know if it will be resolved this year we've really got a lot on our plate right now but I know the debate continues okay right here.

Yes just a few minutes ago you use the phrase that the government should allow these 529s that and you've talked about a number of things this afternoon that the federal government is involved in. Do you or do you not believe that article one section eight defines 100% of all the legal activities the federal government can and cannot be involved in and don't do you or do you not agree that the federal government should get their nose out of every aspect of our lives. That is not contained specifically an article one section eight. I believe that there should be constitutional basis for every bill that I drop in the hopper we have to have a reference where in the constitution do we have the authority to be doing this and that was something speaker bainer added to the rules when they came in and so I think that's not going to happen. I think that's the right approach we shouldn't be doing it if there's if if the constitution doesn't grant us the authority to have the debate.

Okay we have a question right here. Yes congresswoman you said that senator dole calls you weekly and advises you and not weekly but he calls me a lot. Frequently. Okay let me change my add birthday. I just wonder if you know if he calls the other Kansas congressman and senators as well. Well I think he he does some of them I think he's put a little bit of pressure on me because I am at the leadership table and he helped me get there. I mean when I expressed an interest he said well who do I need to call to help lobby to get their votes to get you the votes required. And so I think he does expect a little bit more out of me and we have the obligation as leaders in the house of governing. And we have the responsibility of rallying the votes if we've you know got legislation that we need to get passed. And so I think he understands that burden and he's again always a team player willing to help us get that done.

The other folks in Kansas write down don't have that obligation they're not charged as part of the leadership team with rustling up the votes for things. And so I think he does understand that this can be tough. He's had to do it when he was Senate later and some days it's just tough that you know the easiest vote you ever cast on any issue is no. You can always explain no. Wasn't good enough I didn't you know didn't cross an eye or didn't dot an eye and cross a tee did too much didn't do enough. I mean no is easy getting to yes is really really tough and then going home and explaining that it wasn't perfect but it's the best you could do. And he's been in that position and you know he's told me time and time again you can't be against everything. You know you got to be for something sometime and that's the approach that he's taken with me and he's willing to help us get there.

So I appreciate him I consider him a member of the whip team almost because he's still engaged and still helping us get it done and rustle up the votes to get things done. Okay we have a question here. Lynn you know I've both come from farm families in the biggest issue we face in the agricultural community is access to water. So can you talk a little bit about the waters of the US rule and the houses efforts to sort of clear that up or hopefully even get rid of it. Yeah great question we're trying to get rid of that rule many of you may not be familiar we've had a ruling that they basically want to regulate little streams of water or sometimes in the case of home builders little puddles of water. And again we all understand the importance of clean water and clean air and clean food supply and we want that nobody is questioning that. But when we cross the line and there's like no common sense left in the way that they're applying some of these regulation that's where we have a problem with it.

And waters of the US rule is one of those and it's universal in Kansas in our office the home builders the egg producers a livestock producers everyone is outraged and it's putting people out of business. And so we're working very hard to push back on that and again all we're asking is just to return a little common sense to the rule making process which I think is fair. The other question here. Congressman thank you for being here today so some people believe including Mark McKinnon from no labels who is a guest to the Dolan student earlier this school year that heightened political gridlock is largely a result of members of Congress not really hanging out together being friends with one another. So I'm just wondering who would you consider your best friends in Congress and are any of them Democrats. I am an inaugural member of the no labels organization that was a group that was started on Capitol Hill for those of you that aren't familiar after the 2012 election.

So I think we first started a gathering December of 2012 so it's been 13 and 14 that we've been meeting and what it is is it's a group from both sides of the aisle from both chambers both the House and the Senate and what we're trying to do is address that issue. Jesse that brought up which is there was a day when Bob Dole served where people moved their families to Washington and they socialized together they went to church together their kids went to school together and they got to know each other as human beings and not as just the opposition party. And that model has changed entirely now as we saw with the last election cycle if somebody doesn't come home every weekend they're likely to be in political hot water. So I come home every weekend number one because I want to and this is my home but number two I think it's the politically expedient thing to do.

