Pulling in his shingle
Brookens looks back on political and legal career
Staff writer
Speaking to him Thursday, Bob Brookens was not wearing a dress shirt, tie, and slacks, the familiar garb he donned as a local attorney for 46 years.
Having retired last Halloween, Brookens dresses a bit more informally these days.
Thursday, he wore jeans and a ball cap advertising Spam. Brookens is a big Spam enthusiast, having purchased the hat from the Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota, which he has visited six times. He recommended the hickory smoke flavor.
Retirement, Brookens said, has been paradoxically busy.
He still comes to his Main St. office regularly, as he continues to archive old legal records and sort through neverending paperwork.
He is trying to find successors for the many trustee positions he occupies, such as one overseeing a scholarship for high school students who plan to go to nursing school.
It’s tricky to “Irish exit” public life, particularly when you’ve been as notable a figure as Brookens.
While he is bashful about his career in politics — “It wasn’t exactly a career. I was there for four years, and that was it,” he said — there is no doubt more to the story than that.
Brookens first sought office by running for county attorney in July, 1980.
He recalled going door-to-door asking for votes, sweating through his shirt during a historically hot summer.
He lost “by just a handful of votes,” he said, but despite his brutal campaigning, didn’t mind much.
“The joke was, ‘run for county attorney and hope you lose,’” he said. “They don’t pay well.”
Brookens went back to private practice but almost 30 years later spontaneously ran for and was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives for the 70th District.
The previous delegate was Donald Dahl.
“Somebody who I knew said that he had not filed for re-election,” Brookens said. “Nobody knew who was running.”
Worried someone would try to sneak in under the radar, Brookens drove to Topeka and put his name in.
Sure enough, two more candidates signed up in the closing minutes. Perhaps they just had the same worry as Brookens.
Brookens capitalized on the moment, beating Roger Hannaford of Marion and William Spangler of Burns in the resulting election and officially becoming a state representative.
His time as a representative was characterized by a weekly column, “Our voice in Topeka,” published in four newspapers, including the Record.
In the column, he narrated actions he was taking as a member and why.
Brookens’ background as an attorney shined through, as he filled his paragraphs with statistics and numbers.
“I said what my viewpoint was, and I said, ‘I’d like to know what you think,’” Brookens said. “And I got people responding. People would call; people would write letters.”
After Mark Parkinson, a Republican-turned-Democrat who became governor in 2009, proposed raising sales tax from 5.3% to 6.3% for three years to help stimulate a recession-struck economy, Brookens recalled that his fellow Republicans decried the tax increase. It surely would be unpopular among locals, they said.
But Brookens sought to find out for himself. He introduced the issue in a column in January, 2010, practically pleading voters to tell him their thoughts.
“Please contact me on this one,” he wrote. “I have heard talk of a sales tax increase of less than 1%. Would you be OK with .5%? That would be one cent of tax on a $2 purchase.”
The response he received was surprising but clear: “If it’s three years, go ahead. We can deal with that and keep our economy going.”
He voted for the tax increase, and the measure passed.
It became a successful policy, at least for the government. The next governor, Sam Brownback, extended the three-year period promised by Parkinson.
Brookens was popular in the county by the end of his first term. A polling company had him at a 92% local approval rating, he claimed, though this could not be verified.
He sought another two-year term in 2010 and was challenged by Cheryl Green of Rosalia, who he alleged was backed by Charles Koch.
“I don’t know that he gave her much money, if any, but I know he wanted me out,” Brookens said.
Green did not appear to receive any money from the Koch or Koch-related political action committees, according to her 2010 reported contributions.
When asked why the Kochs would want him out, he said: “I didn’t agree with putting the burden on the average person. We who make more money ought to pay more money.”
In any case, Brookens defeated Green handily in 2010.
He did not seek reelection in 2012. His redistricted seat was taken by John Barker.
While his time in the House was defined by the 2008 recession, his politics haven’t changed much since then, he said.
“I’m pretty much the same person,” he said. “I still have the same philosophy.”
Decades before, Brookens’ father had been chairman of the Republicans of Pottawatomie County.
After leaving the House, Bob took on same position for Marion County’s Republican group.
He served for eight years before calling it quits in 2020.
In a way, Brookens is reminiscent of former Senator Nancy Kassebaum in his moderation. An increasingly divided nation and increasingly radical Republican Party are not for him.
He is not a fan of Donald Trump or Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and remarked that “Sam Brownback is the one that tanked the state of Kansas.”
He also exalted the brilliance of many Republican colleagues in the House — Don Hineman, Don Hill, Michael Neal.
One can see Brookens (and Kassebaum) as representative of an older generation appalled by the amount of money and dissonance in politics but unable to catch up to an already departing campaign bus filled with Facebook misinformation, super PACs, and social media-driven smear campaigns.
“The trustworthiness is not there,” Brookens said. “I believe the Legislature now is doing more for their own pocket and advocating things that they know will get votes, not because they believe in them.”
He gave as an example a bill introduced by state Republicans this January that would see $125 million in state money go toward a voucher program for parents enrolling children in private schools.
“Our Legislature has now done the only constitutional thing they could do to push Kansas money into private schools,” he said. “I think that is obscene.”
He still is hanging onto politics as a precinct committeeman for Marion County Republicans, though there are signs Brookens is wanted out by his less moderate colleagues.
County committeemen almost always run unopposed — it’s difficult enough for political parties to find people interested in the position in the first place.
But Brookens has been challenged in the last two elections — first by Jeremy Ensey, then by Gene Winkler.
He retained his seat both times.
Asked if he thought he would be ousted in the future, Brookens was defiant.
“Is somebody running against me?” he said. “They have, and I won.”
His desires for future Marion County Republican leadership are straightforward.
“I hope they will look to be a friend of agriculture, a friend of small business, a friend of public education, a friend of people across the board,” he said.
Sure, but is he confident that will happen? Or will things increasingly fall apart?
“The jury is out.”