Paul Davis on education and school funding

As minority leader

When House Democrats chose Davis as their leader in December 2008, with revenues falling, he said the caucus wanted "to protect education and social services." That record cut both ways later. In 2014 Brownback's campaign pointed out that Davis had voted for the 2009 and 2010 budgets, which reduced school funding during the recession.

2014: the campaign's central promise

Davis named Jill Docking, a former chair of the Kansas Board of Regents, as his running mate on October 22, 2013, during a school bus tour with stops in Prairie Village, Topeka, Salina and Wichita. His June 2014 tax plan tied any further income tax cuts to school funding getting back to pre-recession levels. On September 2, 2014, he said he would "make our schools a priority again and restore funding to our classrooms," though he did not say how he would pay for it. His campaign's September ad "Tradition" called Brownback's reductions the largest single cut to Kansas schools in state history; that is the campaign's characterization.

The other side. Brownback said total education spending had risen during his term. His spokesman said Davis was "once again tripped up by the facts." The dispute over how to measure school funding, and over the 2009-2010 budgets, ran through the whole campaign.

2018

His congressional campaign site, as quoted by Ballotpedia, said elected leaders have "a moral obligation to provide our children with a world class public education." The campaign's April 2018 news posts, judging by their archived addresses, followed the Statehouse school finance fight, which was a state matter rather than a federal one.