And so now when the Gabel falls at the end of the week everybody runs to the airport and we all go home and we don't have the opportunity to get to know each other as like real people and so no labels was started on Capitol Hill called the problem solvers caucus. And what we do is we simply have breakfast together about twice a month like an occasional dinner together where we all come together from both chambers both parties and try to find common ground and common ground is different than compromising your core principles we don't ask anyone to do that but we do ask is for folks to come prepared to the meetings to talk about things that maybe we can all agree on and I think some of the. The movement that we've seen in legislation this year has been thanks to the new labels group and and the opportunity that we've had to get to know each other as real people. Ron Barber was a good friend of mine unfortunately he got beat he's a Democrat he got beat last fall but another good friend on the other side is Tulsi Gabbard she's from Hawaii a Democrat female.

She's a stud she works out with the men in the gyms every morning and don't mess with Tulsi she could she's like military background. She's awesome and I've gotten a chance to really know her over the last couple years so yeah we have friends now that are on both sides of the aisle which I think is just a step in the right direction. Okay we have time for maybe one last question we get a pen and get a microphone up here spare last question you're the closer just a second you get the last word. Good afternoon I was very optimistic to hear that you feel like the things are moving forward however when I think about the most recent confirmation of our attorney general and how long that process took longer than I believe the last five attorney general is combined. She was uniquely qualified I'm wondering what is your perspective on why there was gridlock with that as the African American woman it brought me great concern and sadness to see that happen to her.

Yeah keep in mind that was a Senate the House yeah the House had nothing to do with that but it came down to a simple issue the Democrats were insisting that the high language which has been at the law of the land for generations on the abortion issue be replaced with something that has not been agreed to by both sides and they were insisting that the high language be replaced and the Republican said no we've been doing high language for all these years we're going to protect live and so the Republican said you come back to your old position that you used to agree with us on and we'll let the Lynch confirmation to forward and they wouldn't do that for months and finally I think they came to their senses and realized the compromise language that we've always had on that on the abortion issue was the appropriate compromise position and so once they came off the hard line position then it sailed through.

Thank you all for coming. You've just heard Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins giving the annual Dole lecture at the University of Kansas on April 26, 2015. This event was moderated by Bill Lacey he's the director of KU's Dole Institute of Politics. The recording engineer was KPR intern Jeff Carmody. I'm Kay McIntyre KPR presents is a production of Kansas Public Radio at the University of Kansas. Did you miss last week's KPR presents? Dr. Wes Crenshaw was my guest talking about consent based sex education and moving beyond yes means yes and no means no. If parents are not competing with the sexual messages in society right now they are putting their kids at a dramatic disadvantage.

Or the week before when we learned about Lawrence's all black basketball team the promoters and hometown teams the Smithsonian Institutes exhibit traveling across Kansas this summer. This exhibit is about more than sports it's about who we are it's about our community it's about what our values are. Or earlier this month a panel discussion on climate change that I moderated at Washburn University. If the states do not act the federal government will be a backstop and we will step in and implement a plan. All of these programs as well as most other KPR presents are archived on our website KPR.KU.EDU. That means you can listen to them anytime. Just go to our website KPR.KU.EDU. While you're there you can also hear recordings from the KPR live performance studio. Check out our program schedule for KPR and our high definition news and talk station KPR 2 and listen to both KPR and KPR 2 online.

You can also pledge online and support local Kansas public radio programs like KPR presents you've come to depend on. That's all at our website KPR.KU.EDU. Next time on KPR presents we celebrate Mother's Day. Whether you're a mom or just happen to have one KPR presents will look at motherhood from the sentimental to the silly, the sweet to the downright irreverent. With music, comedy bits and much more.

I'm Kay McIntyre. Join me as we celebrate Mother's Day on KPR presents 8 o'clock next Sunday evening on Kansas Public Radio. If you see him as he's trampling through the grapes of rap stand up and watch, watch, watch, watch. I stand home for the hood of Berger and the heart launch my weapons and take up your hats. There's a tear-stained eagle passing you. You'll see him on the bridge at Waterloo. League of grapes and my life. If you hear him singing to sing the sugarcane stand up and watch, watch, watch. Alla Moe remembers the Alla Moe. I regret that I want life to give for my country in the woods of Lincoln.

One by land and two by sea. Yes, dad, I chop that cherry tree down. Oh, Stonewall Jackson, glory, glory, hallelujah. Stand up and watch, watch, watch. March, car, and seven years ago. March, watch, watch. To form a more perfect union. March, march. Down the torpedoes, foes feet ahead. March, march, march.